The Crystal Palace Part 2

Lancaster's white suit shines diamonds into his brown eyes. 

"Hello," he greets the group. "I'm Lancaster and you are?" he makes brief eyecontact with Noe before gazing deeply into the others' eyes. He is trying to evaluate whether they pose a threat or not. 

Taking initiative, Rosalind greets him, "Rosalind," she shakes his hand. "My friends here are Nicholas and Faith. I'm glad to be acquainted."

Jorge knows his presence is not appreciated and takes seizes the opportunity to leave, "Well, all the best you youngsters. Have a blast," he picks up a champagne glass from a waiter and chugs it down his throat, spilling out from the group's circle.

"It's good to see you, Nicholas," Lancaster continues knowingly. "I thought our paths would never cross again. How are you doing?"

"Can we leave the small talk behind?" Noe asks, exasperated by the uselessness of the conversations he has had throughout the day.

"Don't you know?" Lancaster smirks, "The price of wealth is leisure. Let's find a more intimate location to talk. I'm just as fed up with boring 'soft talk' as you are. Shall we?" he gestures for everyone to walk with him and leads them around the elevator and towards a passageway.

The moment they breach the entrance, the glass wall comes to an abrupt halt and they find themselves in a dark red, carpeted on all sides and dimly lit, hallway.

When they are far enough into the hallway that no one can hear them, Lancaster turns to Noe, "What are you doing here? You were declared dead years ago or am I seeing a ghost?"

"I'm very much alive," Noe tells him.

"We can't tell you why we're here," Feng Mian adds, "but trust us when we say that it's important."

Rosalind pops the question, "Could you play along with us and pretend like you know Noe, or 'Nicholas'?" 

Staring between all of them, Lancaster's eyes are deep and contemplative, "Is what you're after that important?"

"Yes," Noe says with a finality that goes beyond words. 

Lancaster comments, "I knew you as a guy who didn't waste his time on pointless schemes. If you really are the same person as you were before, I wish you all the best," with a wink, "Nicholas."

Relieved, Rosalind questions Lancaster, "Where does this passageway lead to?"

"Would you like to find out?"

Taking them further down the hall, Lancaster's face resumes an air of seriousness, as if he is calculating a complex math equation but repeatedly failing. Throughout their journey, there are no doors evident on either wall of the passageway.

After a few minutes of walking, the red carpet walls break out into one of glass and they come out back at the opposite side of the gala.

Surprised, Feng Mian expresses her skepticism, "The walls looked straight?"

"Such is the mystery of the Crystal Palace," Lancaster regards.

"You've changed," Noe tells Lancaster. "You see more excited about life now." 

"Do I?" Lancaster shrugs and purses his lips. "Maybe I am."

Rosalind's eyes wander from the elevator, to the flat glass walls beside it, and settle on the hallway's entrance. "Something doesn't make sense," she says before thrusting herself back inside the passage. 

"What did you see?" Noe asks as he stalks behind her with the rest of the group. 

"The walls are straight but the hall is continuous and the building is circular."

"Could you repeat that?" Lancaster asks Rosalind.

Rosalind continues, "Connect all those points and we have a semicircle. There must be something between the passage and the gala that we missed."

"We're looking for a secret room," Noe tells him.

"There are no doors in this hall, I've checked."

"You didn't check thoroughly enough," Rosalind says as she digs her fingers into a partition in the carpet. 

Peeling away a squarely cut chunk of carpet and revealing a brown mahogany door, a dense silence follows Rosalind's action.

Quiet murmuring and whimpers diffuse through the door. A beeping sound.

Lancaster immediately steps forward and reaches for the door knot but Noe stops him and pulls him away.

"You can go back," Noe informs him. "If you're involved in this, who knows what could happen to you, a h-"

"Just go back," Feng Mian waves Lancaster away as they turn to the intimidating door. 

"What we shall see behind these walls could change the game. Are you ready?" Noe prepares them. Rosalind pulls out a recording camera, Feng Mian puts a pen to her notebook's page, and Noe polarises the oxygen around him. "Let's go."

They break through the door.

A timer on the wall bathes the room a wicked maroon.

In the corner is a person with their back to the group. He grips himself in his arms, curled in a trembling ball. Every surface in the room is of old, decoloring wood broken only by a mattress and a door beside the person that reveals a showerhead.

His white suit elegantly hugs his body but his rigid fingers clutch his hair. Skin pale and hair just as white, the figure in the floor's corner turns to the open door.

Face full of fear, helplessness, Allery's green eyes glare desperately into Noe's. 

"It's not yet time," his whispered voice grates. "The timer says one more minute. Please, give me one more minute."

"One more minute before what?" Rosalind asks, camera trained on Allery.

"Before I have another dosage."

The wooden floor creaks as Noe cautiously walks towards him, "It's okay, Allery. It's okay. You don't have to be scared."

"Allery?" Lancaster gasps, appearing in the door frame. 

Hope sweeps over Allery's eyes as his eyes move to look at Lancaster.

Lancaster runs to Allery's side and gauges the young man's terror with wide eyes.

"Lancaster," Allery says, putting his hand on Lancaster's firm shoulder. "You have to go or you'll become one of the indited. Leave this place and never come back."

"One of the what?"

Footsteps knock up the hallway. All the Ephrenes assume invisibility.

"Come here," Feng Mian pulls Lancaster towards her and shifts his spirit into the hardwood around them to make him invisible as well.

Allery blinks in confusion. "Did I just imagine that?" he asks himself soundlessly.

He catches the muted footfalls in the hallway too late and jumps when a man asks him, "Did you forget I was coming?" Jorge settles the champagne glass in his hands on the wooden floor.

Allery trembles more violently as Jorge pulls him over, strips off his suit's jacket and pushes Allery's shirt sleeve up to his elbow. 

Lancaster gasps but Feng Mian quickly muffles his mouth with her hand. As clear as day beneath Allery's pale skin are purple and red veins popping atrociously out of his flesh, as if his body itself is rejecting its place inside Allery.

Pulling a prefilled syringe out of the stem of his champagne glass that was on the floor, Jorge keeps a tight hold on Allery's arm.

"Does mother know I'm here?" Allery questions, accusation brittling in his speech.

"Who do you think sent you to me? She knows we're taking good care of you and that's all that matters," Jorge responds as he plunges an injection into Allery's arms.

Allery screams and drops onto the ground, legs straightening as if he has been electrocuted.

Jorge pulls him up by his collar. Staring deeply into Allery's eyes, he searches for something. But, after receiving no indication of a problem, he releases Allery and lets him fall back onto the ground.

"The door was open when I arrived. Best believe I will find whoever was in here and silence them, forever. Your job is to hang tight and appear whenever the Prime Minister needs you again. Understand?"

"Can't I go back to the hospital?"

"No, you can't," Jorge tells him sniffing the air, "and take a shower. It stinks in here." 

Jorge raises his hand and taps a spot on his watch. The timer resets, beeping '24:00:00', counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds until Allery receives his next wave of treatment.

Stepping out of the door, Jorge shuts the door. The sound of him reapplying the carpet pastes into Allery's holding cell.

Instantly, everyone reappears and sends Allery's heart flying out of his chest.

"I thought Jorge was a nice guy but turns out everyone has skeletons in their closet," Feng Mian speaks as she places a hand on Allery's cheek to send him into an emotional state of serenity. 

"Since I was a kid, Jorge has always been my mother's henchman in Northville. I don't know when he came here. I was recuperating at home... until I was sent to this place." 

Lancaster falls to his knees and grapples Allery's elbows, "All this time, you were in Westville."

"All this time and you're still taller than everyone," Allery chuckles before coughing a bit. 

"Didn't you see him at the Westville rally?" Rosalind interrogates Lancaster.

"After what happened to a student named Jinn from my old school, my parents transferred me back to Northville. I only came back to Westville yesterday under Jorge's invitation."

Back at the door, Noe works on peeling the carpet and opening it. Closing his eyes, he feels the fluctuation of oxygen around him and extends his reach outwards to encompass beneath the door crack and around the hall. With this, he gains the ability to view all objects around him and beyond.

Pulling the oxygen against the wall on the other side of the door, Noe uses its pressure to nudge away the carpet before completely ripping the carpet away.

Noe asks Allery, "How do you fancy getting out of here?"