+ ((( Rainbow in the Dark ))) +

Schemes and Screams (Part 3/5)

The screams carried, until they faded away.

Once the little human and Purple were gone, the room fell silent. The only thing that remained was the one single block on the ground.

Orange waited for a couple more seconds before darting out of the bathroom. 

He was scared of being caught, yes, but he couldn't deny that the block was intriguing to him somehow. He felt a spark of curiosity overcome him as he scampered over to it and gently picked it up in his claws.

He rotated it, observing it closely. 

He had been in this play place for...thirty years was it? Forty maybe? But he had never seen any blocks like this before. Where had they come from?

He stood there, trying to remember if he had seen them in a closet somewhere, but they were truly unfamiliar to him. Looking at the block only gave him more questions.

Why was the human carrying the block? What was so important about the blocks that the humans would come all the way into their play place to get them?

He pondered about it for a minute, before remembering his dire situation. He quickly looked around, making sure that he was alone. 

As he did, he saw a big blue arrow on the ramp leading into the theater room.

Orange was starting to think that he was going insane. Had he also managed to miss the fact that there were blue arrows all over the walls during hunts? 

He supposed that his Predator form would never allow him to remember any details after all.

But now that Orange was here, and it might be the only time he would ever get the chance, shouldn't he try to figure out what was going on?

He mulled over it for a moment before deciding to do so.

He walked over to the blue arrow on the wall, still carrying the block in his claws. 

The arrow was pointing towards the theater room. Did this have something to do with the blocks?

Orange listened for a moment, waiting quietly to see if he could hear any noises. He only heard faint squeaking in the distance. That was the sound that Green usually made, right?

 Orange assumed that he would be fine if he kept an eye out for the monster. Green claimed that he never chased down his prey during hunts anyway.

Orange then walked up the ramp and entered the theater room. 

It looked the same as it did when they weren't on hunts. The curtains were torn and draped on the steps to the small stage. And there were big boxes in the middle of the room.

That's when Orange noticed the platform on the center of the stage. It was flat, and there were already some other blocks piled onto it, forming a small pile.

Orange walked over to it slowly, wondering if it was a trick somehow.

Why were the humans piling blocks here in the theater? It sounded incredibly stupid to Orange. 

Were they not scared? Orange felt intense frustration at the thought. The Rainbow Friends managed to kill all the intruders every time. They should have been scared for their lives.

Despite this, Orange walked up the steps and hesitantly put his block onto the platform.

He held his breath, nervously waiting to see if something would happen.

Just then, he heard a small gasp come from the entrance to the room. Orange jumped, startled by the noise breaking through the silence.

He turned his head towards the noise, but didn't see anything. 

He squinted his eyes, suspicious. What could have made that noise?

That's when he noticed an extra box lying by the door. 

Orange's eyes widened. He would have completely missed that had he been running through like on a normal hunt.

He froze, staring at the box, waiting for it to do something. The box did not move. Orange was just starting to doubt his own memory when he saw the box shift slightly.

Orange watched it shuffle across the floor. It moved straight past him. Orange felt no motivation to stop the human from doing whatever it was trying to do, so he decided to simply watch their pathetic attempt to reach up and place the block down.

The human tried to reach their hand out of the box and place the block, but the platform was a little too tall. Orange watched this go on for a couple more moments before he got bored and turned away.

Orange didn't want to try hunting any humans while he wasn't in his own Predator form.

He was considerably weaker and didn't want to get into any more trouble. He heard shuffling behind him and knew that the human was coming out from under the box to place the block on the platform.

Orange heaved a sigh as he heard the slight footsteps of the human under the box, slowly inching out of the room. 

Orange decided to instead focus on the task at hand. It was very weird that all of the humans were collecting blocks and putting them here. And it was apparently every week or so too.

Orange couldn't understand why the humans would do that. 

He was sure that he would know if the play place had any treasure for them to find...right?

Orange didn't understand what was going on. He instead decided to continue trying to find some help, this was a mystery that could stay a mystery, as far as Orange was concerned.

He had far more important things to worry about.

__________________________

And that's the chapter for the day, sorry if it ended a little abruptly. 

Part 4 has Orange getting a little traumatized if anyone's interested in reading about that.

Next Chapter: Schemes and Screams (Part 4/5)