Echos of Midnight Secrets

Survival Plan

I squeeze Sarah's hand. More for reassurance than anything.

"OK guys, we need to come up with a plan if we want to get out of this alive," I whisper.

Michael decides that he's going to take the lead. We scan the hallway to be sure no other surprises are waiting for us.

We determine it's all clear, so we start our descent into the darkness unsure of what awaits us next.

I really hope that guy is an off-duty cop and wanted to scare us. This really doesn't make sense seeing as how we are middle-aged adults and not teenagers anymore.

We just knew that we were on a time crunch and that seconds mattered.

As we made our way down the hall in the direction the man went, we were constantly scanning for threats.

He could have double-backed and was just waiting to jump out at us again.

Or God forbid we could run into whatever had been making that scratching because whatever that was, it sounded big. And terrifying.

We finally reached the end of the hall after what felt like forever. All that was there was an old, rusted door. Freedom was on the other side of the door.

Stupidly David tried the door. Of course, it too wouldn't budge.

That sets Michael off, and he starts panicking.

"Oh my God, we're really trapped! We are never getting out!"

Sarah sprung to action to calm him down.

"No, don't say that. Your words carry power. We got this. We just have to work together."

This seems to work to calm him down. We all nod at Sarah. We are determined to get out of this alive.

Then we hear footsteps approaching again.

Now we feel emboldened by Sarah. So, we turn ready to fight.

But it was just a fat rat moving fast. I let out a sigh of relief. It was probably the only time in my life I didn't mind seeing a rat up close.

A rat, I could deal with. I realized that my breathing had gotten sporadic from panicking, so I worked on controlling my breath and soon the others followed suit.

We take a moment to gather ourselves, catch our breath and get our thoughts together.

Time felt like it was running out and no longer on our side. We had to find a way out of here and fast.

We decide to start exploring to see what we can find. Either a way out or a weapon. There had to be other doors. Windows or passages too.

We start looking at the walls for anything we may have missed when Sarah lets out a gasp.

"Look, guys! There's a door over here!" she points but of course, it's dark so we don't see what she sees right away.

Then we spot what she is pointing at. There just behind a pile of boxes and garbage is a small hidden door.

I'm surprised Sarah saw it but I'm glad she did because it very well could be our only hope of getting out of here alive.

We tried in vain to open the door, but it was tightly locked. David suggested that we should attempt to force it open.

I was worried doing so would make too much noise and draw attention back to us. Attention I certainly didn't want.

I knew there had to surely be a key somewhere in the building. It was evident that it had never been cleaned out but instead simply left one day.

We decide to split up and each of us will take a different part of the building to search for the key.