James takes all the girls with him as they walk. They are met with the complete darkness of the world, they couldn't even hear anyone footsteps as they walked downstairs a while ago and now they have to find their way with everyone else. As he walks in front in case they happen to encounter danger he would be first to face the danger giving time for others to run away but in his nervousness he accidentally misses one step and almost falls to stairs by his face but soft hands catch him before he falls. Without even looking at who saved him he knew who it was as he got quite familiar with the smell of Yui.
"I thought, you would have been gone by now as you left a while ago following behind them?" James tries to inquire as to why she's all alone here in the darkness of basement stairs and he remembers Jaxon talking about shapeshifting aliens that are probably some nightmare creature that is able to fool people's senses and smells.
"First thing you need to say is thank you as I saved you from falling from the stairs and second thing is... can't you see little girl in front of you what kind of adult would leave behind the child in such dangerous location, you don't understand how scared I was here and waiting for you to arrive as I need your protection." Yui said with the same usual poker face tone as she continued to do so.
"I don't believe you, you don't need mine or anyone protection I know that for sure and nor you are afraid of something or anything here that we are of...just leave it I'm not in the mood for the joke with shitty brats." James tries to give as short answer as he could as the question reminds him of Noah who is all alone inside the corridor up above them at the moment and second reason he feels like Yui is hiding lots of things from them.
James and Yui start to walk ahead as fast as they could together as a group in hope to catch up to the others, soon they heard sound of footsteps walking together and within moment they could see their backs as they can also see where they all be heading towards, as the basement is really big hall below the ground floor to store some of the most valuable and fragile goods along with the cold storage. She can see the ramp in the distance but part of the collapsed walls completely buried the ramp. So, there's no other exit other than using the staircase to the ground floor now.
The sound of their footsteps echo in this hall along with their desperate breath as the hall is completely empty except for the few corpses on the floor, maybe they tried to get out here but collapsed walls buried their hope along with their existence. Most of them were workers and one can tell from the clothes as James, David and his men wore the same light blue shirt and pants.
"This hall is pretty much empty where do you think all the goods go Jaxon." Carlo asked with questions that bugged David and his men too, as this hall never has never been empty except for the few times and they always get notified to move the object to the safe place or put it inside the container.
"I don't know men, when we came down here. This place was already empty as hell with none of the soul left here. You can check for yourself even if these dead people don't have their soul left in them." Jaxon said as he walked towards the wall with a hidden opening inside. As one person at a time can enter inside, Jaxon and Johnson enter inside the opening first and then Carlo stands at the opening beside the wall and signals David to walk first inside before he does in case it's a trap step up by them and ready to abuse them the moment they get inside.
David touched the walls of the small opening; it was made from the stone unlike the rest of the wall made from the concrete. After walking a few meters David arrived inside the big room as he took steps inside. The creaking sound of the wooden floor let him know that floor is made from wooden plank along with the wall and ceiling. It was weird and eerie as why would anyone make a hidden room like this made from wooden plank in the first place.
As his eyes stop lingering around the wall and fall onto things inside the room like table, chair, carpet, bookshelves like small libraries and beautiful paintings on the wall. As more he looks at the painting its start to appears more terrifying and beautiful as inside the painting beautiful lady is holding the single red rose with her both hands gently and elegantly, standing inside the rose garden but part that made him uneasy and scared was roses growing from the woman's heads inside painting that looks identical to her. But despite this eeriness of this painting he doesn't want to look away from this.
"Isn't it beautiful? I was also mesmerized by the beauty and art of this painting but you can admire as much as you want after you call the rest of them here or else we don't know what your mad boss might do as he lacks the patience." Jaxon places his hand on David's shoulder to get him out of his almost engrossed stupor like state.
David nodded his head in bit wariness as start to walk towards the opening but he still turned his head behind to catch the final glimpse of the woman's face in the painting. As he did he felt like something crawling on the back of his neck, but as move his hand behind to check he found nothing. David ignored the sensation and painting from his mind and started to walk again as it's better to forget about things that he doesn't understand or finds weird.
"You thoroughly checked the room, right?" Carlo asks with caution trying to inspect any visible change in David's face, but he could see his eyes shaking in fear as if he saw something that is still bothering him. All these years of working in gangs, his one of the jobs was to interrogate people and quite good at catching flow in someone's face if they are lying.
"Yes, there's no danger inside." David said as normally he does but the fear in his eyes and forehead covered in sweat isn't helping him in convincing Carlo.
Carlo had patience and was running out of time, he was becoming more and more impulsive with his actions more than usual and he can tell this by his desire to kill David right here and right now. He felt this change as if he had been on edge of his rationality for while on the verge of losing it, if he kills David now he fears that his last remaining rational thought would also disappear. But letting go of the liar would be far too disastrous for him and who knows when he will stab him for gain or fear.
"I know; you are lying David. It's for the better for both of our interests if you speak the truth, what you saw inside that made you so fearful?" Carlo said as calmly as he could but everyone felt chill in the air after hearing Carlo calm probing.
"It's nothing…. there's nothing there that would make me scared." With a forced smile on his face David hoped Carlo would let go of this matter as how he was going to explain the eeriness of the painting and fear he felt after his eyes laid on the figure of that woman in the painting. But not telling the truth will get him into more trouble, even if its sound ridicules it's better to be mocked than being dead.
"I saw the painting on the wall that is beautiful and eerie. I was only thinking about that." Out of lots of things to hear Carlo didn't expect to hear about the painting from David. Even though he is irritated and frustrated now he still tried to control himself from giving into his impulsive thoughts.
"Everyone moves inside." Carlo said waiting outside was useless as he had to be ready for any scheme by himself, as trusting others isn't even an option for him.
One by one everyone starts to walk inside the opening after walking a few meters. All of them had different expressions on their faces as they looked around the room. Carlo, Yui and James start to inspect the room as they enter inside, Carlo starts inspecting them openly while James and Yui were acting enough to not attract other attention on them. Brenda walks towards the painting just her eyes laid on it as she enters the room.
Beautiful and elegant noble lady standing inside the rose garden, she's wearing black skin tight dress and the gloomy red sky paints the world in scarlet red, as eerier and silent and softly blew up her wavy black hair in air like dark shadowy spider web that will trap its prey for eternity if they fall for it. Her dark eyes look deep inside one soul, her seducing figure stands alone in the centre of painting.
The painting screams about the horror and terror of this cruel world but her figure stood in the centre of it as she isn't bothered by anything at all or she is the one who rules this world. Roses red colour is more vibrant than the scarlet red world, her eyes falling onto ground where flowers are growing. Instead of soil flowers are growing on the human face, all this face has smooth radish brown skin as if they become part of this world soil but there's this eeriness Brenda felt as if something was trying to grab her throat. She tried to grasp for the air but all that came out her mouth was a silent scream.
As she silently screams alone, the lady in the painting smiles more happily and blissfully as if she's seeing the most beautiful and peaceful scenery in the world in Brenda suffering. White skin is more smooth than anyone she's ever seen, her face is as beautiful as the moon, her black lips seem to be the result of dried up blood but such shining blood doesn't belong to humans. As unspeakable terror leaped into her heart as if she saw something that she shouldn't have, Brenda's eyes turned blank without any emotion or sign of life in them. She's just a mannequin that never had any emotion or life in her but slowly her eyes start to return back to normal but she doesn't remember anything that after her eyes fall onto the painting.
As most of them start to sit on the ground as they were tired and wounded they forget to notice Brenda's unusual behaviour, she felt attracted to the painting in a way others didn't. The more she stared at the face of the lady, the more lifelike she appeared to her. She can see the single rose flower the lady holding with her both hand fingers elegantly has still thorn on them, on her right hand figure thorn cut into her finger skin as droplets of blood are formed around the cut. While on her left hand thumb pierced by the thorn on rose as small drops of blood flowing down from her thumb skin to the red brick road on the ground.