Magic Lab

“There’s no way that magic is real, right?” Chris said as he pressed the button to go to the fifth floor. The elevator began its ascent. “Grace, don’t you know the most about this kind of stuff? What can we expect?”

“Hey, just because I’m a Green Witch doesn’t mean that I know everything about everything, alright?” Grace said as she looked up from her phone, a little annoyed.at Chris’ assumption about her.

“Easy, I didn’t mean any kind of harm or what have you,” Chris said as he moved closer to Grace’s side. He put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Well, I guess your apology is accepted,” Grace said as she went back to her phone game.

Emma chuckled as she put her arm around Thomas and leaned in to whisper to his ear. “You think that the two of them are gonna hook up?”

“Oh please, I’d be surprised if they weren’t already,” Thomas whispered back as he looked at the two of them. “I just hope that if they do, she treats him right.”

“Oh relax,” Emma said as she playfully jabbed Thomas in the side. “I know you’re still protective about how things ended between the two of you.”

“Hey, don’t make light of the Summer of ‘18. It was a magical time, but we both know how much of a mistake it was. We’ve moved past it.” Thomas looked off into the distance, his mind focused on a far off time that lingered in his mind. Emma just smiled at him, wondering to herself what had happened between him and Chris.

Then, the elevator reached its destination. The doors opened up and everyone was greeted with a large set of doors with strange symbols on them. The walls were pale white, but the lights above shone down with colored tint, bathing everything in a purple hue.

Chris was the first one to step off. “Well, uh, we’re here.” He turned his attention to the strange doors.

Emma came out next. “Well, we aren’t going to figure out what’s inside by standing out here. Let’s go explore!”

“I dunno,” Grace said as she put away her phone, “I’m getting some bad vibes from here.”

“Yeah Chris, bad vibes all over,” Thomas said. As he stepped off the elevator, the doors shut and they all heard the elevator move to a different floor. He tried to press the button to call the elevator, but nothing happened. He tried to pry the doors opened, but they wouldn’t budge. “Shit. Looks like we’re stuck here.”

“There have to be stairs somewhere, right?” Emma said as she approached the door with symbols. “Let’s check this place out.” With that, she threw the doors open.

Inside were tables and cabinets, all of which had various trinkets and trinkets that none of them understood. Posters were hung up on the walls depicting different beings surrounded by symbols and pictures. The four of them split up to search the room.

Thomas walked over to a table that had several necklaces in cases. They appeared to be made of finely woven leather with crystals of different colors wrapped in metal wire. There were four necklaces; one blue, one green, one red, and one yellow. Each of the cases had labels, but they were written in Latin, so he had no idea what any of them said. He tried to look around for anything that said what they did, but nothing. He also didn’t find any stairs.

Chris looked on the shelves at the different vials and bottles that had been stockpiled, searching for a hidden switch that would reveal the stairs, but no luck. However, he did notice a cabinet that had caught his eye. It was a green wooden cabinet with a large pane of glass in the front. Inside it were opaque jars that were unlabelled, but there was a sign on the cabinet door. “GHOST IN A JAR.”

Emma looked around for any doors, but found herself walking over to a glass display case that held a large doll inside. The doll didn’t have any features other than two button eyes, two arms, and two legs. It was roughly about the size of a decent sized flashlight. There had been a label on the case, but most of it had been worn off. All that she could read on it was “...DOO DOL…”

Finally, Grace searched along the walls, hoping that there was some sort of hidden passageway or covered up entrance to a staircase. To her dismay, she didn’t find anything. What she did find was a large circle with candles and bizarre symbols written on the ground. She had come across stuff like this before in her studies as a Green Witch. This was a summoning circle.

The four of them reconvened in the center of the room.

“Any luck?” Thomas asked, looking at his friends.

“No exits, but I did find something kinda cool,” Emma said as she pointed over to the direction of the doll.

“Hey, I found something interesting too,” Chris said as he gestured over towards the jars.

“I guess we all found something, huh?” Grace shrugged as she looked at everyone. “Well, maybe something we found could get us out? At the very least, it could be some fun.”

“Well, we found a lot,” Emma said as she smiled widely.