Life as We Know it [Five]

Eight

"I don't know." Five turned to him.

"Well, I'll take the left." Diego said, opening an adjacent door. "Yell if you, uhh.. get in trouble." Diego said, walking through and leaving them behind.

Emery exhaled as he moved to the other side of the room and opened the door, stepping inside to reveal a long hallway poorly lit and with many joining doors on either side. He cast a glance behind him to Five who was also donning a similar expression of wariness.

A small nod was all that was given from Five and then Emery was cautiously pushing open the first door, revealing a room of black. He traced along the wall for a switch and then the room was flickering into light.

In the room, there sat a family with a view of the neighborhood beyond a painted window. Only the people were nothing more than plastic life-sized dolls, positioned in a way that sent chills up Emery's spine.

"What are you up to?" Five asked the ghost of Reginald's presence softly, wondering around as he joined Emery by his side. The light in the room went out, plunging it back into darkness.

They moved on down the hallway, the rooms revealing much of the same before they were plunged back into darkness and they moved on. Now in a room with yet another family deliberately poised this time around a table, Five and Emery started looking through a desk of things set off to the corner.

With knitted brows, Five picked up an envelope and opened it, pulling out its contents.

"Mr. Hoyt Hillenkoetter and the Consulate General of Mexico in Dallas." Emery read aloud, frown etched onto his face.

Five folded the slip and tucked it into his short pocket, whirring around when a sound echoed through the room. The pair made their way cautiously towards it, creeping up towards the corner of the room where the sound was coming from.

"Hey," Five whispered quietly, kneeling down when he saw the source of the sound. Pogo. "It's all right little buddy. Pogo. It's good to see you." He whispered, opening his arms. But then the monkey screeched and struck Five before he was scampering away, out from Emery's grip and through the window where it broke the glass and escaped into the night.

"Diego!" Five groaned, covering where he had been hit. "Diego!" He shouted with more vigor, clambering up onto his feet and back out the door.

They rushed back down the hallway and when they still couldn't find Diego, back to through the other door Diego said he would go.

"He's not here." Five said, giving up.

"Maybe he went back." Emery said. "Here. You're bleeding." He said, handing Five a cloth he fished out of his pocket.

"Thanks. But there's no way Diego went back. He's probably out there doing something stupid right now."

"Let's go find him then." Emery said, walking back into the main lobby and out the door, Five at his tail.

Together they circled around the building and then even further through the fog that had built up. It was so thick they could hardly see even when Emery tried to manipulate the light particles around it. He must have been more tired than he'd thought for it didn't work out in their best interest.

Ultimately, when they couldn't find Diego, they circled back to the front of the building and paused, shoulders deflating as they looked at the empty space where the car used to be. Diego must have taken the car. 

"Diego that son of a bitch." Five cursed, fists clenching at his sides. "Well, if we want to make it back before dawn, we'd better start walking." He sighed and ran a hand down his face. "I don't want to be here longer than I have to."