My Muse || READER X RAY || The Promised Neverland

🔒 My Muse || Chapter Fifty

The lush green forest abruptly ended, the only landscape stretching out from that point onwards was desert. "We must be close!" Emma cried. I twisted open the pen. "B06-35." I said, trying to contain my excitement. We were close. So close to safety.

We'd been traveling for two weeks, and surprisingly it was mostly smooth sailing. Thoma almost fell into another vine pit, but Don caught him. Nat hit his head on a low tree when he wasn't paying attention, but he was alright, if not very embarrassed. Anna laughed at him for days. We'd encountered three demons. One was a decaying carcass, and the other two were feasting on it. They'd even eat their own kind? Was something we all thought, and were disgusted by.

My hands held the bow Sonju gifted me. Not once had I let go of it.

We wandered the desert, following the compass southwest. Every once in a while I would twist open the pen, waiting for B06-32 to pop up. When it did, I was frozen.

"B-B! B!" I stuttured out, unable to say the code. "B-B 0 6! 32!" I yelped out, everyone immediately rushing around me. Their eyes were wide open. "Where? Here?" Anna cried. "Open it!" Don yelled, over the others. "How?" I tossed the pen over to him. He bent to the ground, sticking the pen in the sand.

Nothing happened.

"Don! You idiot why would that have done anything?" Gilda reprimanded the boy, kicking him lightly. "I'm soORRY!" He cried, protecting his skull.

"Wait, Gilda." Ray said, picking the silver pen up from the ground. "Don may be onto something."

"I am?" "He is?" They said, in unison. The little ones laughed at them.

Ray nodded, revealing the hologram we'd been using as an indication of the zone we were in. "The lines around the owl. It's morse code." He turned to Gilda, who read the letters easily. "T. O. U. C. H. M. E." Ray touched the center of the owl, the screen immediately changing into a pin screen. The alphabet was underneath it, like a keyboard. "This one doesn't have morse!" Don said. Over the typed blanks, a set of 6 numbers were paired in twos, separated by a dash. "But it has another code. 13-18-02." "Most of the books in the house had this owl printed on it." I explained, recalling the scan of the library we did. "But only two books had the morse code around it. The Adventures of Ugo and the book about Mythology." "Ugo is our guidebook, so that makes sense," Emma added. "But how about the Mythology book?" Ray shuffled the faded green hardback out of his backpack. "It doesn't mean anything to us, except for the one word we need. Page 13, line 18, and word 20 of that line." He flipped hastily, eyes scanning the dusty pages. "Human!" The kids cried, reading the word together. The keyboard beeped softly as he inputted the password.

A metal click thundered from underneath our feet.

The screen shifted again, the words recited on the hologram were now "Shelter B06-32 unlocked."

"Look!" Mark cried, pointing at the ground beneath our feet. We were standing on a metal latch, the handle uncovered by the inputting of the password. We hopped off, Don grabbing the heavy door and pulling it open. Emma jumped inside, eager to see what William Minerva left behind for us. Ray handed the pen back to me. "If anyone should have it, it should be you." I thanked him, shoving it back into my pocket. When entering unknown underground shelters, I'd rather be holding a knife than a pen. Even if it was William Minerva's home. If danger was in there, I'd rather be prepared for it.

After Emma descended, Nat, Rossi, Jemima and Anna followed. "It's so big!" Jemima cried, the excitement spilling out of her voice. Don and Gilda came after along with the rest of the children. I took a deep breath going down. Ray locked the latch behind him and the shelter rumbled again. Ray tried to unlock the door, but an automated voice replied. "Sandlock in place. Burrowing sequence in progress."

"A-A robot?" Nat asked, giddy just like Jemima.

Ray descended the ladder, jumping onto the floor. "This is amazing technology." He whispered, touching the concrete walls. "When it's locked, it 'burrows' itself underground. And I imagine that if we unlock it, using the pen as a key, it will reveal itself once more." The kids were running around, eager to explore the place. The hallway we entered was littered with different colored doors. To our right, they were plain, with numbers counting them as they went down. There were two white hatches at the end of that side, probably signaling something important was there. On our left, the room broke open, a large dining room, kitchen and pantry to the side. It was almost completely full. "There's a big bathroom here!" Lannion and Thoma yelled, opening another one of the many doors. "There are all bedrooms!" Don said, to our right.

And this kid will be dead if you don't shut up." The white doors slammed open. A tall lean man, with messy black hair and white streaks was holding a gun to Nat's head. His grip was firm on the boy's neck. "Who are you and why are you here?" He scowled, finger hovering his pistol's trigger.

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!! MERRY CHAPTER 50 YALLS !!

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