Scorpio
"Why are they taking so long?" Cancer asked himself, walking around the small space where we were.
A few days ago, Pisces, Cancer and I have gone into a secret tunnel at school and somehow found ourselves under the famous Lady Liberty.
Now all that was in our way was a stupid code, and if we didn't crack the code, we'd be stuck in this tight little room-like space for the rest of our lives.
"Oh, don't worry, Cancer!" Pisces the overloaded optimism machine bounced into the "room". "They'll be here soon, and we'll be free!"
I got up from the corner that I was sitting in. "I'm going to explore those other tunnels."
"Okay, but come back here when you're done exploring." Cancer called after me.
I got out of the room-like space and took a right, going into another tunnel that we haven't explored yet.
Standing in front of me was a door, with yet another code.
But this code was different. It somehow seemed easier.
There was a keypad on the wall, but instead of numbers, there were a bunch of symbols. I traced my fingers over the ♏︎symbol.
I looked around. To my right, on the wall, was a message. It read: "first symbols order. 21st goes March Hint: the Put in".
"That's weird." I said to myself. "This message makes no sense."
Then, I realised that the message was scrambled up. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I picked up a red marker that was just lying around and scribbled what I thought was the correct message.
The new message on the wall now read "Put symbols in the order. Hint: first March 21st goes".
The message sort of made sense, but I still didn't get what it meant.
I stared blankly at the message, re-reading it over and over again. Finally, I picked the red marker up and re-wrote the message underneath the other two scrambled up ones.
The message now read "Put the symbols in order. Hint: March 21st goes first".
Then, it hit me. The symbols on the keypad were the symbols of the zodiac signs. The one I traced earlier was the zodiac sign scorpio, the same one that I was named after.
"March 21st." I mumbled to myself. "Which zodiac sign's season starts on March 21st?"
I then remembered that my brother Aries' birthday was on March 21st.
"If we are the Zodiac Signs, then maybe-" A new theory was formed in my head.
I pressed on the symbol that represented the zodiac sign aries. My gut told me to press the taurus symbol. The gemini symbol soon followed, as did the cancer, leo, virgo, libra, scorpio, sagittarius, capricorn, aquarius and pisces symbols.
The door I was standing in front of swung open all by itself. I stood in front of it for a minutes, debating with myself whether or not I should go inside.
I stepped inside the small area. The room was empty, besides a container containing a floating, glowing crystal. Its blue glow was blinding. I shielded myself from its glow as I moved towards it.
"What in the world?" I asked out loud.
I moved my hand closer to the crystal to touch it. As soon as I touched it, it burnt the tips of my fingers. I quickly retracted my hand to examine the burn.
But it wasn't a burn. Instead of a burn mark that should have been on the tips of my fingers, a powdery galaxy-coloured substance was there instead. I looked back at the crystal, then looked around the small space. No alarms sounded, and no heavily armoured guards came out of nowhere. There were no dragons, no magical traps, and no evil sorceress science teachers. Nothing.
"Huh, weird." I commented, making my way out of the room. As if like magic, the door shut behind me. I tried opening the door again, but it wouldn't budge. I just assumed that it needed to be activated by the code every time.
I retraced my steps and made my way back to the small space where Cancer, Pisces and I had found ourselves trapped. There, I found the two of my friends sitting there, waiting.
"No help yet?" I asked.
Cancer shook his head. "No. I'm starting to wonder if Leo even saw my message. There's bad connection down here."
"There's also free WiFi." Pisces piped up, waving a piece of paper that said "Free WiFi" on it.
"Pisces, where did you get that?" I asked.
"It floated in through the vent." Pisces replied, pointing up to the vent panel above.
In front of the vent panel were some chains with a lock. The passcode on the padlock was indeed the very code that we were trying to decipher for the past 24 hours.
Pisces gave Cancer the piece of paper, and we waited as Cancer connected to the WiFi. Moments later, a smile grew on his face as he started dialling his brother's number.
"It worked?" I asked.
"It worked." He replied.
"Hello?" A familiar voice asked from the other end of Cancer's phone.
"Leo!" Cancer exclaimed. "Oh thank goodness! Where are you right now?"
"Virgo, Capricorn and I are at the base of the Statue of Liberty." Leo replied through the phone. "Where are you guys?"
"Are you standing near a vent panel in the floor?" Cancer asked.
"Give me a sec." Leo's voice started getting closer. "I've found one. Is that you guys?"
Leo's face looked down at us through the vent panel.
Cancer was relieved. "Finally! Do you know how long we've been here?"
"Three days." Leo answered, ending the call. "What do you need help with?"
"There's a stupid lock that needs a stupid code in order to be unlocked." I reported. "We have to decode this thing or else we'll be stuck here. Besides, Pisces is running out of granola bars."
"Granola bars?" Virgo's confused voice came from the other side of the vent panel.
"I still have five." Pisces announced.
"Take a picture of the code thing and send it to me." Leo told his brother. Cancer did so, and Leo called Virgo and Capricorn over to help us.
"I don't really know." Capricorn said after a long moment of silence. "Do you have any clues down there?"
"Not since I've checked." I grumbled.
"Ooh, I found something!" Pisces said from where she sat. Cancer and I hurried over to where she was sitting. There, we found a small, neatly written message.
"Why didn't we notice this before?" I asked.
Pisces lowered her head. "My duffel bag was covering it. Sorry guys."
Neither one of us complained about it (because it is literally impossible to get mad at Pisces). Cancer took another picture of the message and sent it to Leo.
"Now this is just confusing." I heard Leo say from above. He showed the picture to Virgo and Capricorn.
"This is just a math equation!" Virgo exclaimed.
I looked at the message again.
12 Zodiac Signs
Plus 16 years under Orion's rule
Multiplied by 7 hours time difference between New York and Greece
Minus 5 regions in Celestia
Plus 3000 years of our history
Divided by 4 elements
Minus 0.75
"I have no idea what half of these are." Cancer said.
"It really is a math equation." Pisces mused.
"We really just have to look at the numbers." Capricorn said, looking at the image again. "12 plus 16, then multiplied by 7-"
"Minus 5, plus 3000, divided by 4, minus 0.75-" Virgo continued.
"Which results in 797!" The two of them said at the same time. (If you can actually do this mentally, I'll be impressed)
"Wow." Cancer commented.
I made the password on the padlock say 797. With a tug, the lock came off easily, and the chains came down.
"There we go!" Pisces said, pushing the vent panel out of the way. She then took a grappling hook out of her duffel bag. "I stole this from my sister. Don't tell her."
In a few minutes, the three of us had gotten out of the small room. I hastily covered the tunnel's exit with the vent panel.
"There we are, you guys are free now." Leo brought us all over to a small motorboat, where a teenage boy with silvery blonde hair and lime green eyes stood.
"Who's that?" I asked.
"Virgo's brother." Leo replied, looking at the confused looks which had appeared on Cancer's, Pisces' and my faces. "Don't worry, I'll explain later."
~~~
Chapter 20 already? Wow!
I'm going to take this time to thank you all for 2K reads on this book! It's amazing that all of you enjoy it so much. Thank you all for supporting me on my writer's journey so far.
With that, have a good day/night!
Peace out,
The author owo