One stone that looked a little different in color than the rest of them.  I pushed it and that stone door slid open again.  Cool!  We are able to get out of here after all, I tell them.  Out where?, asks Sophia.  Back into that terrible narrow stairway, adds Rossana, I don’t think I can do that again.  Well, Muffin and I are leaving anyway, you two can stay here if you want.  Wait, yells Sophia, I’m coming!  Me too, says Rossana, I’m certainly not staying here alone.  So off we go back down these narrow winding stairs right to the bottom.  Now what?, asks Sophia, we’re stuck again.  Maybe not, I said, look at this, the walls are curving to match the winding stairs, all but this one section at the bottom.  So what does that mean, asks Rossana, who is already getting nervous.

I think it’s a door to the real hidden room, that one upstairs is just another decoy room to stop enemies.  Good theory if it’s true, says Sophia.  We shall see, I said as I start to look for a colored stone.  There it is, I said, right at the bottom of that step, just barely noticeable as a different color.  With torches and candles a person would never see the difference, I said.  I push the stone and sure enough a door swings open.  And this time we can just walk in.  It’s amazing how they managed to make this place, I said.  I’m thrilled, said Sophia quite sarcastically.  Meow, meow.=I’m really starting to like this place.  Thanks Muffin.  Well, let’s go.  Once we are all inside the door slams shut behind us.

We turn to the right and, hmm, we can’t stand up anymore along here.  Guess we will have to crawl through this section, I said.  I could see Rossana was really starting to get nervous so I told Muffin to go and stay with her.  Muffin jumps onto her shoulder and starts to purr.  That makes me feel a lot better already, says Rossana.  We had to crawl on our hands and knees for a while and Muffin stayed right beside Rossana purring the whole time.  It really wasn’t too long and we could stand up again.  We’re never going to get out of this place, cried Sophia.  Great, now she’s getting worse.  We come to another dead end and suddenly…SLAM!  A large iron barred gate slams into place behind us.  That was too much for Rossana and she fainted.  Sophia screamed, we’re going to die now for sure!

Great, both of them, now I really regret bringing them both along.  But oddly enough, after just a couple minutes a door opened beside me with stairs going up again.  Muffin had managed to wake up Rossana, so we continued our journey up these stairs.  Naturally it came to a dead end once again, so I started to look for one of those colored stones.  I’m getting used to this now.  There it is, so I give it a push and…another one of those barred iron gates slammed shut at the bottom of the stairs.  Hmm, wasn’t expecting that to happen.  Now what?  So I try pushing the stone again and this time a large stone slid down allowing us to crawl inside.  First I shine my flashlight around the room, everything seems fine.  First Muffin runs in, then I start to crawl inside.  I feel some pain, then everything goes black…

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.