25

Chapter 25 After Awerkok left, the tall and slender woman walked into the corridor, then stood motionless for several seconds. Then, with her hands held behind her back, she paced back and forth along the length of the corridor for a few minutes before finally coming to a halt, her hands clasped together in front of her and gazing up towards the ceiling. A faint smile appeared on her lips, almost as if she was reminiscing on a pleasant memory. After a brief moment, however, her expression suddenly darkened as she began looking downwards at the floor. The corners of her mouth curved down until her entire face became twisted in rage as she clenched her fists tightly and began muttering to herself under her breath. She was so angry that she began clenching her jaw tightly together as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Her whole body trembled violently as she shook her head furiously. Finally, after a few moments, she lowered her hands, wiped away the tears that were flowing freely down her cheeks and lifted her chin high once again so that she stared at the ceiling and exhaled deeply before raising both her arms and stretching upwards, as if attempting to reach the top of the ceiling. Afterward she fell to her knees, pressed the palms of her hands against the tiled floor and buried her face into them. Tears flowed silently down her cheeks for a moment before she lifted her head, pushed herself off of the floor and grabbed hold of the metal railings surrounding the stairs leading up to the third floor in order to steady herself. With her back pressed against the rails, she looked down into the empty lobby at the end of the corridor and let out another sigh before she looked over her shoulder towards the exit. As her eyes traveled along the corridor and rested on the elevator, her eyes widened in surprise as she saw something that she hadn't seen in years – a person who had once occupied the elevator and was now lying lifelessly inside. She blinked a couple of times and then furrowed her brows. Was she imagining things? She took a closer look at the elevator; yes, it was certainly empty. She raised her eyebrows; perhaps it was one of the staff members that had gone upstairs to visit a patient during lunch break. Or perhaps she had just imagined seeing it. Either way, there was no point wondering why it was vacant – the only thing that mattered now was whether or not she was about to go up again. Without wasting any more second, she turned around, placed her palm on the handle of the metal gate and pushed the lever, which opened the doors. After entering the elevator, Kaede reached her right hand out in front of her to push the 'close' button as soon as she stepped on it and then started pressing buttons in a circular motion. After a minute, however, the doors stopped moving immediately after closing again and stayed that way, showing that no other button was pressed. Kaede frowned, pulled out her phone and pressed the camera app. When she realized that there were no pictures attached to the photo she sent, she looked into the screen again. The picture showed only a single white button, which seemed to be labelled 'close'. For several seconds, the elevator remained in total silence, and Kaede was about to give up on sending any more pictures when suddenly, the elevator started descending again. However, this time, it kept descending at a much slower pace than before. When it was less than 10 meters above ground level, the elevator stopped completely and a light bulb switched on above its head, illuminating the interior of the elevator shaft. Slowly and hesitatingly, Kaede removed her foot from the elevator lever, which had been holding it still and pressed the 'open' button with the toe of her shoe. After the doors slowly slid open again and revealed a pitch black tunnel underneath it, the blonde hesitated for a second, but then, with the determination written all over her face, she carefully took a few steps backwards to make sure that she wouldn't fall back down through the opening and started walking towards the bottom of the stairs. After making a few more steps and stepping through the doorway onto the ground floor, she paused once again, looked around cautiously and then slowly approached a large wooden door at the opposite side of the lobby and knocked timidly upon it. After waiting for a few moments, she knocked again, more urgently this time. A couple of seconds passed before the door suddenly swung open, revealing an elderly man standing there dressed entirely in white with his arms crossed over his chest and a serious expression on his face. Before he could say anything in response to her knocking on his door, the blonde woman cut him short and pointed her finger directly at the middle of his forehead. "Where the hell is everyone?", she exclaimed in a somewhat loud voice. Kotaro, who had been sitting quietly and reading a book near the entrance of the lobby, looked up from his book and watched as the strange woman entered the hallway, closed the door behind her and made her way over to the staircase, then turned around and sat back down with her book as she waited for Kotaro to speak. "...What the hell was that?". asked the old man after a couple of silent moments of awkwardness. "I... I'm lost", muttered Kaede as her expression changed to a worried one, "and the others aren't here anymore... They've already left without us." "I can assure you that you won't be leaving anytime soon", replied Kotaro firmly as he put his book aside and stood up, then picked up an umbrella and began walking towards the main gates, "follow me please", he added as he gestured to her to follow him. After following Kotaro out into the courtyard, Kaede followed him closely, staring at her shoes as she tried to figure out where she was heading and why. They walked a couple of steps forward until Kotaro stopped in front of a blue van that was parked right in the middle of the courtyard. He walked over to the van and unlocked the back door with the key from his pocket before climbing in and waving at Kaede to join him as well. Once she had climbed in, she leaned back against her seat, closed the door and then crossed her legs on top of the seat in front of her. After glancing sideways towards the old man for a quick moment, she decided to start questioning him instead. "W-Why the van?", asked Kaede as she gazed straight ahead and folded her hands neatly in front of her as she waited for the old man to speak. "Why didn'