22 I'm The Main Character

Seeing that Hermes had exited the room, Roland got off the bed, went onto his knees and poked his head underneath the bed. His eyes landed on the intricately designed book. He stretched his hand to grab hold of the book, but, much to his dismay, it was out of his reach.

Lying flat on his stomach, he propped his upper body on his arms and pulled himself underneath the bed.

Balancing on one arm, he outstretched his other hand and grabbed towards the book, enclosing it in his palm. As he grabbed a hold of it, he lost his balance and hit his chin on the hard surface, biting his tongue.

He hissed.

'Huh?'

In an instant he forgot about the pain he was feeling. He knocked the arm with the book on the floor twice.

'It's hollow'

He tapped another section on the floor.

'Hard. Hm?'

He pushed himself out from under the bed, stood up and straightened himself.

'The entire flooring is concrete yet, there seems to be a wooden panel beneath the bed which is quite odd'

He sat on the bed and pondered a bit.

'Perhaps there's a trapdoor or maybe this room was used as some sort of storage'.

He nodded, slightly satisfied with that theory.

He opened the book but, his mind was not there. All he could think about was the wooden panel.

Realizing that he couldn't get it off his mind, he suddenly recalled seeing an article on why humans are so curious.

"Humans exhibit two basic types of curiosity that show up in different parts of the brain during functional MRI scans.

One type has been dubbed 'perceptual curiosity'. This is what we feel when we see something that surprises or puzzles us or doesn't match up with something we thought we knew. It is felt as a sort of uneasiness, an unpleasant situation, a bit like an itch you need to scratch.

A second kind has been dubbed 'epistemic curiosity'. This is our love of knowledge, our desire to learn new things. Our brain and our mind assigns value to this knowledge, so this is usually experienced as a pleasurable thing, with an anticipation of reward in the form of what we learn.

Very often we are afraid of things we don't know much about or we don't understand, and if we become curious about them and learn more about them, then we are much less afraid"

In the age of Google, humans can satisfy one additional type of curiosity more easily than ever before: 'specific curiosity'.

"Sadly, Google hasn't even been invented yet and can't solve my problem" he mumbled to himself.

He stood up.

'I won't know if I don't take a look'

He tucked the book into his trousers and rolled his sleeves up.

Hunching over, he gripped he base of the bed and pulled.

'Dammit. Why is this thing so damn heavy?'

Exerting more force, he pulled with all his might.

'Ah!' he quickly released his hold on the bed and reflexively, gripped his shoulder.

'I think I pull a muscle'. He massaged his shoulder for a bit and decided to change his tactic.

He placed both hands on the both and pushed. With his right arm sore, his manpower reduced greatly, however, progressed was made. The bed shifted slightly.

After half an hour, he'd gotten the results he wanted.

He stared at the floor and smiled.

'Success'

Without hesitation, he got down on his knees and moved the thin carpeting, revealing the wooden panel. There was a metal ring fastened on it. He gripped it and pulled it, revealing a wooden staircase.

He strained his eyes to see if he could make out anything below, but the lighting was rather poor and he couldn't even make out an outline.

'How can I discover something like this and not take a peak'

He smiled to himself but then it faded.

'Isn't this a death flag? Light skinned character goes into a mysterious area and dies'.

He faked a laugh.

'But then again, I should be fine...right? I mean, I'm the main character and I've got plot armor'.

Without a second thought, he removed the book from his trousers and held onto it with a firm grip and slowly descended the stairs.