XXVI: Makeshift Locksmith

Feeling the hands of time eating away at her, Judith at once turned to the fallen table and stared at its contents which had been spilled onto the floor.

An elation found her when she saw an ornate knife meant to open letters. Without wasting anymore time, she dashed towards it, picked it up and dashed back to the keyhole.

Judith was no locksmith, neither did she know how to pick a lock. But there was one thing she was very familiar with, which was malfunctioning locks.

Back on earth, Judith had times in her life when the lock holding the door to her one room apartment had jammed or malfunctioned.

Lacking the necessary funds to get it fixed, Judith would often try to fix the lock herself.

The first time she tried this, it was just a fruitless attempt to at least try. The lock had reached a state that it needed repairs either ways, so there was no way for it to get worse.

After an hour or so fiddling around the lock with a screwdriver, to her surprise, she actually got it fixed.

This event repeated too often in Judith's life, probably as a result of her poor skills in fixing locks. But that didn't matter as long as it worked, even if it was for a short period.

That period of grace was what Judith was hoping for.

As Judith stood in front of the lock, she diverted her gaze to the knife, which she found had a tip pointed and sharp like a razor.

"Perfect." Judith said, before getting to work.

As she proceeded to unscrew the locks, she prayed with all her heart that the inner workings of the lock was not too different from what she was used to.

Of course there was enough reason to believe that the locks used in this fantasy world would be completely different from that used on earth, if this were the case, then Judith was as good as dead.

Not wanting to think on this further, Judith focused on the task at hand. Within the second, the screws all came loose. She took a deep breath before removing the covering and revealing the inside of the keyhole.

At once, Judith had let out a sigh of relief when she found the inside was not only familiar, but practically the same as the one she had fiddled with for over three years.

Judith smiled then began to fiddle once more.

It didn't take Judith too long to get the lock open. With a silent but evident grind of mechanisms, Judith smiled, then pulled on the bookshelf so a small room could be seen behind the shelf.

Judith took a moment to analyze the inside of the small room.

Without much light illuminating the inside — save for the dim light of the setting sun — Judith saw a room akin to those in Sci-Fi movies. Rooms in which rows and rows of shelves held phials for genetic engineering or something to that degree.

But where this room differed from said Sci-Fi movies, was that the rows and rows of shelves, held a plethora of bottles, bottles filled with transparent liquids that just a single drop could put any normal person into an hour long sleep.

Not wasting anymore time, Judith sprang forward, grabbing four bottles at a time — two in one hand — and rushing over to the bathroom on the other side of the room, the bathroom where a sink had awaited her.

Luckily for Judith, the author of her novel saw it fit to use certain appliances in his fantasy world, even though realistically they should not have existed in such a time period.

Upon entering the bathroom, Judith began to empty the bottles into the sink two at a time. After the bottles were empty, she proceeded to refill them with just water.

As Judith filled the bottles, she wished she could rinse them before filling them all the way, but knowing full well that time was not on her side, she became comfortable with the fact that when this liquid would inevitably be used on her, its effects would be more than diluted.

"Hopefully." Judith said.

After filling the bottles, she immediately returned to the small room behind the shelf, replaced the bottles, grabbed four more and returned to the bathroom.

This process had taken much longer than Judith would have liked, but that ceased to matter, because she was finally done.

Feeling the hands of time grappling onto her, Judith began to fix the lock as quickly as she could. Then suddenly, she heard sounds…footsteps on the other side of the door.

Panicked, Judith had dropped the knife in her hands.

At that moment, the world had slowed to a crawl.

Knowing full well that the knife would alert whoever was coming of her presence, she threw herself forward.

Her body moved on its own, reaching for the knife before it could in turn reach the ground. And without thinking of the consequences of her actions, she grabbed the blade of the knife and gripped it tight.

As the pain of her rending flesh bit into her, she gritted her teeth and held herself steady. She at once removed the knife with her other hand, wiped the blood on her robe and clamped her wounded hand into a fist so as to hold back the bleeding.

Realizing she was out of time, she decided to not fix the keyhole. Instead, she gently pushed the shelf back to its original position, all the while cursing herself for not doing so earlier, because the shelf made small creaking noises as it moved.

But luckily for Judith, she returned it into place without alarming anyone.

After putting the shelf back into place, Judith at once turned her attention to the fallen table, and cursed herself once more as she proceeded to frantically pick it up, along with all its contents, whilst trying not to get blood onto anything.

By some miracle, Judith had successfully put everything into place, before she heard the door creak open.

Following this, Judith at once ducked and rolled under the bed, as the captain revealed himself from the other side of the door.