The ceiling from the floor wasn’t too high, however, it was lucky that Vorden was quite a tall person. Standing up, he was able to reach the ceiling if he raised his hand with his sword. With a little jump, he could perform an attack while doing so as well. This was how he was able to break the panel in the first place.
Still, he needed a little assistance from the two girls to push him up so he could pull himself inside. Since both Logan and Quinn were busy right now, that only left him with two options.
Right now, Vorden was standing on top of the girls carefully, he had one foot on the top of each shoulder, like a cheerleader, spreading his weight.
“Vorden, how much do you weigh!” Layla said, struggling.
“I never thought, small girls like us would be doing this, shouldn’t it be the other way round?” Cia said as she tried her best to keep still, otherwise, he would be off balance.
“Will you two stop complaining.” Vorden snapped back at them. “This is the least you can do, unless you guys want to stick your head first, into a creepy dark whole that you just saw a couple of severed arms fall from. Oh, and let’s not forget the ‘HUMAN EATING’ Flesh monsters that are above us as well.”
From that point onward, the two girls stopped complaining. Vorden carefully first placed his hand onto one of the other panels for a few seconds and then brought it back down again.
‘Okay, nothing bit my fingers, that’s good, right?’
He then did the same thing again, but tried to yank on the panel quite hard, seeing if it would fall when he pulled himself up. But it was pretty sturdy and he decided it should be safe.
The girls watching this wanted to say something, because they felt like Vorden was taking extra long, and wasn’t sure if he was now doing this on purpose as a form of payback.
Finally, he took the plunge and using both hands, pulled his body up. He was unsure whether or not he would be able to fully stand, so he stayed low for a little bit. But when he looked ahead. There were a few light sources here and there across the walls, all blue in colour. They allowed him to see the whole area he was in.
Standing up fully on his two legs, he quickly realised he was in some type of cave. Above it was quite a large empty space and on the side, the small lights could be seen. Looking at the hole he had just climbed up from, there was a conveyor belt leading up to it, and the small lights also went along the way, leading to a different area of the cave.
When turning around, the Conveyor belt looked as it pathed off into the first room. It then carried on going into what looked like a hole which Vorden would have only been able to fit through if he was to crawl.
‘Perhaps they lead to the other rooms? Maybe all the trials are the same in each room. The changing factor being the participants themselves.’
Looking in front at the other path, it looked a lot more friendly, as there was no need for Vorden to crouch and he could simply just walk. But the conveyor belt took a turn around the corner where he was unable to see anything up ahead.
“Are we underground? I don’t like it, I remember what happened last time we were underground.” Vorden said while drawing both of his blades, ready for any type of beast to come running around the corner any second now.
“What do you see!” Layla shouted, when the noise entered through the hole, it started to echo and bounce off the cave walls.
Putting his head back through the whole, from the side the conveyor belt wasn’t on, Vorden replied.
“I think we’re underground. It looks like some type of cave, but there’s a pathway that’s been built. I’ll go ahead and follow it to see if there’s a way out, or if a way back round to you guys. If there is one, I’ll come back.”
The reason why Vorden wasn’t too afraid to travel on his own was because, like Quinn said, it seemed like this part of the cave was perhaps separated from the others, due to placing the food in one area and the rest in another. Also, when Layla shouted, if there was anything here, her voice would have caused some reaction from the creatures. After all, they had sensitive hearing, at least the wendigos did. But Vorden didn’t want to think about anything else that was hiding up here.
Following the conveyor belt, Vorden could see that there were blood marks on it. He carried on, until eventually, the cave led him around the corner and then finally; he had entered an even bigger cavern. This one was a huge empty site, and it looked like another facility all together was situated in there.
If he continued on to follow the conveyor belt, it eventually led him inside the large warehouse looking factory. There were now two pathways, Vorden could either choose to go around the warehouse or go through it. When trying to look closer to see where they both went, it seemed like the final destination was the same.
The one thing that was on the plus side was that, just like in the science lab, the entire area looked to have been untouched for many years. The metal was slightly rusted, and covered in dust and dirt from the ceiling above.
“What are you doing, you wimp!” Raten suddenly said. “Were you just about to go around the warehouse! Go look inside, you might find something useful.”
Vorden wasn’t stupid. He knew what had come out of the conveyor belt, or most likely, he knew what was inside the warehouse as well. However, Raten did bring up a good point, and perhaps it would help them leave this place. Walking back, he went to the double doors on the side of the warehouse, and braced himself as he walked in.
In an instant, a strange smell had hit him in the face, and it reminded him of when he was in the trial room on his own. Not only that, but the smell was around ten times stronger. Afraid to even think, he first looked straight ahead, and all he could see was a path leading to the other door.
From the corner of his eyes, he could see several terminals along the side, and then another path, leading to somewhere else. He couldn’t help it, and his urges got the better of him as he turned his head to look to his left, to see what looked like a complete horror show.
In what looked like a large square glass container, around a 100 bodies could be seen piled on top of each other. Everything was intact, but it was clear that they were dead. But how long for? He had no idea.
“How many people did they kill?” Vorden thought.
“I think you’re thinking about the wrong thing.” Raten interrupted. “If there’s that many bodies then that’s a lot of food, and if they need that much food, how many Wendigo’s do you think they have?”
Suddenly, a mechanical sound could be heard, as if the machine’s in the room had just turned on.
‘What’s going on?’
Inside the large glass container, suspended above was a claw like machine. It went down into the pile of bodies and picked one up. Shortly after, it moved to beyond where he could see and dropped the body.
‘I don’t like what’s happening.’
Back inside the first trial room, everyone was waiting patiently for Vorden to return back with some good news. Him taking a long time was possibly a good sign, but at the same time they could take it as a bad sign as well.
Then, while Quinn was at the door, it no longer kept on trying to push back against him. For a second he thought maybe it had given up. Then the next thing he knew, the door came out again trying to slam into him. But he was ready and fast at pushing it back again. The door continually kept on doing this, as if it was trying to ram Quinn of the thing.
“This thing is clearly annoying. What the hell is it doing?!” Quinn said, as it was starting to hurt a little, as the door constantly hit him.
The two girls started to laugh at the sight, as it did look a little comical. If it was any type of situation, then perhaps Quinn would have complained, but he thought it was nice to see them laugh, even if it was at his own expense. It had been tough for all of them since they had arrived in this place.
*Thud.
The loud sound of something dropping and hitting the floor caused the girls to immediately stop. It was covered in the usual black rag that they had seen on the screen before.
Usually, what followed after the hand was the Wendigos. Three panels from above had opened, and at the same time, three of them dropped from the ceiling.
“I hate it when I’m right!” Quinn said.
****
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