Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Well done children, you will live another day. Congratulations. I will soon have to prepare the mansion for the ceremony. You are dismissed until then”

We walk to our room and sit on our cots. I look around the room and again notice the rusted air vents. They are abnormally large, I sit and inspect them silently. Erika taps me on the shoulder.

“What are you thinking about Lexi?”

“Oh I was just looking at the air vents. They're kind of big. We could probably fit into them.” Then, a brilliant idea popped into my head. I call the others closer, “We can use the air vents." They all look puzzled."I bet all of them are connected and they all probably lead to the roof. If we can get to the roof we can climb down the tree and hop the fence. We would have to open every vent so it doesn’t get too hot. But how?”

“Well, Master will probably have his men getting everything ready for that ceremony thing, so we could sneak around and open them all while they’re preparing.” Thomas said.

I look out the window and ponder his suggestion. Before I know it I’m staring into darkness. I look out into the main room at the grandfather clock across the room. It’s nearly 9 p.m. I go back into the room and continue to plan the 'air vent escape'.

Thomas and I continue to perfect the plan while Austin and Erika sleep. By the time we finish it is almost midnight. We agree to go to sleep and inform the others of the plan in the morning. We just hope that we have predicted Master’s actions correctly. I lay my head down on the stiff pillow and brush my hair from my face. I stay awake for about an hour and finally drift to sleep.

The next morning I am the first one awake. I look out at the clock, it reads 8:04 a.m. I wake the others, if we’re going to go through with this plan we’re going to have to start early. I finally wake Thomas before I hear Master calling us to the main room. I drag the others into the room, we meet Master there.

“You are late children. You have delayed my order, for this you will be punished. You come here" He summons Taylor to his side, she looks terrified. Fear was burning from her green eyes, "Follow me" We walk to the west wing of the masion into a large dark room. The walls were lit with small hanging lights. In the middle of the room there was a large tub with a strange cloudy liquid filling it to the top.

Master snapped his fingers and his men appeared from the darkness across the room. They quickly snatch Taylor's hands into a rope and tie her ankles. They wrap a blindfold tightly around her face and carry her slowly toward the tub. She moves quickly, trying to wriggle out of their grasp. They tie a rop to the one around her wrists and lift her a couple feet over the tub. Slowly she is lowered toward the liquid, her feet go in first and her shoes dicinigrate at the touch of the liquid. She begins screaming furiously and her face becomes a beat red color. The skin is quickly buring off her legs and her bone is becoming more visible. She screamed violently and she yanks at the ropes ties around her wrists. Slowly more of her body is being lowered into the tank and the liquid is turning a sickly pink-ish color, bubbling acidicly against Taylor's skin. Soon she is lowered so far in the tank that all but her head is burning in the tank. I wathed her scream and her pfesh burn from her bones. He face turns a sickly pale color and she stops moving. Her head falls and lies limply on her shoulder.

Mast turns to us, "You must start early. I have an announcement, instead of performing your ceremony tomorrow night we will be moving it to tonight. Your next assignment is to go throughout the mansion and clean every room.”

Little does he know, this only perfects our plan. We go through each room and open every rusty vent. We are sure to open the vents in our room last so we don’t risk running into Master or his men. We finally push open the last vent, I look out into the main room and see no sign of Master. We all quickly climb into the vent and crawl silently through the warm steel tubes, stopping at every sudden movement or sound. We finally make it to the roof when I hear Master calling us. It was only a matter of time before he found us missing and sent his men after us. We have to think of a new plan, fast.

“Ok, if we can get over to the school we can get in through the side door there. The Ag teacher always leaves it unlocked. We just have to climb down the tree, get to the fence and across the parking lot to the door.”

We climb down onto the tree hoping it will hold us.

“On three we jump. Ok? One… two… three!”