Ever since I left Random's, it's been nagging at me in the back of my mind of what she thought as I left. I know we haven't spent much time together, but she had to know Aurora and I were friends as well. It wasn't my fault I couldn't spend much time with her. Or maybe it was, and I just didn't want to be with her. But that didn't make any sense; we've been friends for three years now, almost four. What would possibly compel me to not to want to hang out with her? But it's not like I could just turn around now; I promised I'd help Aurora today and that's what I was going to do. But whenever I do think of time together with Random, I get this knot in my gut from seeing her with Cody the days before. I was kinda stuck with Aurora during that, but it did feel like she was rubbing it in my face for the lack of time together. Now I think she's trying to overcompensate for the loss of time, although it's making me feel like a worse friend... Not being able to be in two places at once and all. I let out a long sigh as rain beats against the wind breaker Random lent me. There really is no middle ground sometimes.

 

Taking the same turn Aurora does when leaving town, I turn around and stare back at the semi-flooded streets, confused looks on the townspeople and the grey clouds finally floating away into the distance just behind me and toward Aurora's. Sometimes it was easy to forget we lived in a small town, most exits leaving town a mere few steps away. And now I knew someone who lived on the outskirts, toward where most of the weather goes as it dissipates. Sighing once more, I turn around and continue walking, side stepping any puddles I come across. I'm always amazed at how long a trek it is for her to walk, the trees looming up along either side of the road, the eerie lack of homes as nothing but the greenery of the leaves show as far as the eye can see. Just then another sudden pang hits my gut and I feel sorry for her, living out here by herself and I can almost understand her hatred toward Random, living within the town, favoured by everyone. It's the same feeling I had when I met Dizzy... I turn around and face toward the junk yard and pray that she's okay. I promised I'd be back, and somehow I knew I would be.

 

When I finally reach Aurora's fence gate, the rain had all but stopped, nothing but grey clouds left in its wake casting gloom over everything. When I looked backed down toward the house, I saw Aurora's butler, Geoffrey, standing on the porch, probably watching me as I undid the rusted silver latch on the gate and swung it open. As I turned around to close however, he was already at my side, offering to do it as well as take my jacket, a smile stamped on his face the entire time. For someone old though, he moves pretty fast. I agreed to hand him my coat without hesitation; he's always been nice to me when I've come over. But it does get me thinking to how he looked when Random and I followed Aurora home the one day and how he tried to greet Aurora but was completely shut out. It must have hurt him, but I've never had the courage to ask him. I didn't notice it immediately, but somehow my hand had found its way to just over my heart, unable to help but feel the pain he must have felt.

 

“Thanks Geoffrey,” I tell him, apologizing for how wet it is, but he didn't seem bothered in the slightest.

 

“Not at all, Miss Vanswell. Are you here to visit Miss Crystalere?” he asks, a curious glint in his eyes.

 

“Yeah, just for an hour or two. She didn't need much help thankfully, as the storm kept me kind of on lock down.” I point toward the sky to indicate the storm that just travelled through. He doesn't question me much further then as a smile spreads across his face before he gestures me past the fountain and then quickly beckons me into the house.

 

I'll never forget the first time I entered her home, the walls lined with paintings of plants and flowers. I ran my hand along one of the frames, remembering when I first saw them and thought Aurora may have had a soft side to her related to plants. That is until I saw her living room, dining area and kitchen and realized that there are no plants anywhere else is the house. Not that I've been much further than her basement-which definitely couldn't shelter plants of any kind, with all the technology she had down there-let alone her bedroom. But for all I knew, she could have had them in there, cut off from everyone in her social life for reasons unbeknownst to me.

 

“What do these signify?” I whisper to myself, trying to think why she'd have them. Maybe from her parents? Or a part of her from when she was a child that she hasn't let go of yet, or maybe won't let go?

 

Tossing the question aside for now, I continued down the red carpeted hallway and through the swinging door to the kitchen. When I entered, the chefs were working devotedly to the dishes in front of them with such vehemence, not even bothering to bat even an eyelash in my direction. It's almost kind of funny; when I first came here they all looked at me with such superiority, like I was an uninvited guest to the house of some big shot. But since I've been here so often they don't even bother to glance my way or greet me, too wrapped up in what they're doing. What had everyone here so stuffy and cold? Geoffrey is the only one who wears a welcoming smile, while Aurora and everyone who works for her act like this is hell on earth. It makes no sense, and I don't bother to question it anymore before a blast of cold air runs over my skin, causing me to shiver. I've been down here so many times yet I'm still not used to the chill that escapes it or the darkness that engulfs it.

 

Out of instinct I search for a banister or light switch, but my hands fumble and find nothing but wall instead. “She doesn't have a banister leading down to the basement,” I chide myself, feeling foolish for trying. I made the same mistake the first time I came here, but at that time I didn't know. No light switch or lights in general, no railing to hang onto. Only the cold, stone walls are my guide down the spiral descent.

 

“I always thought it would get brighter earlier then this, but I guess no...eep!” I shrill, grabbing on to the edge of the indent of the wall that appears every 10 steps or so to keep from tumbling down the stairs. “Do they have to be so narrow... hm?” A voice down the stairs stops me from questioning it any further and I steady myself in the small indent, straining my ears to listen to the voices be spoken further down. I'm barely able to make out what's being said.

 

“Abouta time you sped this up.”

 

That voice...is he back? What's his connection to Aurora?

 

“I told you it'd be up and running soon, didn't you check earlier today?” another voice snaps back; Aurora. What does she mean by earlier today? The storm? “I need more time to perfect it before I can-”

 

“I don'ta need excuses, little girl.” He cuts in. “My bossa wants it perfected ona time.”

 

Silence picks up soon after he finishes. I count the seconds as they pass by before I decide to keep making my descent. But from the sound of this guy, if he intimidates Aurora, I don't think I'd want to meet him. Aurora's intimidating enough. But my decision is soon made for me as his footsteps begin to echo up the stairs, causing my heart to pick up in speed and that hairs on my to stand on end. It's like the first time I came here, hiding in the shadows and waiting for him to pass by me. The same clicking sound reverberates off of the walls and stairs as he passes by me, unable to see me as the darkness hinders both our visions. I've never seen what he looks like, and I don't think I'd want to. Even now I question how he finds his way around, sounding older than most men I've heard he must have a horrible vision to equal that with age and everything else. Once he passes though I just shrug and continue on down, making sure he's completely gone.

 

As I continue down I make sure I'm twice as careful; even though I've been here a few times before now, it still feels ominous and like something out of a sci-fi, what with the same eerie glow that begins to show the closer I make it to the bottom and taps from a keyboard, signifying work being done by all of Aurora's scientist. Crackling electricity let's me know that that strange orb is probably still down there as well, rotating clockwise as the lighting jumps from point to point. I still don't understand the purpose of it, but I'm beginning to put together the pieces I think.

 

“Damn it!” a voice and loud slam cuts through the typing and electricity from the opposite side of the room as I finish my descent, momentarily causing everyone around her to stop what they're doing. My eyes slowly look for the source as I head around the center sphere before landing on Aurora, who's just finishing wiping her eyes, like she'd been crying.

 

“Aurora?” I say tentatively, not wanting her to lash out at me. Most people do after someone belittles them, but not because they want to. “Are you okay?” I ask, casting a glance back over my shoulder toward the stairs, like maybe I should make a break for it while I still can. But she doesn't seem to notice or catch on to me having overheard the conversation or the question I asked her before she hands me a stack of papers. “Can you handle those?” she asks me after I take them, pain and sorrow echoing from her voice. She's clearly upset by what he said, but I don't know what I would say in this situation, since she doesn't know I know about their past conversations. “And I'm fine,” she finally answers, surprising me a little as she opens a panel on the side of the flat sphere beneath the hovering orb. I'm always surprised at how deft she is when handling machinery, much like Random. From the time I've spent here watching her in-between sorting through her papers, I've noticed she rarely takes her attention away from what she's doing.

 

“What?” she snaps, stopping long enough to turn around and look at me, having not moved that far from my original spot. I don't know why, but standing there staring eye to eye like this made me nervous, and caused my stomach to churn. I'm usually never nervous around people; I've never been my whole life. I'm the one who walks up to a complete stranger and asks how their days been. But Aurora just had this ability to shatter the walls that surround my deeper thoughts-ones I didn't even know existed-and leaves nothing left but the real me as neither of us let up from our staring match. During it, I wanted to ask her who the man was, why he kept threatening her, what the giant, floating sphere does, but any sound I tried to make came out as nothing more than air as I opened and closed my mouth.

 

“If you want to say something, then say it!” she barks at me, clearly taking her anger out on me. I could even see she was trying to fight back tears. But why? Was she afraid of scaring off the last person she could talk to, or that would talk to her without judging her or seeing her as just some genius? And yet all I could see when I looked at the sadness in her eyes, and not just from today, but stretching years back, was disappointment after disappointment. Like everything she'd ever done was never good enough, and no matter how hard she pushed herself no one saw her as more than average. I've seen it before, but never really second guessed it until now. After all, I can relate; my parents have had expectations for me all my life-at least my dad-and I've disappointed him plenty of times. But now that I know she shares this softer side of her, not verbally anyway, I can't help but feel I should ask. Feel like I should pull out the crowbar and pry into her life to help her any way I can.

 

“Cocoa?” she says tentatively to me, the emotional wall around her slowing dropping as she softens toward me, probably feeling a little afraid of how distant I'm acting, of how quiet I am when I'm normally not. Maybe she feels the same way and just can't express it or doesn't know how. Finally not wanting to push the thought aside anymore, I swallow and clear my throat before asking, “What's really going on, Aurora? Who is he and why does he boss you around like that? Who's he working for? What are you working on for him?” There, the words are out and there's no taking them back. I just take a deep breath and prepare for whatever retort she plans to throw my way. I almost wish I could take back what I said, almost, but I just couldn't let it build up inside me anymore. But instead of retorting vocally, she walks over toward me and a loud smack of skin on skin resonates between us. I slowly raise my hand to the side of my face, now turned to the side from her slap, and feel the sting of where her hand hit. It happened so quickly I couldn't react, didn't even see it coming. I'm about to turn and yell at her before I hear her sniffling and then see tears dripping down the sides of her cheeks, each tear making a soft splash as they hit the floor around her feet. She was crying. Suddenly I feel like the bad cop.

 

“His name is Antonio,” she let's out between sobs. “His boss paid me hundreds of thousands to develop that.” Without turning she points toward the floating orb in the center. “It alone is nothing special; it just concentrates the energy inside and utilizes what was otherwise lost.”

 

Without another word she walks over toward the floating orb and opens the same panel on the flat sphere just below it after inputting a code to take out a faint, rainbow like glowing rock.

 

“This,” she starts, turning to face me, “is the real object of interest. It's known as Litolemite.” As she finishes her sentence, the rock turns black and blows a way in a puff of ash. “Damn it!” she screams, slamming the panel shut, causing the code to reset. I raise my arm toward her while keeping the other just over my chest to try and console her, but she just slaps it away. I've never seen her this cold before, didn't think she could be. But I guess there's sides of her I don't know about.

 

“So what does the Litolemite do?” I ask, hoping to calm her down, wrapping my arms around myself almost like a shield.

 

“If I had more of it, I'd show you. You can leave now, Cocoa; I'm done for the day.” She then turns around and begins to ascend the stairs, not once turning back to see if I listened to her or not. But even from here I could tell she was hurt, a whole lot more than I had first thought. Who ever is making her do this, they've been at it for far longer than she's let on, and I'm going to help her through this whether she wants my help or not.