“What now, then?” The young man asked from where he was nursing his ankle on the floor beside Ernesto.

The question hung uncomfortably in the air. With his eyes on the floor as he considered their grim situation, Leo almost failed to see Aya standing to his left with a strained smile on her face.

“Why don’t we start by introducing ourselves?” She said with a cheerfulness that didn’t quite fit the situation. “My name is Schimizo Aya and this here is my husband, Schimizo Kando.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.” He said with a soft bowl of his head while still sitting. “I apologize for not being able to stand and greet you properly. As you can see, I have suffered a minor accident on the way.”

Without missing a beat, Aya gently prodded Leo with her hand. Leo’s confusion only lasted a second as Aya waved to the room.

“Right…” Leo said with a grunt as he stood up. “My name is Leonard Hall, it’s a pleasure to meet all of you.”

‘Why am I doing this?’

Leo couldn’t avoid questioning himself what was the purpose of all this. In the end, it was something that seemed important to Aya and Kando. Doing such a small thing was not a problem with him if it helped the couple feel more comfortable.

“What is the point of this? Who cares-” The middle aged man, Ernesto, started speaking with angry condescension when Cassandra cut him off mid sentence.

“My name is Cassandra. It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.” She said succinctly while pointedly ignoring Ernesto’s dirty look.

“My name-” The young man coughed once to clear his throat. “My name is Anthony, but I go by Tony. It’s a pleasure meeting you. As you can see, I also suffered an accident and I would rather not stand up at the moment.” Tony gestured to his swollen ankle with a demurred smile.

All eyes turned to the middle aged man, Ernesto, as he looked away and refused to introduce himself. Cassandra frowned at his childish refusal, but Aya’s relentless smile seemed to be the reason why the man eventually acquiesced.

“My name is Ernesto Cantera.” He said with a scowl as he crossed his arms. “There you go, happy? Can we now focus on the issue of getting out of this place?”

“Absolutely. Do you have any suggestions?” Cassandra spoke with poorly veiled irritation.

“Aren’t you the one with the ideas? You and him.” Ernesto shot back as he pointed at Leo. “Maybe ask him, he seems to be full of ideas as well.”

Cassandra squinted her eyes at Ernesto who huffed and glared back. Their silent contest was interrupted as Tony intervened with a question.

“What are in those bottles?”

The question piqued Leo’s curiosity. He shuffled a little and reached randomly to one of the colorful plastic containers. As he lifted it off the shelf, the weight, or lack thereof, told him it was probably empty. A quick shake confirmed that it was empty indeed. Leo placed it back on the shelf and started going through all the bottles he could find.

‘Empty, empty, empty, empty… Something in this one!’

One of the bottle’s content sloshed as he pulled it off the shelf. It was clear white, but there were no other markings or writings. Since there was no information on the bottle, Leo couldn’t be sure of how much was the total volume, but that didn’t stop him from taking a guess.

‘I would say the bottle has a gallon when full? So maybe half a gallon of… something’

“I found something. Not sure what it is, nothing written on it.” Leo said as he turned towards the people in the room.

“Can you open it? Maybe you can tell by the smell.” Tony chanced from his side of the room.

“Good idea.” Leo said as he started to unscrew it.

“Wait.” Cassandra interjected. “What if the contents are poisonous or harmful?”

“I hadn’t thought of that…” Leo muttered as he eyed the bottle suspiciously.

“Why would a janitor have a poisonous chemical?” Tony asked aghast.

“This place does look like a janitor’s room.” Cassandra mused as her eyes travelled the room in search of a hint to its secrets. “But how can we be sure?”

“I agree with Cassandra.” Leo said as he placed the bottle back on the shelf.

“Ever since we left the theater I have been feeling like things are… disconnected.” Cassandra spoke mildly, as if unsure of how to express herself.

“What do you mean disconnected?” Tony’s eyes were filled with curiosity as he asked the obvious question.

“It’s just… doesn’t it feel like a setup to you?” Cassandra raised a hand to stop Tony before he asked another obvious question. “Let me finish.”

“Outside, it feels like we are in some sort of post-apocalyptic city. Nature took over, the cars are extremely rusted and everything is old and degraded, but here.” Leo said as he gestured to the room. “Doesn’t it seem like something you would find in a place who had been recently active? The walls are clean, the brooms and the mop are intact, heck, even the lights work!”

“I see what you mean…” Leo muttered as he started wringing his hands. “Now that you said it, there was something that I saw earlier that doesn’t quite make sense to me. Outside, I saw garbage, but there was cardboard around it. Isn’t that paper? Isn’t paper supposed to decompose super fast?”

“Two months.” Tony said. “It takes two months for cardboard to decompose.”

Leo couldn’t help but look funny at Tony, as Cassandra lifted a suspicious eyebrow at him.

“It was on my exam recently…” He muttered.

“Just how old are you, Tony?” Leo asked, but Tony never had a chance to answer as Ernesto interrupted.

“What does it matter if cardboard takes a month or a year to decompose. What does that have to do with the monsters and these tattoos we got?” Ernesto’s voice was loud and grating as usual.

‘Tattoos?’

“What are you talking about? What tattoos?” Leo asked as his curiosity trumped the annoyance he felt at the fat middle aged man.

“This.” Cassandra said as she lifted a bit of her shirt to show her stomach. A small symbol was etched in her skin. It was a fascinating design and it shone with a mesmerizing dark blue hue. “You don’t have it? I assumed everyone did.”

“No…” Leo trailed off as a shiver ran down his back. He was suddenly reminded of the encounter with the dark clad figure in the theater. Something it did back then had made Leo’s arm briefly burn hot, but at the moment he had been paralyzed and couldn’t move to check. He instinctively reached out to his right arm and pulled the sleeves of his suit and shirt underneath.

“What the fuck is this?” Leo muttered as he saw five symbols randomly placed along his forearm. They were small, and just like Cassandra’s, they shone with the same mystical dark blue hue.

“Are these the sigils the figure spoke of?” Leo tried to match the symbols he was looking at in his arm with the ones the figure had shown them, but honestly, he couldn’t remember what they had looked like.

“That’s my assumption.” Cassandra said. “Although I can’t be sure what they mean or do.”

“Body, spirit and soul…” Tony counted on his fingers as he tried to remember.

“Body, resilience, life, soul and will.” Leo said with such certainty that even he was surprised at it.

“What is it then? Some sort of voodoo or black magic?” Ernesto spoke with his usual irritating tone.

“I am not sure it’s something necessarily bad… The figure spoke of blessings, right? Challenge and reward, and about our potential.” Leo’s eyes were distant as he vividly remembered the words the figure spoke.

Another bout of uncomfortable silence befell the room as everyone mulled over their encounter with the figure in the theater.

“I don’t think we will be able to figure out what it all means by sitting here, unless…” Cassandra hesitated for a moment. “Any of you has managed to speak with your guide?”

The room temperature seemed to drop as Leo saw Kando freeze up at the question and Aya squeeze his hand in solidarity.

“No, no such luck for us.” Leo answered succinctly before their discomfort became more obvious.

“I thought so…” Cassandra said with a sigh.

“How long are you kids going to keep dancing around the subject?” Ernesto's voice managed to be even more grating to Leo’s ears as he spoke. “Someone needs to go outside.”

“I assume you are not going to volunteer, again?” Leo asked back without hiding his irritation.

“Why would I when we have one perfectly able candidate right here?” Ernesto said slyly.

“Who would that perfect candidate be, Ernesto? Me?” Leo’s anger made him walk right into the old man’s trap.

“Exactly. You are not as dumb as you look, kid.” Ernesto spoke with arrogance. “You can’t possibly mean to send out an injured elderly man, or an elderly woman. Or would you rather send an injured teenager or a girl while you sit here in safety?”

“Why don't we send you outside, Ernesto? You don’t seem to be injured.” Leo spoke with barely contained disgust.

“Oh, please.” Ernesto dismissed Leo’s suggestion with a disdainful wave of his hand. “I am an overweight old man, while you are an athletic young boy. I am sure that, whatever is waiting for us outside, you are far more capable to handle than me.”

Leo was furious, not only with Ernesto’s blatant disregard for his safety, but how he had let his emotions make him walk right into the older man’s trap. He was, by all accounts, the obvious choice and he knew it. Leo would probably have offered to go outside and find a solution anyway, but the way things stood now, it felt like he was being forced by that infuriating man instead of making the choice himself.

“I will go with him.” Cassandra said. “I am not injured and while I am not a boy, I am athletic and young. We will have better odds if there are two of us working together.”

“What?!” Ernesto stood up awkwardly as he tried to balance his considerable weight on his hands. “You will do no such thing Cassandra! You will stay here, where it’s safe!”

“Oh, please Ernesto. Stop pretending like you care about me.” She dismissed him with an oddly familiar hand gesture.

“What do you mean pretend? Of course I care! You are my-” Ernesto couldn’t finish as Cassandra erupted in anger.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence!” She pointed a finger right at his chest. “Don’t you fucking dare, Ernesto!”

The older man seemed to swallow his words in shock as everyone in the room was surprised by Cassandra’s sudden outburst. She huffed and turned her back to kandoErnesto as she grabbed the two brooms that stood by her left side on a corner.

“Here, catch.” Cassandra said as she tossed one of the brooms to Leo. “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than if we go outside unarmed.” Cassandra spoke as she started to pull off the brooming end of the wooden pole to make it into a staff.

Leo, along with everyone else in the room, just stared at Cassandra with apprehensive looks. If it hadn’t been clear before, it was obvious now that there was some history between her and Ernesto. Leo just couldn’t help but wonder what it was, and more importantly, if it would be a problem later on.

“What are you waiting for?” Cassandra turned to face Leo. “Do you need help with the broom?”

“No, I can do it. It’s fine.” Leo said softly as he did the same as Cassandra and fashioned himself an improvised wooden staff.

As he watched Cassandra give it a couple careful tentative swings in the cramped room, Leo couldn’t help but think how little he really knew of all these people. Despite all that, it still felt like the right thing to go outside and risk his life for not only his benefit, but theirs as well.

A quick glance to Kando and Aya on his left sombered up his thoughts. Aya caught his eye and gave him an encouraging smile, which he promptly offered one back from the corner of his mouth.

“Alright, I am ready.” Leo said with more confidence than he should have had.