Chapter 7 - have

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

A door.

"A door...." She whispered.

"You're going to have to speak louder than that, Zee." Roy mumbled.

"A door." She repeated, making sure she was loud enough to hear, and pointed at it.

Everyone's eyes darted to where she pointed, baffled at the fact they hadn't noticed it before.

"Maybe, just maybe, this could be it. This could be the room." She uttered softly. Marzy walked to the door and gently pushed it open.

In the room was a small, glass table surrounded by five chairs. On the table was a vase full of sunflowers and a plate of cinnamon coated waffles in front of every chair, each plate having a knife on one side, a fork on the other, and an empty glass above it. Above the table was a chandelier, much simpler than the previous ones she'd seen, each of its bulbs covered by a tiny lampshade. What stuck out to Marzy the most was that the entire wall beside the table was covered in windows. She breathed a sigh of relief knowing they'd finally found the room.

The eight walked up to the table and observed its contents carefully, keeping an eye out for anything that looked out of place. Roy was the first to notice the blindingly yellow card hidden in the bouquet of sunflowers. He pulled out the card and began to read:

Who's hungry?

Here's a lovely looking meal!

But its taste, you see...

Well, you'll just have to deal.

"'Well, you'll just have to deal?' What does that even mean?" He asked with an eyebrow raised, tossing the card onto the table.

"There's only one way to find out. We eat!" Marzy chirped and sat in one of the empty chairs.

"I want some, too!" Viktor plopped into a chair. Marc, Dina, and Roy followed suit.

Grabbing their forks and knives, they all began to dig in, savoring the cinnamon waffles until all but Dina began to choke.

"Oh my goodness! Marzy! Roy! What's happening?" Dina began to panic and was on the brink of tears. Seeing her friends suffer while she got of scot-free due to dumb luck pained her. Streams of tears started to roll down her cheeks when she saw them coughing up blood and nails.

"But its taste, you see..."

Dina's eyes widened in horror when she realized what the card meant.

"Well, you'll just have to deal."

She watched as Lorenzo ran to assist both Marzy and Roy, doing everything he could to get rid of the nails without doing too much damage. To her left, she saw Belella helping to remove the nails from Marc and, like Lorenzo, she tried doing so without hurting him even further. She broke free from her frozen state and rushed to help out Charlie with Viktor, who seemed to have gotten the worst of it due to the huge bite he took.

Minutes later, part of the glass table was now stained crimson from all of the blood. Marzy, Marc, Viktor, and Roy all laid back in their chairs and groaned in pain. Dina picked up the one good waffle and broke it into pieces, giving one to each of the four. She mumbled a string of apologies after every piece was given away.

Marzy eyed the waffle in her hand. "You know, after almost dying, you'd think I'd develop a sudden hatred for waffles, huh? But I'm still hungry, so, here we go!" She tossed it into the air and caught it in her mouth, cringing in pain after every other chew. As she chewed, she felt something hard swimming in her mouth. She spit it into her hand and saw that it was a piece of folded paper. When she unfolded it, she noticed that on one side it read "yellow" and on the other was "one down, five to go."

"'One down, five to go...'"

"Marzy?" Dina placed her hand onto Marzy's shoulder. "Is something wrong- you're crying!"

Hearing this, everyone looked at Marzy to see she was, in fact, crying.

"We did it," She cried, holding the card out for them to see. "We solved the first clue." On her face was the biggest smile she'd ever smiled.

"We're now one step closer to rescuing Renée and Amy."

-----------

The eight were back in the living room, processing the events that just occurred. They solved their first riddle, yes, but Marzy, Marc, Viktor, and Roy almost died. However, the four's spirits were as lively as ever. They were determined to rescue the kidnapped females no matter what. The room was quiet, each person deep in thought about what they'll have to deal with in the coming puzzles.

The sudden chiming of clock made everyone jump. The sounds bothered Marzy, not because of its volume, but because it meant that an hour had passed.

It was now 7 pm.

"Okay," She placed her hand onto the map and traced her fingers to the next image: the bench wringer with buckets on both ends. "Next place we have to go is... is... what is this?"

"It's a bench wringer," Belella answered. "Around the 1850s, they were made to help ease the burden of laundry for women. Then again, it didn't make all that much of a difference, but it was still extremely helpful."

"I'm guessing that means the next place we're headed is a laundry room." Roy said dryly.

Belella nodded. "Precisely."

"Then what are we waiting for," Charlie jumped up from his chair. "Let's go find the laundry room."

-----------

A/N: Yes, I know, this chapter is incredibly short compared to the last one, which is exactly why I made this chapter a bit shorter

I honestly think I made the last chapter a bit too long so I toned it down a LOT for this one

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net