Chapter 17

We eventually made it over, but the snow was really making us heavy, so it took much longer than we wanted. “So what do we do now?” I asked. “We never really planned to do anything.”

“We do like how we did in the game,” Nikki suggested.

“To kill every single person in this area?” Malachi said. “That would take months.”

“No, but to find a secret containment room that could possibly be inside this castle. It may even be underground perhaps,” she said. “It’s possible.”

“She could be right,” September admitted. “But that means we’d have to get inside though.”

“Well of course,” Tisiah revealed. “How else are we gonna find the scientist?”

“What if he’s not even here,” I said. “He might be somewhere else and right now we’re just standing randomly in enemy territory.”

.....

“Let’s hope that’s not true,” Malachi said. “Let’s get in.”

We walked around the compound, trying to find a door to walk through in, but not showing. We walked over three corners and nothing was showing, there was only a fourth to walk through.

But in the midst of our walking, we heard a clunk-a loud one.

“Something’s under here,” Nikki mumbled to herself, though everyone else heard. Malachi sighed, “Do you always have to state the obvious?”

Nikki grabbed on the handle and pulled it up, revealing some sort of stairway that seemed to go into the dark.

“Well, who knew we’d find something on the way,” Malachi said. “Let’s move.”

We slowly descended the stairs until finally reaching the bottom floor. A few more steps led us into a hallway. We looked around, but didn’t see anyone.

“Hey, where is everyone?” I asked. “It’s kind of strange that no one is here.”

“Unless, this is a trap,” Malachi muttered. Suspense intensified as we continued to wait for an attack, but no one ambushed us out of nowhere. “Let’s move, I guess...” Malachi ordered skeptically.

As we moved further down the hall, we came across two soldiers guarding the end of the corridor. They were talking to each other when we approached, unaware of our presence. “Okay, okay, move back, back, back, back,” Malachi whispered, and we hid behind the corner.

“How are we going to pass them?” Nikki asked. “I’m pretty sure no one knows how to knock anyone out.” September cracked her knuckles.

“Well I’ve been training for years now, so I’ll try it out,” she said confidently. She held out her fist and punched the soldier in his jaw, knocking him unconscious. He fell backwards onto the ground without waking up. The second one, shuddered in shock, but then charged in for an attack. But September dodged it easily and kicked him hard in the chest. He collapsed against the wall and slid down, dead. “Yay!” September cheered sarcastically.

“Nice work,” Malachi complimented, while staring at the unconscious bodies. “Wish I could do something like that. Anyways, let’s see if we can find any intel around here.”

“I’m not sure about that, it’s just a hall,” Tisiah reasoned. Malachi then stormed over to him and said in a menacing voice, “I know that. I’m the leader here, so you don’t have any say, understand? Don’t say anything if it’s not helpful.”

Suddenly, Nikki rushed up and stood in front of her brother. “What’s your problem?” she barked. “What makes you think you can speak to my brother like that?”

This wasn’t going well.

I needed to do something fast. “Whoa, wait wait,” I said, separating both of them with my hands. “Let’s focus on the mission right now, alright?” Malachi grumbled. “Let’s move.”

We proceeded through the halls, finding nothing interesting except for a bunch of pictures on the wall. Some showed people, others were of weapons and technology. There were also several bookshelves lining the walls too. I found one book that caught my attention, so I picked it up and read the title: ‘The History Of This Place’. Interesting...

“Any idea why this place is called Castle Winter Wonderland?” I asked.

September shook her head. “Not really.”

“Hmm,” I said, putting the book back on the shelf. “Maybe that’s what this building used to be called before it was turned into a TSA base.”

We continued through the halls until we reached another staircase, which lead us to yet another level. This time, we went straight to the right instead of exploring the whole first floor. As soon as we entered the next section, it felt weirdly familiar. “This almost looks like our section in the classrooms, maybe this is where they hold their classes,” Nikki suggested.

“But this is a base, not an academy though,” I reasoned. “I don’t know what would be in here.”

“Let’s search through these rooms,” Malachi said. “Me and September will check the three classrooms on the right, the rest check the ones on the left.”

“Sounds good to me,” Nikki agreed.

“Alright then,” Malachi ordered. We split off into groups and headed upstairs. I checked every single classroom, but there weren’t any desks or chairs, and there were no textbooks either. But as I rested myself on the wall, I felt the wall open up and I felt myself fall onto the ground.

Rude.

I looked around and suddenly I found something that I didn’t even plan to see.

It was a big billboard, and I mean big like a wide flatscreen-TV-billboard big. “What in the world,” I muttered in awe. I looked up and I tried to find the first picture, which showed a scientist. It had a caption: “Dr. M Jones.” The scientist that Mr. Drails was talking about! Dr. Micheal Jones wore a lab coat with glasses and a white mustache. I couldn’t believe that we actually found him. Now all we had to do was figure out how to get to him.

“Wow, this is amazing!” I said to myself. But then there was a picture at the right, and it showed a man with slick black hair with no beard, the man Mr. Drails was also talking about. His name was Demeitrus Rocke, and he was apparently one of the generals of the TSA armies.

“He kidnapped him?” I wondered to myself as I continued to survey the billboard. Then it showed an area of just grass.

Literally, just grass.

But the caption said something that didn’t seem to match the picture, it said: BMO Base. It must be underground and this was just the top of it. But you’d think they’d show the inside, but it didn’t matter. I needed to tell them this information. I got on the radio and immediately began talking to the team, telling them everything that I saw. “Guys guys! Guys! Look, look! You gotta come see this! This is huge! It says the scientist is located in a base underground, called the BMO I believe. The scientist was kidnapped by the guy Mr. Drails described, the name being Demeitrus Rocke. It shows his face! And I bet you he’s in that base!”

“What?!” Nikki shrieked on the radio, completely blasting my ears. “Where is it? What’s the number?”

“It’s room 360,” I told them. “Come quickly!”

They eventually appeared, rushing in like a crowd. “Well, you found yourself with a lot of information, haven’t ya,” Malachi chuckled. “Alright, we just need to get out of here and-”

“I don’t think anyone is going anywhere.”

We looked behind us and saw the same guy that kidnapped Dr. Jones. “Seems like you found a lot of information haven’t you,” Demeitrus Rocke joked. “To be honest I’m quite surprised. You guys seem a bit too dumb to do much of anything really.”

Demeitrus Rocke was wearing a long trench coat, similar to a military uniform, with a red tie wrapped around his neck. He had brown eyes and short black hair, along with a large bushy mustache. He had a scar running from his eye to his nose. He looked a lot more different than he did in the picture, maybe it was an old one.

“You see, you’re looking at a picture of me, when I just turned eighteen. I look fresh, don’t I,” he said. “Too bad you guys might not be alive to live at that age. Guards, take them away.”

Two guards came up to us, grabbing me and pulling me towards them, while Nikki struggled to get free. This was going very wrong.