Chapter 14. In front of a closed door.
With the new ability to go through walls, John became even more fascinated with the World of the Unknowns and decided it would be foolish to leave now. Today in the park he met a group of people, with whom he spent some time. He started developing new relationships here, new friends, and with all the capabilities this world offered, what could have been better? John had not given a single thought that he was totally disregarding the fact that back in his world he had a home and parents and friends, too. He was impatient to see something interesting as the group was passing one wall after another. When they got into the tunnel, John was afraid that it would be boring, just like in that long corridor that he and Bradley got into when they were trying to run away from the Unknowns.
All of a sudden this other girl, he already did not remember her name, exclaimed, “Look, what is this here?”
She and Megan were walking at the head of the procession. The rest of the group joined them, and John clearly saw the word “Exit” on an arrow glowing on the tunnel wall.
“Let’s see where it goes,” Bradley said.
“You are not going to go to the exit, are you?” asked John, disturbed by this idea.
He realized that he did not want to leave this place any longer. Not now, not any time in the future.
“Probably not,” Bradley replied, John catching evasiveness in his voice. “But it’s worth exploring, isn’t it?”
Since John liked exploration, he could not resist the temptation to go look just with one eye what was there. So he said he was in. The group moved on, following the arrows with the word “Exit” on them. John was prepared at any moment, should the group decide to escape, to turn around and run the other way.
In the end of the tunnel the bright arrow read: “Exit from the land of the Unknowns. Open before 9 p.m.”. Megan and the other girl (what’s her name?), who again were leading the way, stopped, and a puzzled look appeared on their faces. “Must be disappointed that it’s past 9 p.m. already,” John figured. They turned to Bradley, and the girl (Mary?) was about to say something, but she was pushed by Megan. “What kind of secrets can they have?” John wondered.
“9 p.m.!” exclaimed Bradley. “What nonsense. I know full well that time does not apply here. The textbook is full of stuff about this.” Bradley put down and opened his schoolbag. “I knew I had to take it for something. Let’s figure this out.”
Bradley pulled the science book out and began to read. John started getting impatient. Who cared why it said “before 9 p.m.”! The point was that the door was clearly locked, and for John that was good enough reason to turn around and go back to his room. After all, the next day he expected to have even more fun in the company of very good friends he made today.
“Come on, guys, let’s go back,” John started to whine. “Tomorrow is a new exciting day, and we need to get some rest. I think we explored this enough already. The door is closed. We can come back next time before 9 p.m. and check what’s there.”
“That’s the whole point; there is no “9 p.m.” in this country. Or at least not supposed to be. And besides, how does this sign know who is standing in front of it? In other countries on Earth time may be displayed differently. “21:00”, for instance. And in the world of the Unknowns it should not have any relevance at all. I bet if we figure this out, we can check it now, and any other time we come back, it would still read “Open before 9 p.m.”.”
John decided he would give Bradley some time. After all, there was no danger that he would solve the problem quickly and they would be getting back home. Bradley was flipping the science book from one chapter to the next, but seemingly could not find the answer. All other kids did not show any sign of impatience, which appeared very strange to John. After considering it for some time, he began to suspect that there was some conspiracy going on. He gazed at everyone in turn but could not really decide what was making him feel so uncomfortable all of a sudden. Since he had nothing else to do, he asked a few questions from the girls, but did not get satisfactory answers. Their reluctance to talk made John conclude that they did not know how to fly and all wanted to get out. “This is it!” John thought to himself, “That’s the problem!” and exclaimed, addressing Bradley, “Come on, professor, let’s go! You can study this in bed when we come back. I’m tired and want to get enough rest for tomorrow.”
Bradley closed the book, stuffed it in his backpack and stood up, giving John a look of disapproval. But John did not care. He was happy they were finally going back. Walking through walls was fascinating in itself, but they did not get anywhere interesting, and that was disappointing.
“All right,” Bradley sighed. “Could not figure it out yet.” Then he changed the topic, “By the way, does anybody else have books in your rooms?”
“I do,” said one of the girls.
“Have you read them?” asked Bradley.
John was now leading the way. Conversation about books did not interest him at all. He was quite ahead of the group and could barely hear what they were saying.
“Yes, a few times... Some of them were quite interesting.”
John slowed down a bit.
“About what?” Bradley asked.
“Fun stories, adventures, travels… If we get back, I can grab them for you.”
“No history of the land of the Unknowns? No Querqutese?” questioned Bradley.
“Why is this so important to him?” John wondered, picking up pace again. “He has his books, that will take a long time to read. …Oh, why are they crawling so slowly?!”
“N-n-no… What did you say?..” asked the girl, John grinning, because he guessed that she was puzzled by Quercutese.
“Did you have any books when you got into the land of the Unknowns?” Bradley went on.
The girl replied, “Yes, I did. I had adventure books, stories. The ones I read in real world, though, were different from what I read here, but it didn’t seem strange to me until now when you talked about it.”
“Well, I had school textbooks, and they converted into school textbooks of this world,” said Bradley. “I guess, yours converted into the adventure stories of this world. Very curious. Megan, you really should check out your bag and see if you have same books as I do. We had the same set of books on that day when we went to school.”
“Come on guys, you are so boring!” John exclaimed, turning around. “Who’s up to going with me flying tomorrow? You’ll have much more fun this way!”
All of a sudden John froze in place forgetting what else he was going to say. At his left hand there was a large hall that he was sure was not there before when they travelled in this tunnel towards the exit. He looked at the crowd and mumbled, “E-h-h… By the way, are you guys sure we are going the right way?”
“What’s wrong?” Bradley asked, looking around.
John pointed to the left, his finger trembling. “Don’t you see? This large hall? Where are we?!”
“What hall?” gasped Bradley.
John got scared. “Am I the only one hallucinating?..” he asked in desperation. “Over there,” he pointed again and asked, “Don’t you see?”
He closed his eyes, opened them again, but the hall was still there. Then John pinched himself on the skin, hoping that he would wake up and everything would be straightened out. But nothing changed. He stared at the kids, as if prompting them to try to see the thing, when all of a sudden Megan exclaimed, “Yes, right there! I do see it! I didn’t see it at first, and when John showed exactly where to look, I did. The wall parted, and a large hall emerged out of nowhere.”
“Apparently, you are not the only one hallucinating,” said one of the girls, whose name John also did not remember. The fact that Megan saw the hall made him feel better.
“Don’t you see?” Megan asked, looking at everyone in the group. “A large hall and a door on the other side of it. Should we go check it out?”
“Hold on,” interrupted Bradley. “We don’t see anythi
ng. Only you and John see the hall. That begs the question - what do you have in common? The answer is – you both know how to fly.”
John was slowly shaking off his shock. If before they did not find anything interesting, may be now, finally, there was something worth looking at. And Bradley was again overly cautious! On top of that Bradley was now admitting that he and the others, except for Megan, still did not know how to fly, and, therefore, they ought to have lied to him to get him out. Fine, if the exploration of this hall paid off, John was ready to forgive them.
“Come on, professor, why do you always have to find explanations for everything?” John complained. “I think Megan has a great idea, and we do indeed have to check it out. Bradley, lately you have been immersed too much into theory and don’t have enough fun.”
“And YOU lately have been immersed into too much fun and are refusing to think,” Bradley pushed back. “However, if you both see the hall, I guess we should check it out, question is how, since the majority of us don’t see it.”
“You will have to follow me and John,” suggested Megan. “We will go in, and you guys will have to go through the walls if this is what you see, in order to follow us.”
“This may work,” agreed Bradley. “Let’s do it. Megan and John, you would have to move slowly so that we don’t lose track of you.”
John was happy. Finally they were doing something he wanted to do. He tried to hide the fact that he was so scared in the beginning. If seeing things nobody else saw was one of the capabilities of people who knew how to fly, it was totally acceptable to John. John and Megan started to slowly cross the hall towards the door on the other side. John was staring right in front of him but noticed that Megan was constantly checking back. He figured she was making sure that the rest of them, who did not see the hall, was not lost. John let her do the job, focusing his eyes on the door in front of them. That door was very intriguing to him. He expected it would open any moment.
John arrived at the door before Megan and scrutinized it in more detail. It was a massive iron door, completely flat, no decorations… What was troublesome to John, it was not clear how this door would open. John looked up, left and right, touched the surface but did not notice any handle, key hole or button. He turned back and saw that Megan was right behind him. The rest of the group was also very close. But apparently, they did not see him or Megan until the very last moment when Bradley almost crashed into him. Bradley looked over his shoulder and asked John and Megan, “What do you see over there?”
“It looks like an abandoned hall at a railroad station”, said Megan.
John did not like another investigatory delay. The door was right there, but with no apparent way to get in.
“All right, guys, we already established that me and Megan see the hall and you don’t, can we now move on?” whined John. “How do you think this door opens, those of you, who really like to think?” he inquired, staring at Bradley.
“I suppose, we could all go through as we usually go through the walls…” Bradley began.
Mary came closer to the door and put her ear against it.
“Hold on, there are some noises…” she whispered. “Don’t you hear? We don’t know what’s out there, do we want to just cross the wall and get in danger?”
Now John heard some clinging noises like that of metal parts hitting against each other.
“I think there are some people out there. This is unexpected. I thought it was a late night by now,” said Bradley. “We should go in quietly and maybe not all at once. I would suggest just a couple people go, who will then come back and tell everyone else what’s there.”
John, who could not wait to get in, offered that he and Megan went first. He started going through the wall next to the door but fell down to the floor in pain.
“What happened?” the girls rushed towards him.
John stood up, rubbing his forehead.
“I guess this is not a conventional wall through which we can go…” he muttered. “Anybody else wants to try?”
Mary carefully got close to the wall and tried going through it, but it did not work for her either.
“Any other ideas?” John turned again to Bradley. “Looks like we have to open this door somehow after all.”
All of a sudden a loud bell sounded on the other side of the wall. Then repetitive shouts of command, noises of metal things falling and hitting other metal, more shouts…
“It sounds sinister,” said Mary. “I have a bad feeling about whatever is going on over there.”
“Why are girls always scared and expecting the worst?” asked John. “Maybe they have some more rides in there.”
“You only think about rides…” started Megan.
But the door all of a sudden swung open, and several people quickly came out of it, crossed the hall and turned left, the direction of the supposed exit. They were in such a hurry that John was pretty sure they did not see a group of kids on the other side of the door. If they did see them, why would they leave the door open?
“Here is our chance!” John exclaimed, waiving at everyone else and inviting them to follow him. “Let’s go!”
And before anybody else had time to utter any warning, he rushed through the door, leaving everybody else behind.
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