Shadow Land

Psychotic Genius

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Jessica asked tentatively after several minutes of wandering through hallways and ducking behind corners at the slightest hint of footfalls.

                “I…yes?” Alycia mumbled after looking at the map again, this time turning it upside down in a hopeless chance that that would make it readable.

                “You don’t sound very sure,” Alexander gasped from his spot leaning against the wall.

                “Well I didn’t get much time to plan this! You weren’t supposed to get arrested or human!” Alycia snapped, making now-human-vampire wince. “Look, We’re in the N building, now we just have to figure out where room 52 is.”

                “52?” Jessica asked skeptically, “Was that part of the code?”

                “Yes!”

                “Are you sure you got it right? I mean, we’ve only seen rooms in the hundreds,” She went on looking down the long hallway with doors on either side. The little plagues on the right of each door agreed with her and refused to show any number less than 115.

                “Yes, I got it right! There was no way it could be…anything…else…” She muttered the last part as she crept around another corner. “Ha! I did get it right! Look, this room is number 78!” She declared proudly.

                Jessica strode around the corner behind her, followed a minute later by a pale Alexander gripping the wall for dear life. Jessica resisted the urge to breathe in; the whole not-biting-a-human thing was a lot easier than she had expected, but she still was having issues if Alexander was near her. Jessica checked the sign before breathing out through her teeth and pointing out, “Oh, okay you were right, but we still haven’t found 52.”

                “Do we really have to keep going?” This wheezed protest came from Alexander who was slowly tilting over.

                “Yes. We have to get DJ, too,” Alycia announced stubbornly.

                Despite the death-like tiredness, Alexander’s eyes lit up, “DJ? He’s…okay?”

                “Of course he’s okay! Who do you think I am?”

                “I really don’t know anymore,” Alexander sighed, carefully lifting himself off the wall. He had no idea what was going on, whether it was the condition he was in or circumstances really were that confusing, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to try and figure them out now. Alycia seemed content on getting him out the jail cell and maybe even the building of Division so he wasn’t going to complain.

                Alycia smiled, “Good. Now come on.”

                “Here it is!” Jessica squealed before she could remind herself to be quiet. They had walked nearly two-thirds of the way down the hallway. “Room 52!”

                “You found it?” Alycia gasped, quickly crossing to Jessica’s side.

                “Yeah, now how do we get in?”

                Alycia looked at her like she was an idiot, reached for the handle, and pushed the door open, “We open it.”

                “Oh, there isn’t a key card or anything?”