Convergence

Chapter 16

As the days dragged on, Allafair began to wonder if they would ever get out. Everything carried on in the same manner as the day before. Eloise remained as far away as she could possibly get from the rest of them; Melline followed Allafair like a wounded hound, too afraid to approach him; Gregory couldn't seem to find the decency to shut up, although he had started to talk less ever since Eloise had distanced herself; Annabelle retreated into her shell every time Allafair tried to get her to open up about her past; and Elwynn was the only company worth keeping.

Allafair had begun counting the days that passed, and with each one, he became more bitter towards his companions. They had to work together to get out, whether they wanted to or not. He knew that none of them wanted to die in the warehouse. So why couldn't they put their differences aside and help him?

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and Allafair sat before the wall he'd been marking. There were seven groups of five tally marks, with the addition of a set of three. Thirty-eight days they had sat in this hole of despair, moping and feeling sorry for themselves. Once this day ended, it would be thirty-nine. For thirty-nine days he had been stuck in the same place, unable to move forward, and unwilling to go back. He grumbled unintelligibly and rose to his feet.

"Petty isn't it?" Elwynn's voice droned from behind him.

Allafair glanced uninterestedly over his shoulder and sighed when he saw Elwynn's signature blue locks. "Why did you dye your hair blue?" he asked, finally deciding to ask the question that had preyed upon his mind every time he looked at this man.

Elwynn shrugged, still staring up at Allafair's tally marks. "I was done being like everyone else, I suppose. Sounds kind of childish, I know, but everyone else was so dull and boring. I wanted to be known for something more, be recognizable by more than my quiet nature," he said thoughtfully. "No one understood the change back home. They said it was ridiculous, ostentatious. But I kept dying it every month and finally they stopped commenting and it was my normal."

"I'm sure it was tough for your Head to accept the change," Allafair said with a smile, remembering his own Head and all the times he had tried to upset him. He would have given anything to be back there, under his watchful eyes. Even if he was rather annoying.

"They were more understanding, believe it or not," Elwynn replied with the hint of a smile in his voice. At this, Allafair turned to face his friend. Elwynn chuckled. "It was odd. But they told me something I will never forget."

"What was that?"

"'If you're afraid to do something different, you'll never discover who you really are,'" Elwynn stated as though it were the thousandth time he had repeated it. "It made me think back on every other time in my life where I had been too scared to try something new. I was frightened by change, and I let that control me. The more you branch out, the more you stop letting 'what if' control you, the more you do...the more you will find out what's inside and come to understand what is on the outside."

Allafair stared at Elwynn in pure admiration. "Elwynn you're brilliant," he said, clapping his hands on Elwynn's shoulders. "Thank you."

Elwynn's face fell in confusion. "You're...welcome...? What have I done?" he asked. Allafair laughed and set off towards the opposite end of the warehouse without giving an answer. Elwynn watched in bewilderment as the man was nearly skipping to his destination. "What have I done?" he called out after Allafair once more.

"You've saved us!" Allafair cried happily. He searched every nook and cranny for Eloise. She had to be around somewhere. He dragged crates about, lugged sacks across the room. After about ten minutes of unsuccessful hunting, he decided that he would find her more easily from a higher vantage point. He stacked crates upon one another and scrambled to the top of his creation, looking down on the area around him. Everything looked the same...except the blonde waves of Eloise Hamm.