16 A Narrow Path

"I got it!"

Nigel's excited shout had attracted the attention of Shyla, who immediately went in front of him with an impatient look. Seeing like in that state, Nigel wanted to tease her however he also realized the seriousness in her eyes. He will be beaten black and blue if he doesn't answer her now.

"Tell me what you got!? Did you find the key!?"

Nigel was about to open his mouth when Shyla bombarded him with a lot of questions. This caused him to swallow back his words. However, he mustered his mouth to speak once again.

"There was something that had always bothered me inside this room. With such a huge space available here for storage, how come Dr. Perchard only made bookshelves on the edges of it. Usually, people who tend to collect books try to use as much space as possible when filling up their library. I've seen libraries with walkways that can only occupy one person. It was narrow, so narrow in fact that many commented that only a child can safely pass by it. However, this was completely opposite here. Then, the logical conclusion would be that space here has some usage."

Nigel began to walk towards the table with a calm demeanor. He stopped when he was a few centimeters away from it, then turned around to face Shyla. He was gesturing her to move closer to him, with his hand index and middle finger moving forward and backward.

Although she was unsure as to why she was being called by Nigel, she obediently obeyed his beckoning. When she was beside him, he walked around the table arriving at the back of it. He pointed at the middle drawer of the table using his index finger.

"Another peculiarity that I noticed is this drawer, specifically the drawer's knob. It had a different color from the rest. It was painted black, while the rest maintained their wooden color. Was it a mistake of the maker of the table? I don't think so. In fact, I believe that the original color of the knob upon factory release is the same as the knobs in the top and bottom drawer."

Hearing his explanation, Shyla immediately went around the table and reached her hand towards the knob only to be flick away by Nigel. She growled at him for flicking her hand away, but he only stared at her while sighing. She didn't give up though, as she swiftly went around Nigel and tapped the knob of the middle drawer.

Suddenly, a loud sound roared in the middle of the room, startling the life out of Nigel and Shyla. However, the sound did not last for a long time, only a couple of seconds. The loud noise attracted the attention of the people guarding the research room at the top. They immediately tasked someone to check the room and the condition of Nigel and Shyla, only to find that the door going to the research vanished. It was replaced by a statue of the "First One". Uncle Ben was shocked to hear the reports of his mean, as he immediately informed the University about the incident.

Police sirens began to ring in the entire campus, as multiple cars and personnel began to arrive inside the university. A police line was created around the library, preventing anyone to cross it. Ian, who happened to be passed by the "crime scene", went towards it and asked a random student about the entire ordeal.

The student merely shrugged his shoulders as he was also not aware of the situation or the cause of the police blockade. Ian's phone began to vibrate just as soon as he was about to leave from the venue. When he looked upon who was calling him, it was actually Rena. He answered the call while moving out of the crowd and looking for a quieter space.

"Hey Rena, why did you call-"

"Ian! Can you go immediately to the library!?"

Ian was shocked to hear Rena's hysteric shout from his smartphone. At that moment, he felt a wary dread in his heart but quite unsure as for why it was. Still, he answered Rena as calm as he could be.

"I'm already in front of it. Why?"

"Nigel and Shyla were both scheduled to visit the research room today! I don't know the details but it sounded like Shyla needed something there and she asked Nigel to help her. I've been trying to ring the phones of those two, but I did not get any callback. Can you check I he is still there!?"

After Rena said her first sentence, Ian immediately sprinted towards the library, not caring about the people that he bumped on his way. In fact, he didn't even care about Rena's following sentences. What he does know was that his best friend could be in danger right now. This was his only thought was moving towards the police line.

…

While the surface going wild with heavy disturbance, Nigel and Shyla were perfectly calm but slightly bewildered. After Shyla tapped the knob, the whole place began to move. The walls, with the bookshelves attached to it, began to move around replacing the wall in their right. The wall with the door, however, did not move in the slightest but there was a wall blocking it from the outside, preventing the both of them from leaving.

Shyla released her hand from the knob, stopping the walls from moving to the right. However, this also caused the walls to move towards the center. The walls were not moving as fast as they do when they were moving to the right, but nonetheless, it is moving towards them.

"That's why I blocked you from touching it."

"Bu-but you did not say anything! And when I opened the middle drawer earlier, it did nothing!"

"Hey, just what in the world are you trying to find here, to the extent that it caused you to be this anxious and frustrated?"

"…"

"Silence will not do any good in our situation. Better tell it now while we still have time before these walls crush us."

"…I'm sorry for involving you with this."

She looked at Nigel, only to find him staring at her. She understood what Nigel was implying with his stare. He wants the truth. She sighed in helplessness as she told Nigel what the ordeal was. Nigel was beside her, with his ears attentive to any sound coming out of her mouth.

"I have a mental illness, called 'conversion disorder'. It causes me to sometimes be in a coma for a month or two. The usual would be to make me be inattentive and unresponsive to my environment. It had caused me so much suffering in my life. I almost got ran over by a truck when I was in high school. I got bullied a lot by my classmates in elementary and they frequently do that since I don't fight back. I was physically bullied by my female classmate too because I was unresponsive. You know the worst thing about it? While I don't feel any pain on my unresponsive mode, once I regain my sanity all of the pain instantly rushes to my system like a broken dam. It hurts like hell. I just wished it to end. I heard that Dr. Perchard has a relic in him that heals the person who is holding on to it. I don't care if it's a lie or not. I will try anything, even if it's paranormal, as long as they can help me with my problem!!"

She began to weep heavily in front of Nigel, sitting down on the floor. Nigel was there standing silently. He began to remember the first time that he encountered Shyla. She was unresponsive to any outside stimuli. Anyone can do anything to her if she was in that state. Nigel tried imagining himself if he had that mental illness with him. He quickly realized that even a normal day would always make her nervous and scared.

'Is this the reason why she keeps on wearing that stoic face of hers?' Nigel asked himself a question that only Shyla can answer. He also realized that this girl had been fighting intensely for herself. Their date the other week must have been scary to her. Imagine losing yourself while in the middle of a date with a man you barely knew. 'Goes to show her seriousness in believing this relic story crap.' Nigel commented inside his head, while still understanding that if he was in her position, he'd be trying out anything too.

Suddenly, the menu appeared out of thin air with a new message in its window.

'CASE CLOSED. Mystery: Shyla's Secret Treasure. Rank: E. Reward: 50 HINT XP and 1 SKILL POINT'

While it was ironic to get it from knowing a tragic story of a person, a joyful surprised sprang out inside him after seeing the notification. All of his effort of cornering Shyla into telling him about her secret had all come into fruition.

He knew that if he were to create a life and death situation, he could try to pry it out of her. He even made use of her current flustered mentality. He also noted before executing his plans that there was no need to pursue the item itself. He hypothesized that just by knowing the information and detail about the mystery factor in the case is enough to satisfy the hint system.

Nigel was losing his cool as he truly wanted to check his main menu, but for now, he also knew that he had more important stuff to do. He went and crouched in front of the weeping Shyla. He took a handkerchief out of his bag and proceeded to wipe the tears in her eyes.

"Now, now. Don't cry. Will find that relic of whatever, okay? I'm sorry causing you to dig out your past. I'm here to help you, right? So c'mon and stand up. We will find it."

'Even if I had to use a hint point.' Nigel noted while still crouching in front of Shyla.

"But it over now for us. The walls are slowly coming towards us and even if we stand on the area of the unmoving wall, we would still be grasping for air and the same is true even with us trying to keep on tapping this knob. …I'm sorry for dragging you into this. Maybe this was my karma at the end."

"Silly girl. Why are you giving up now? Didn't I say that I got it? It didn't just mean the knob, you know."

Hearing Nigel's reply to her, she quickly lifted her head and stared on to Nigel's eyes in a straight face. She was looking to see if he was lying in order to slightly alleviate the situation where they are currently in. However, what she saw in her eyes where nothing but pure confidence. It was the eyes of someone who truly knows what they are talking about.

When he saw Shyla was looking at him eye-to-eye, he flashed her a confident smile and began to continue his explanation from the last point that he told her.

"First, let me answer your question. Why did the walls start to activate now, when earlier you touched the knob but nothing happened. The answer to that is simple: I activated the device that enables input from the knob."

Hearing his revelation, Shyla was astonished on the discovery that it was him that made the knob functional. However, she was quite unsure as to when he did this. After all, she was with him the entire time.

"So how did I activate this trigger for the wall's movement? Simple, really. All I did is follow the correct steps, literally. You saw me walking towards the table earlier, right? That's all one need to activate it. Walk towards it. However, one must carefully follow and step on the correct path, especially since the path is narrow."