Welcome to Gaia! ::

How's it going?

*is excited*

!!! random thought: I wonder if Neon is going to come back because it's break?

Chapter 3

Ellen quickly grabbed one of the tall ladders and started climbing it instead of stepping into Neon's hands. As much as she liked Neon and wanted to be with him, she was embarrassed to be close to him like that. She preferred to avoid that situation all together. She climbed up to where the camera was mounted on the wall and started unscrewing the wing nut. It was indeed easy to do, just as Neon said it would be. She got them all removed and held the camera as she made her way back down to Neon.

"Got it?" he called up to her.

"Yes, I have it," she said and handed it to Neon as she turned back to see him. He smiled at her as he took her arm on the last step. The two took it to Rezia in the back room for further examination.

Reiley brought Phoenix to the door that led to the basement. Phoenix unlocked it and opened the door. They saw nothing in the darkness that was beyond the doorway.

"Let's go." Phoenix turned on his headlamp and ventured into the darkness. Reiley turned on her flashlight and ventured in after Phoenix.

"Be careful, the stairs are old and probably really dusty,” Reiley warned. She then halfway missed a step and started falling. Her hand’s grip on the railing slipped a bit and she instinctively grabbed onto Phoenix’s shoulder before she could fall down the stairs.

“Watch it!!” he growled angrily, shrugging off her hand as she got her feet beneath her again. “I can take care of myself and not fall down some lousy stairs,” Phoenix said mockingly.

Reiley ignored him, knowing he was mocking her propensity to trip a lot, especially on stairs. They made the remainder of the trek in silence and soon came to the bottom where the stairs met the cold, concrete floor. It was much colder in the basement than it was up above in the main part of the library. Reiley reached to the wall nearest her and flicked on a light switch that activated a few lights hanging from the ceiling, casting a very small amount of light upon the shelves, books, and visitors.

“So what exactly are we looking for?” Phoenix asked as the two started walking slowly down the main aisle between the books, the rows stretching out on either side of them.

“Something that could have messed with the emergency- EEK!!” Reiley shrieked as a rat ran in front of her. Phoenix swiftly brought his bat down on the rat and killed it.

“You’re loud,” he commented dryly.

She smiled sheepishly at him. “Sorry, I don’t like rats. Thanks for taking care of it though.”

He didn’t acknowledge her thanks and continued walking. “So something that could have messed with the emergency generator?”

“Yes.” They continued walking down the aisle, keeping alert. They made it to the back of the room where the generator was kept. Phoenix started looking around and inspecting it. Reiley wandered down the aisle to her left and started looking at the books. She found a particularly old one that looked interesting. She picked it up and looked at the cover. It was part of series about the history of Aekea. Reiley was an avid reader and loved reading about the history of things that were close and familiar to her, so the history of Aekea was especially important to her. But this volume didn’t look familiar to her.

After skimming the first few pages of the volume, she could tell she had never seen this part of Aekea’s history anywhere. It mostly had to do with the library, which made it her even more curious as to why it was hidden down in the basement. She read further and the text started to get darker. Some of the story started weaving into what had happened today and Reiley wondered how much of the two stories lined up. She kept reading and found that almost all of it matched. It just started mentioning something about a phantom that lived in the library when…

“Whacha got there?” Phoenix asked as he snuck up behind Reiley and poked her in the side, knowing she was ticklish.

She gasped and skittered to the side, away from the poke. “s**t! Don’t scare me like that, Phoenix!!” She liked the feel of him touching her too much and had to control the electricity that seemed to burn where he had touched. She glared at him for a moment before answering his question. “It’s a volume about Aekea’s history, mostly about the library from what I can see. The strange thing is, a lot of the history matches up with what is happening right now with the whole kidnapping thing and power outage thing.”

“Anything in there that can help us out right now?” he asked, oblivious to what he made Reiley feel.

“I was just getting to something interesting. Something about a phantom. His name was Lord William Burwin. Apparently, he liked to kidnap young, orphaned children, but he has only done it twice in the entire history of the library. I guess this could be considered the third. The two other children that we taken were never found.”

“We should show this to the others. Bring it with you,” Phoenix said and grabbed Reiley’s wrist, making sure she didn’t stay behind for some reason or get distracted by other books. He pushed her up the stairs first and she looked at him funny. “I’ll catch you this way if you fall.” Reiley blushed heavily but started up the stairs anyway. At the top, she waited for Phoenix to re-lock the door then led the way back to the back room to show them what she and Phoenix had found.

lol! Thought you'd like that. smile And he was saving Reiley from the rat. Maybe he is alive... Maybe he isn't... We'll see. lol I can't wait to see what you do. biggrin

Chapter 4

Reiley and Phoenix entered the back room where Rezia still was, looking at surveillance footage.

“Where did Ellen and Neon go?” Reiley asked.

“They went back out to see if they could find any other clues as to what happened,” Rezia responded absentmindedly, staring intently at the screen. “You guys find anything in the basement?”

“Yes, we did actually,” Reiley said and opened the book to where she had been reading before. “I found something in an old Aekea history book that focused on the library. Something about a guy named Lord William Burwin who kidnapped two children in the past.”

Reiley looked back down at the book and silently read for a few minutes. Rezia kept looking at the screen and Phoenix tapped his foot on the ground impatiently, not liking the silence.

“Anything else?” he asked after what seemed like an eternity.

“Hang on, I’m reading. I’ll tell you in a second.” She was silent a minute more then started speaking. “He was the first person to run the library when it opened in the ‘30s. Apparently his daughter was taken by the government to be used in some kind of weird experiment thing. It was during one of the few corrupt times in Gaia. Lord Burwin spent his whole life looking for his daughter, but he never found her. He died about 20 years after her disappearance, but they never figured out what he died of.”

“Hmm. That’s interesting,” Rezia speculated. “So he died looking for his daughter. Could the loss of his daughter maybe have made him kidnap other kids to replace his daughter? Especially since he could never find her. He felt like he was being a failure as a father because his daughter was taken, he couldn’t find her, and he couldn’t protect her. So he fulfilled his parenting with kidnapped children.” She sounded like she had walked straight out of the BAU.

Reiley and Phoenix just stared at her.

“What?” she asked, oblivious.

“Criminal Minds addict much?” Reiley teased. "But that sounds like a plausible explanation. While he couldn’t have his daughter, he had other people’s kids.”

“Someone should get Neon and Ellen in here,” Phoenix said and walked out the door to find them.

Reiley sat down and thought while she waited for Phoenix to get back with Ellen and Neon. The three came back together and Reiley relayed all the information from the book and speculations from Rezia.

Fixed! Thanks for pointing that out.

OHH!! Behavioral Analysis Unit! I was wondering what that BAU was.

I'm typing up the next one right now. I'm at 600 words. Gotta keep goin'!