"Come on! Come on!" A man in a red dress shirt under a black vest shouts. Armed with a rifle, he dashes forward followed by two other men dressed like him. In a matter of a few minutes, the three find themselves in front of the designated door.
When one of the guards begins to unlock the door, Sarah hears it and quickly hides to the side of the door near the latch, however, the guards already know of her movement. They are being informed by the blonde man as he looks at one of the small screens while the other men in the room begin to gather around him.
When the first guard opens the door, he throws himself into a roll inside. Then he turns, pointing the rifle at the wall where they said the intruder would be. To his astonishment, when he fixes his position, she is already floating above him with one of her knees bent heading toward his face. A fraction of a second later, and the guard falls knocked out on the floor. Sarah lands in a roll while grabbing the rifle.
The guards can barely reason about what exactly is happening, the fact is that they find themselves face to face with a being with a cold and unmoving gaze. Her contracted pupils focus exactly on them.
The rifle does not tremble for a single second in her hands.
A wave of fear emanates from her and strikes the hearts of the guards who face that predatory gaze that seems to want to devour them at any moment.
For a few seconds, she thinks of nothing. Only the high perception of things passes through her mind. The size of the door, the slight breathing of the unconscious guard in front of her, the trembling hands of the two armed guards at the door while they point their rifles uncertainly in her direction. The size of the room and possible movements, as well as ways to escape the shots and counterattack.
It is then that a fifth breathing arises.
Her hands, previously fixed, now tremble. Her gaze collapses toward the ground along with the rifle. Then she raises her arms very high after realizing that if she takes this situation further, a girl who has already suffered a lot may end up being hurt even more due to her actions.
She refuses to decide the fate of another person's life in that way.
Sophie, who has just witnessed this entire scene, has her eyes wide and her heart racing. Right there in front of her is the chance that perhaps her cruel destiny may change. Watching the guards handcuff Sarah, she gathers courage.
"Miss!" She holds her voice for a moment and resumes. "Miiiiiss I want to see the moonlight one more time!"
Those hoarse words, however spoken with so much conviction, reach their destination.
After a brief moment, Sarah turns her face while being escorted out of the room. A gentle smile with closed eyes directed at Sophie clearly conveys her message.
Already descending the staircase toward the pillar, she observes that her theory is indeed true. With each flight of stairs comes a different letter accompanied by numbers, this repeats until reaching the last step with the letter A. There the staircase ends and a small courtyard that surrounds the pillar begins.
What disturbs her the most is the idea that in each of those rooms, there may be a child like Sophie. This gnaws at her from the inside, however, not more than the vision she is having at this moment. Behind her, two men are entering room A 1 with smiles on their faces.
This sight makes her grind her teeth while inhaling shakily.
Her hands cuffed behind her, and the three guards around her present themselves as an obstacle to any attempt.
Two accompany attentively at her sides, and the third walks behind her like her own shadow.
Arriving at the base of the pillar, a dark glass door opens automatically. Upon entering, Sarah observes a large circular counter all white at the center of an also circular hall all white. There are also two more doors like the one she entered through, all distributed evenly along the wall. At the counter, there are three women wearing red social dresses, each one facing the direction of a door. The one facing them is blonde and tall, like a model of the nobility that appears in newspapers.
"We captured the intruder. Request access to floor five A to take her to a cell." The guard who was at her right and now steps forward directs the words to the attendant.
She then picks up a completely white landline phone with red numbers and presses the zero key.
"This is reception, they captured the intruder and are requesting access to floor five A." The attendant speaks on the phone and remains silent for a few seconds. "Understood!" Then she hangs up and directs her soft and sweet voice to the guard. "Access granted! And you! The boss wants to see you."
"Understood!" The guard who stepped forward responds somewhat insecurely.
In a few moments, three round openings appear in the ceiling, and aligned with them, three appear in the floor. All equally distributed around the hall.
Red stairs descend in a spiral from the ceiling while being slowly extended. After two minutes of waiting, they connect to the openings in the floor. Soon after, they head toward one of the stairs that has the letter A in red on its side.
Upon reaching the opening, Sarah observes that the stairs continue downward. One of the guards goes up while the other two escort her downward.
While they descend, she reasons that if they are going down to hall five A while the guard goes up to 0, this building is probably numbered in reverse. She also notices the two cameras hidden behind the other stairs.
After almost a minute of descent, they arrive at a large dark hall with a black floor. A large red pentagram subtly glows in the middle, illuminating the environment a little. On the sides, the walls are actually black bars, however it is not possible to see what is behind them.
The guards begin to lead her toward an area of the bars. As she gets closer, she sees that they are actually cells. Casting a look around, a small region in one corner where the bars are white stands out subtly from the dark environment.
"Go get the ladder!" The guard holding Sarah orders the other with a hoarse and rough voice.
Following the order, the other takes a key from his pocket that looks more like a large screw and heads toward the white bars. He inserts the key into a corner and pushes it inward, which causes part of the key to glow in a reddish tone. Then he pulls a part of the bars that opens like a door. Upon entering, the guard lightly taps a core embedded in the ceiling which lights up and illuminates the place.
The white light also illuminates the surrounding area. The sight that appears in the surrounding bars haunts Sarah's gaze for a moment. In the two side bars next to the white bars, wrinkled hands and small hands holding the bars emerge from the darkness.
Above, gazes illuminated by the reflection of that small light appear among the bars. Two pairs of eyes observe her directly, one above the other, separated by a few meters. Looking back at the white bars, two large red fire extinguishers stand out among several other objects that she cannot distinguish.
The light goes out and everything is swallowed again by the cold, but not total darkness. The guard approaches carrying a white folded ladder in his hands.
"Man... that core is new and already failing!" He grumbles as he passes by them.
"Do not forget to inform the receptionist later!"
"You can leave it boss!" In a discouraged tone he approaches the bars.
The other who watches Sarah pushes her forward and also begins to walk toward the bars. Unfolding the ladder, he projects it upward and leans it against some bars. The ladder reaches more than half the total height of the bars.
He again takes the same key he used to open the white bars, climbs the ladder and opens a door up there. The top of the key glows again in a reddish tone. A soft light appears from above, and then he descends.
The guard with Sarah removes one of the handcuffs and fastens her again, now with her hands in front.
"Come on! Climb!" He pushes her again.
As she climbs, Sarah realizes that there are three levels of cells. The last is where the ladder leads. Finishing the climb, she casts a look to the back of the open cell, observing the existence of two iron rings fixed at mid-height on a cement wall. There are also chains that come from the rings and end attached to two open iron bracelets.
The guard comes up right after. After entering, he asks her to lean against the wall, then removes her handcuffs with that same key and fastens each of her arms into a bracelet. After touching a core on the ceiling and the light disappears, he locks the cell and begins to descend.
"Five." Sarah whispers to herself as she faintly hears the sound of the guard's boot stepping on the marble floor.
The other guard begins to remove the ladder. Meanwhile, the other is already heading directly to the spiral staircase.
"Ten." Sarah whispers to herself again as she sees the silhouette of the guard reaching the spiral staircase.
"Hey! Hurry up!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming." The two leave that dark hall. After they go up, the ladder retracts.
All Sarah sees in front of her is darkness and a piece of the pentagram. She closes her eyes for a few seconds while breathing deeply.
"This is not a dream!" She whispers to herself after releasing the accumulated air.