Chapter Fifty Three: The Secret Archive

She was worried of her life. There were credible threats to her very existence. Two Records Officers were now dead, but only she is the one who actually knew of the exact reason why they were murdered in the first place.

It was because of that secret room. She discovered it three months ago, but now it was gone. It seems to be a tunnel going somewhere magical, but she wasn't sure if magic really exists.

The only magic she knew at the time are the tricks pulled off from the top hat and the magic wand of a clever magician, and everybody knows the secret to these magical phantasms as "tricks," which are mostly illusions of the hand and sight that remain hidden from the foolish wonderment of the entertained audience.

Of course, she did not enter; she felt like it was a portal to a place full of urban legends. Immediately, there was an ugly lair that her mind produced inside her thoughts, once she discovered the door. All sorts of vicious monsters have entered her imagination, too, and it sent chills down her spine. The very thought of the potential violence once this portal is discovered was strong enough to evoke fear and worry from her conscious effort. It was even too fearful to even recollect.

But she remembers. She abruptly closed the door, and went on her way as if nothing had happened. She felt as if she needed distraction to set the thought of fear aside, so she wandered around New York City at night, desperate in trying to avoid an invisible ghost that she felt was following her around, especially inside the Headquarters.

But then, she began hearing voices. There were indirect whispers from the wind that she cannot entirely place, in awkward situations that she felt she needed to flee at once. Some of those voices were asking for the action of violence; some are trying to urge her to start shenanigans from the simple ways of life. Others, from the impetus of the wind that draws unsolicited laughter from the unwilling performers.

But the message was clear: there is danger lurking somewhere.

The world is a stage. The human faculty serves as the most ruthless thing of an art director.

Despite her many attempts to address her current predicament, there was a certain control that she felt present, inside her, as if she was a machine that can be involuntarily manipulated. In the beginning, she thought it was the ghosts that supplies her with all the messages that she needed to know from this "newly discovered" dimension. Yet, she already knew that the present moments that was happening is an entertaining film in another world.

Still, she had become her own Reader. But she couldn't understand at first.

There was also a noticeable change that she felt happening inside her own person; she was beginning to develop the penchant of being drawn to the mystery surrounding the mighty and glorious presence of trees. Nature has claimed a special place in her heart, but she could not understand her obssessive feelings towards the branches and the twigs, and whatever it is that is prompting the change that is evolving inside her soul.

It was just too strong to ignore.

For a while, this matter distracts her from the fear of that room. And from the thought that she could be killed next.

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This Chapter is sponsored by Gucci.