Fern padded through the large ballroom, looking around the empty space nervously as her slapping of her slippers against the polished tile echoed through the room. It was weird enough being in a place this large with Claralell, but being here all alone was…creepy.

She gulped and reached her hand in her pocket to fiddle with the watch. Claralell clearly had the advantage. She had lived here for so long, and it took Fern a few minutes just to get to the ballroom. She looked towards the large, open doors on either side of her. If she remembered correctly, Claralell said that the side to her left lead to a bunch of different rooms while the right was what looked like servant quarters.

Fern couldn’t imagine that the left side would have too many nooks and crannies for her to stuff herself into, so she guessed the right side was the best choice. And at least she’d get to see that side of the castle.

She crossed the large ballroom as quickly as she could and moved through the doors to that wing of the castle. There was a short hallway not unlike everywhere else she’d seen, and past another set of doors was a large library. It, like most of the palace, was opulent and grand. There were lots of dusty tomes on the high marble shelves. Instead of ladders, there was a complicated scaffolding in front of every bookcase to help with reaching the higher shelves. Fern supposed that if the statues in the garden were accurate to the original inhabitants body structures, then ladders would be quite difficult for their goat-like hooves to climb.

Not seeing any obvious place to hide aside from tucking herself behind a tapestry, she went on to the next room. This one was probably an old armory, but it was completely empty. All the racks were cleaned out long ago and the cupboards and cabinets were also bare.

Fern checked the pocket watch and was alarmed to see that her thirty minutes were almost up. She looked around frantically, her head spinning. ‘How She looked around a bit frantically before settling on tucking herself away in one of the many empty cabinets. Claralell was going to find her anyway, so what was the point in freaking out about it?

Fern crouched down and pulled her legs into the surprisingly large space, pulling the door shut behind her. As soon as it slid shut, Fern was swallowed by darkness. Even this small space, which would’ve been filled with dust had it been on Earth, felt eerily clean. Fern could almost swear she could detect the faintest hint of some strange cleaner the original people of the castle had wiped it down with who knows how long ago.

Fern sighed and stretched out her legs, putting her feet up on the other side of the cabinet. There was a loud cracking noise, and then her feet were sticking straight out.

She blinked in the darkness, not able to see what had happened. She sat there for a moment before leaning forward and blindly groping around. Her hands stumbled onto the back of the cabinets, which felt like a very smooth wood rather than stone. She moved her hands together, only for them to fall through into nothing.

She continued to feel around, trying to gauge what this apparent void in front of her was. It seemed to be a hole in the back of the cabinet. It’s edges were sharp and deliberate, clearly built in on purpose. She patted along the bottom of the hole to feel more of that smooth wood and felt it shift under her touch. She groped around and managed to get her hands on…a door? Yes, it was a door of some sort. This panel had been covering up some kind of secret compartment.

Fern grinned. Did Claralell know about this? She’s lived here for centuries, so probably. Was is still her best chance of winning this game? Heck yes.

She carefully started crawling forward into the space, blinking into the darkness with her brow creased. To her surprise, even this small and hidden space seemed to be spick and span. She held up her hand and blindly rubbed her fingers together, finding they lacked the grittiness that dust would leave. Indeed, this secret space was as eerily clean as the rest of the castle.

Fern wasn’t sure if the cleanliness of this place was a result of being on the Moon, of if it was cleaned fairly regularly, but she was willing to bet on the former. She’d only known Claralell for a short while, but the notion that the blonde took the time and energy to clean even the littlest corners of this castle seemed utterly ridiculous.

Speaking of this little corner of the castle, this passage way seemed really long. Fern had been crawling for a good while and had yet to bump into a wall. She stopped, squinting into the darkness. She figured she shouldn’t go any farther. As of now, she could scoot her way out backwards, but she didn’t want to find herself stuck further down the tunnel. So she settled down a bit, green eyes roving around through the empty blackness.

She was tempted to start humming to herself, but she didn’t want to risk the quiet noise echoing back to Claralell’s ears. Speaking of Claralell, how much longer until she comes this way? Fern started fumbling for the watch in her pocket, having to make some very awkward maneuvers in the tight space. She finally managed to get the thing in front of her face when it occurred to her that she couldn’t read the clock in the dark like this. She huffed and clicked the button up top anyway, feeling around the face of the clock. She’d been hoping that she could feel the hands of the clock and guess the time from that, but there was a glass case covering them.

With a slight growl of annoyance, she started trying to stuff the watch back into her pocket. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good hiding place after all. Now she was stuck in the dark and she couldn’t even see if time was up. She would just have to guess and hope that she came out at the right time.

As she deposited the watch into the pocket and tried to withdraw her hand, it caught on the fabric. When she yanked it away, she put far too much force into it and her arm smacked the side of the tunnel hard, sending pins and needles through her entire arm.

Fern cried out in pain and clutched her arm closer, rubbing at her elbow and hissing, “Ahhh friggin’ funny bone!”

She stretched out her arm to try and alleviate the jarring feeling and glared downwards, “Stupid, tiny tunnel….” She gave the floor beneath her a quick smack with her other hand.

That proved to be a very bad idea, because faster than Fern could process, there suddenly wasn’t any ground beneath her. There was a loud thunking sound, like wood hitting stone, and then Fern felt the air ripping at her hair as she flailed helplessly in the dark.

She let out a piercing scream and desperately grappled for something to grab onto. She was in a shaft of some kind, as she could still feel smooth walls all around her. But they were too slick to make a good foothold, and her hands and feet kept skittering off of them as she tried to grab hold.

Fern could feel tears start to rise, her mind too busy thinking of how to survive for her life to flash before her eyes. She swiftly swiped at the tears as something started to enter vision. Light. She could see light coming from below.

Before she could look down to confirm it, the shaft had come to an end and opened up into a much, much larger area.