Welcome To Mystery, Dana Smith [short books for teens txt] 📗

Welcome To Mystery

1 - A Turn of Events


Kessie heard him before she saw him. She walked around the corner to find the door to the stairs slamming shut. Now, knowing that this behaviour was unusual for any student or teacher, she knew something was wrong; so she decided to follow.

The main flight of stairs had shallow steps, which Kessie could easily run up two at a time. Up ahead the girl heard another door slamming shut, so she quickened her step. The sign next to the door read FL.3. There were four floors in the boarding school, the third being the dorms and the fourth being the largely oversized attic.

"Hey, you! Stop!" Kessie yelled after the man in the old looking suit, similar to the ones she saw in her Victorian textbook. He refused to stop and kept running, coat tails trailing out behind him, straight through another door, this one unlabelled.


Unaware that there were more stairs in the school, this flight, which was seemingly unending, took her by surprise.

"Oh you are kidding me." Taking a deep breath, she started leaping up the stairs again, three at a time. Gym wasn't her favourite lesson, but that didn't mean that she was unfit, it was quite the opposite really, and she didn't know where she got the energy from.

At the end of the stairs was a big, heavy wooden door, not fully shut. Giving a large shove, the door budged open, and the brunette stepped inside, carefully closing the door behind her. Brunette hair would have been great on someone else, but on her, it just made it more obvious of how ice blue her eyes were.

The boxes in the attic were every shape and size, mimicking a large city full of sky scrapers and apartment blocks. As Kessie walked through the miniature city, she noticed a white, almost silken curtain blowing in the breeze. But what breeze? She was in an attic, and as far as she could tell, there were no windows. She pulled the curtain back to reveal another door. This one was newer and much more modern, coloured glass decorating it.

Simply out of curiosity, Kessie stroked the glass, which seemed to hum in reaction, causing her to jump backwards slightly.

"How odd..." she muttered to herself, giving the door a once-over, trying to place the origin of the vibrations, noticing nothing unusual except the fact that the keyhole seemed to be glowing faintly.

"Really...odd..." the girl concluded, pushing the door with one hand to see if it would budge. It did.

Through the door Kessie was shocked to see a bush, which was bright blue, she scowled at it in confusion whilst trying to figure out what was going on. It was tall, the kind of bush that was used in mazes and topiary.

This one looked a lot more like a maze bush. Kessie pinched one of the leaves off the bush and examined it closely. As far as she could tell the blue was genuine. Taking a step forward to allow herself a closer look at the bush, she released her grip on the door handle, allowing it to swing shut. Coming to the conclusion that she could make no other conclusions about the bush, Kessie allowed her eyes to wander upward. The sky was a deep purple, with a velvety texture to it.

Deciding that this was a little too weird to cope with, Kessie turned back to the glass door. She stared blankly for a moment. The door was gone.


Had she walked on around a corner? Surely she would have noticed doing so, wouldn't she? Kessie forced herself to take long, deep breaths, one after the other, trying to calm herself down. She took one glance around, and then closed her eyes, as if attempting to shut out the world around her.


Almost every sound around her, whether she was imagining it or not, had vanished. Every sound except for the tapping of something on the floor. Kessie scrunched her eyes up, focusing her mind on that little sound.

It got louder, and Kessie realized that it was the sound of someone's feed on the ground, a running someone. She opened her eyes and started to play around with her lips, weighing up the options. She could stay here and wait for a door to 'appear' that might never do so, or she could follow that person and maybe find out what was going on here. Taking one last look at where the door had been, she plucked up all her courage and ran after the noise.

Kessie saw the familiar figure of the man who she had been following in her school. Her mind set on figuring out what was going on, she shouted for him to stop.

The man in the old fashioned suit turned round long enough for Kessie to see that he wasn't much older that her; maybe one or two years older. Then the young man ran on again, and dodged a tree root that was sticking out of the ground, almost as if it was a second nature to him.

Kessie jumped to avoid the tree root. As soon as she had taken off from the ground she knew she had misjudged the height of it, and she cursed herself mentally for being so foolish. Her foot caught on the root and caused her to fall forwards, head first. Her whole body now aching, Kessie looked up at the distant man in the suit. He had turned round to look at her, as if weighing up what he should do. With one final glance at her, he turned and ran again. Thanks, Kessie thought while biting her bottom lip.

Kessie turned over so she was on her back, looking up at the deep purple sky. She was surprised to see that the sky had been partially replaced by a door. The door was red, with gold patterning and edge; it also had a golden door latch, which was hanging freely down.

The brunette stood up, her eyes never leaving the door, just in case it vanished while she wasn’t looking. When she was stood directly under the door, she reached up, barely managing to touch the door.

The first time Kessie jumped, she missed the door handle, but the second time, she grabbed it and pulled down hard. The door opened downward, and Kessie had to swiftly move to the side to avoid the steps that flew down after the door had opened. Taking one last look at the maze-place, that she probably wouldn’t see again, Kessie climbed up the ladder.
2 - Emblem of the moon


As Kessie entered the room above her, she noticed that it was reasonably cooler in here; the temperature difference must be at least 4 or 5 degrees. It was also darker, but she could still see enough to find her way around.

At first she thought she was back in the attic, by the number of boxes laid about the room; but then Kessie realized that these boxes were reasonably bigger and made from wood; not cardboard. To add to her growing disappointment, there were no windows, only one large single door, which fitted perfectly to its surroundings. I guess this isn't some magic door.

Just to make sure that she wouldn't regret it later, Kessie walked up to the door and touched the handle, debating on whether she should go on. Just as she had made her mind up to go through, she heard voices coming from the other side.

They were muffled so Kessie couldn't make out what they were saying, but it brought a feeling of relief just to hear someone else's voice. She pressed her ear to the wooden door to see if she could hear better, to her shock, the voices had stopped and the people were now getting closer, they were going to come into where she was hiding.

Shit.

Kessie ran back to where the trap door had been, boxes were now piled on top of it; and she swore that if she moved all the boxes, the trap door wouldn't be there anymore. Franticly, the girl searched for a hiding place. She didn't want to let them see her, just in case.

As the door began to open, Kessie dived behind one of the boxes, hoping she didn't make too much noise while doing so.

The person behind the door hesitated for a moment before opening it. The light flooded the room and Kessie closed her eyes. Whilst holding her breath she prayed they wouldn't find her.

Their footsteps were loud, so Kessie guessed they were both men, and her thoughts were confirmed as they began to talk.

"I hope you still acknowledge where your allegiances lie, Kaiden." The voice was kept to a whisper, but it still sent shivers down the back of Kessie’s neck, the sheer power of that man could be determined from his voice. It was like he could threaten her without knowing she was here.

"Of course, general." Another, younger voice replied. Kessie guessed it belonged to the man named Kaiden. It was cool, calm and collected; like he wasn't the least bit intimidated by the first.

"I should hope so too, you know what would happen if-"

"General." Kaiden began. "I assure you, there is no need to remind me of what my alliance with the Metrix means." Kessie could hear the tension in his voice, although he may have seemed calm at first, there was a slight feel of urgency in his second reply.

"Excellent." the first man smiled through his words, yet Kessie knew that this was no smile of friendship. The heavier man exited the room in a swift motion, and seconds after, Kaiden also exited.

Kessie let the air that she was holding escape her lungs, and she immediately drew a breath again, she hadn't realized that she had kept her breath for so long. Whilst taking long calming breaths, she tried to regain her composure before trying to find a way out. Kessie thought about it more and more, and the more she did the more it dawned on her that her only escape route would be the door that the two men went through.

There was a short rattling in the key hole, before a loud and definite click could be heard. Kessie banged her fits on the box that she was leaning against. They couldn't have heard her, could they?

After what seemed like an eternity, the sudden opening of the door startled Kessie. Whoever opened the door swiftly closed and locked it behind them.

The brunette closed her eyes in an attempt to stop her hands from shaking. She willed herself to calm down, but it was no use, they were going to find her sooner or later. Slowly Kessie brought her knees closer to her, and hugged them tightly to her chest, wishing she could disappear.

"Ah, I thought I could sense someone." it was a man who had found me; he spoke softly to her, as though he didn't want to scare her. Kessie opened her eyes, but kept looking at the ground, she didn't want to let him know how terrified she was. "Stand up." the voice was still soft, but she could tell