Journey Into The Aftermath |✔

Chapter eighteen: Fears

"Nah, there...ok, but not like great or anything." he joked and I socked him in the arm. I shut off the phone and clicked it back into my wrist band.

"We have to search for that secret entrance now." I said, mocking a jolly adventurer while he looked at me with an expression I haven't seen before. It was like he was in awe of me. Either way, I began to walk past the thrones and had to waddle through some half-standing tables and smaller chairs to get to the back wall.

It was a huge fireplace with two or three framed pictures still on the wall around it. I noticed that I was even stepping on a fallen portrait of what I assumed to be the king because of the massive gold crown atop his balded head. Everything, of course, was layered and layered in thick dust and an uncountable amount of cob webs hung from the walls and around the old furnace that still had some coal inside.

Chase caught up behind me and while I observed the upper left, he found himself interested in the right side of the wall. Old torches lined the walls too and four were sitting, disturbed only by webs and dust, right on the wall. That, along with the torn up wall paper that showed the molded cedar wood beneath. There were many other ornaments on the wall and on top of the extended granite fireplace like smaller pictures, crosses, a twin set of swords and shields, many, many candles, along with a small bookcase on both sides.

Chase picked up one of the old books. "But you never seen one of these before, huh?" he teased. "This must be blowing your mind right now."

I took a moment to consider if being petty was the answer here. Of course it was. "That thing," I pointed at it and knocked it out of his hand. "I seen entire libraries; if I see another one I might puke."

"Is that so?" he asked, blown away himself. He was genuinely shocked and saw that the book completely ripped apart rather by my hit, the impact of the ground or both. "Because I know you must be lying, books are like one of the rarest things on earth."

"Oh trust me, I've seen and read plenty."

He wasn't having it. "Where could you have found such a place?"

"You mean an original library?" I mocked, stalling to come up with a lie, knowing I couldn't tell him about the farm; it would raise far to many questions. "Is that what you're talking about?"

He picked up another one, holding it away from me. "The only other type is on my tablet, so I would think so."

The way sarcastic people word their sentences will never cease to amaze me. "Long ago, my grandfather knew of one and all ways took me there." I lied through my teeth. Sadly, all my grandparents were dead before I was even born.

"Oh." he nodded, feeling his victory slip away. He slightly began to blush but I didn't call him out for it. It was just far too adorable.

"Ok, now for this secret entrance." I pointed out. I walked over to the fire place and ran an arm along the top, knocking off everything that wasn't nailed down. Seeing all that gold, silver and other priceless artifacts a modern architect would kill for slam onto the ground mercilessly made Chase jump to action.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted as he was too late to stop me from finishing.

"Making sure that nothing here had to be moved in order to find the entrance." I told him.

"What?"

"Well if..." I picked up a small picture frame and set in on the surface I just wiped clean. "If this had to be pulled forward in order to activate any sort of mechanism then it would be attached to something we couldn't see, so therefor--"