Change || The Promised Neverland

✼ Chapter Seventeen: Hidden ✼

"Don, Gilda, can you go to prepare for dinner?" Ray requested. "If someone doesn't go, Mom will-"

"I know, I know," Don snarked. He stomped off stiffly, Gilda following him timidly. The quartet watched them, waiting until they shut the door.

"So," Norman said, turning to the quartet.

"Now, we need to investigate..."

"Outside," the four said in sync.

"We know most of what we need to know about the House," Ray said, sitting down on the bed.

"The training is going well," Norman remarked. "And the tracking devices can be broken."

"We just need intel on the outside, and if we can outmaneuver the adults here," Ray said, "we can clear the wall."

[Name] clicked her tongue.

"I got a bit of intel on the outside from Sister," she brought up. "She hasn't seen the outside herself, but there are humans who bring our clothes and supplies from outside. Some humans don't get eaten outside. The security also sucks, with not that many guards and no patrols. But I doubt it would be that easy."

"There are humans outside?" Emma repeated. "Wait, so he could still be alive!"

"He?" Ray asked. Emma glanced at him for a second.

"I'll show you later," she turned back to Norman. "But back to the escape route."

Norman nodded. "Our escape has three steps. First, scale the wall and escape. Second, get to safety. Third, establishing a stable way of surviving on our own. Currently, we have the means to pass the first step. Now, we need to focus on the outside."

"The escape route, how to secure food, and the area surrounding the farm," Ray tapped his head. "That's the information we need right now. Are we in a forest or a desert? Depending on the answer, we have to take different things outside."

"Oh!" Emma raised her hand. "When I climbed the tree, I saw a forest beyond the wall. [Name] was there too."

"We need to make sure of these things," Ray said, throwing an object at Emma and nearly giving her a concussion ([Name] kicked his shin). Emma fumbled with the object, realizing what it was. Binoculars. "That's one of the rewards I got for spying. If we're going to do something reckless in secret, it would probably be this."

"Let's go back to the wall as soon as possible," Norman decided. "Tomorrow at the earliest."

Emma nodded. "Oh, and regarding the 'he' I was talking about, I have someone I want to introduce!"

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

[Name] glanced around the humongous library, for once intimidated by the sheer size of it. The books seemed to reach towards the sky endlessly, ladders everywhere. Emma had rushed off to a certain bookshelf, clambering up its ladder.

"Is it me, or is the library taller than the actual House?" she said, mostly to herself. Norman chuckled.

"It seems like that, doesn't it?" he furrowed his brows. "Still... I don't get what Emma wants to show us."

[Name] and Ray shared a look. "Do you think it's the owl?" [Name] asked.

Emma came back with a children's book, one that a certain four-year-old boy loved to read. Ray recognized it immediately.

"It's the owl," Ray confirmed. Norman tilted his head.

"The owl...?" he repeated. Emma slammed the book down on the table, making Ray wince, flipping to the inside of the front cover. She pointed at the bookplate - an owl surrounded by a circle created by dashes and dots -, more specifically, the name under the symbol.