Chapter 3 - The Treasure Box Below

The next morning I went to the café down the street to eat breakfast with my mother. I'd already told myself that the events of last night were nothing but a dream.
"Mom, I really don't like having all those guys in the house."
"I don't either. Especially with a pretty girl like you around. You should just find a place to stay out of everyone's way."
"That round room is really nice."
"Oh, the atrium? Is that where you always are?"
She brushed the crumbs from her cake donut off her white lab coat.
"It's an atrium?"
"Note all the windows." She smiled.
"Hey, Mom? Can you tell me what's going on with Shinra?"
Her smile quickly faded. Apparently, there was a war inside her mind between her daughter and her job.
"If you promise not to use the information you receive, I'll tell you."
I just waited, since that was a stupid question anyway.
"Well Shinra is expanding. We're looking to erect new headquarters in all the major cities of the world."
"And this is a major city of the world?"
"Well, yes and no. It's not very big. However, it used to be important to Shinra back in the days of the..." She trailed off there.
"Of the what?"
"The.. War," She stated, then reassured herself, "of the war."
I nodded. Couldn't argue with that.
"So that's why Uncle Tseng is in Wutai."
"How do you know that?"
"James told me." Now my mind snapped back to James's body on the balcony and I felt my stomach tighten.
"James is here?" My mother asked.
Suddenly I lurched forward and vomited up all of my breakfast on the café table. Needless to say, we were escorted from the building.
My mom had no idea why I got sick and now she probably thought I was pregnant or something. She sent me to bed when we got home, but I was too afraid to sleep. I was afraid last night too. Afraid of my dad coming back to kill me because he thought that I was the traitor.
Nothing that my mother had said had really explained why Shinra was here. Sometimes I wondered why Shinra even existed. Because everything my parents ever said about it was 'we're here for the good of the world' but they never said exactly what they were doing to help the world.
I sat up and took another drink of bottled water. The water in the mansion was so dirty that it would probably kill me if I drank it. We had to get someone to bring buckets of water from another house if we wanted to take a bath. I wasn't feeling sick, to tell you the truth, it was just the image that flashed into my head was so real. It wasn't a dream I'd had about James and I knew it.
Pulling the thick blue quilt back, I stood up and pulled off my nightgown. Mom made me change into it as soon as we got home. She told me I should sleep until the afternoon, but I think she really wanted an excuse to keep me locked up in my room. After I got dressed, I walked down the hall to the atrium where the morning sun was glaring through the windows. Someone's silhouette was in front of the large bay window.
I shaded my eyes. "Um, who the hell are you?"
The same man I'd run into the day before turned around.
"Well who the hell are you?"
"I asked you first."
"I asked you second."
I stared at him a minute, sizing him up. He seemed older than James was. Maybe the late twenties. He had one hand in his pocket and he was definitely copying my father's stance.
"You're pretty childish for a Shinra man. You know Reno would never say anything like that."
"So? Reno's just a self-absorbed control freak."
"Can I tell him that?"
"No, wait! This place isn't bugged, is it?"
Smirk. "Yeah it is. I'm the bug. I tell my dad everything."
"Really?"
"No. What's your name?"
"Why? What's your name?"
"You're a cocky little bastard."
"My name is Chad."
"Okay cool. Well. Go away."
"Why?"
"Because this is my place."
"But I like the window room."
"It's called an atrium, dumbass." I may have only known that for a number of hours but now it seemed like common knowledge.
"Atrium? Isn't that part of the heart or something?"
We argued about that for a good fifteen minutes and then he had to leave because he was due to meet with my father downstairs. That was a shame, because I was really starting to like Chad. He was as much of a brat as I was. I stared out the bay window for a minute and then went downstairs to the round dining room, and walked out onto its balcony. I looked up, unable to see into the window above. That was a good sign. There was no trace of blood on the balcony at all. This was strange because the wood was so old it would probably be stained by anything. Running my hand along the rod iron guardrail, I wondered about the 'traitor'. What was he doing? Why was he even a threat if Shinra didn't do anything besides 'help the world become a better place'? What was downstairs? That's when I made the decision. I had to find out what was down those stairs. James's death could not be in vain.
It was mid afternoon when I walked into the kitchen, then through to the storage room. I looked around, to make sure no one saw me as I stole an emergency flashlight from the utility closet. With a firm kick, the panel twirled around and gave entrance to the passageway. It was now or never. I flicked the flashlight on and knelt down. After crawling into the tunnel, I pulled the panel shut. A shiver slid down my spine as the tunnel was closed up. I had never been a claustrophobic person until that very moment. The thin yellow beam of the flashlight pierced the blackness about five feet ahead of me. As I reached the staircase, I shone the light down its twisted path. It seemed to be nothing but a corkscrew staircase going straight down into the abyss of hell. But I started down anyway.
"If it gets too bad, I'll just go back up," I told myself.
The wooden plank stairs threatened to break multiple times on the way down as I finally caught a glimpse of the stone hallway below; I put my foot where there should be a step. Apparently, one of the planks had fallen away from its rod iron brace, and I tumbled down the next five until I landed on my behind on the cold stone hallway. At about that time something crawled across my leg. I shone the flashlight and the beam caught two beady red eyes. I screamed, scaring the rat back into a hole between the stones of the wall.
"No more rats and bugs, huh!?"
Grabbing the wall for a brace, I pulled myself up and hit something hard on the wall. Suddenly greenish fluorescent lights dimly illuminated the corridors of the basement. Now I wondered how old the place really was. Maybe it was just supposed to look old. Doors lined the hallway, and I stepped up to the first one I saw. Pushing the weathered oak door open, I saw rows upon rows of bookshelves and long lab tables. What a library. I walked into the dark room cautiously and as I did the fluorescent lights sprung to life. The tabletops were empty, with less dusty shapes on every surface-evidence of what was once there. I walked to the bookshelves, still stocked full of books, and read the binding on one. Scratchy handwriting read 'Jenova Project: Week 22'
"Jenova?"
Something about that name was eerily familiar. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I shouldn't be in this room; I shouldn't be down here at all. I turned quickly and ran out the door. As I did the lights in the library flickered out. I was on my way back to the stairs when I saw a larger door with a single stone step leading up to it. A skeleton key was in the keyhole. I approached the step curiously, and blew some misty cobwebs away from the key and the doorknob. As I turned the key there was a metallic clank and the door opened. Like the last room, the lights turned themselves on when I entered. This room was filled with a bunch of black tables.. or.. something. The center table was very strange. It was nailed together hastily. I walked to it and looked under the ledge.
"Hey, this isn't a table, it's a box! Maybe it's full of..."
I trailed off as I began to imagine the hidden treasure it could behold. It could have been full of anything. I started to pry the top off the box. One nail popped free of the rotting board, then another and another until I started to realize what was so strange about this box. It had a peculiar shape, one I'd seen many times before. Narrow at the bottom, broader at the top. And as long as a man. This was no box either, it was a coffin. The air caught in my throat and I couldn't breathe. As I'd suspected, all of the 'tables' were coffins as well. I backed slowly out the door, picked up the flashlight, and ran back up the spiral staircase. Coffins.

' Who knows what Hojo put down there?!'

My father's voice rang back to me. Apparently something very important. And coffins.. I crawled back into the storage room, donkey-kicked the panel shut behind me, and stood. Then I walked out into the second floor hallway where I bumped into my mother.
"Where have you been?"
"Mom, I have to talk to you."
"What is it?"
"Is Reno around?"
She gave me a look. I knew she hated it when I called him by his name. When she confirmed that we were alone, I told her about the coffins. If I knew then what I knew now I would have never told her, but I did. She stared at me in shock.
"You went.. Downstairs?"
I nodded.
"Did you see anything besides coffins?"
"No, that's all I saw." I didn't feel that the books should be mentioned. At the time, they weren't important to me.
"Well, honey.. Many very old mansions had catacombs. They wanted to keep their deceased family close."
Catacombs. Of course.
"But--"
"Myranda." She cut me off before I could mention the coffin that had been nailed shut, "Don't go snooping around down there anymore. Don't ever go down there again."
"What's so bad about it?"
" I heard that the basement could collapse at any moment, besides rats and dead people carry all kinds of diseases."
I forced a smile. She was right, though. Catacombs made sense. I started on my way up to the atrium when she stopped me again.
"And Myranda? Don't tell your father about anything you saw."
'No problemo. I wouldn't want him to shoot me out on the balcony,' I thought.
Too much was happening that I didn't understand. When I was little, five or six, I thought my parents literally ruled the world, because everyone we ever met treated my father as if he was a god. When I was a preteen, I accepted all the lies my parents ever fed to me. I was more concerned with boys and makeup anyway. Now that I'd seen this house and the way they were acting, I had to wonder.
Absentmindedly I grabbed the elbow of the first suit I saw. He was carrying a stack of papers almost as high as his head.
"Tell someone to run me a bath."
He promised a hasty return with some clean water and I walked into the atrium. I knew it would be a while. Sitting on the edge of the bay window, I stared at the floor under my feet. A shadow was cast suddenly across my dusty boots and I gasped, looking up. It was Chad.
"You're in my seat."
"This is my seat."
"I was there first."
"No you weren't."
"Yes I was!"
"Chad.. I really don't feel like it."
His heavy brows furrowed. "What's your problem?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Same reason you can't tell me."
"Tell you what?"
I canted my head in a challenging manner, "What Shinra is doing."
He hesitated, and his eyes attained an intelligent look. "Oh."
"So you're not going to tell me, then?"
"To tell you the truth I have no idea myself."
He crouched in front of me and looked up. His hair didn't look so stupid anymore, I guess because the ponytail wasn't as high as it was the other day.
I rested my chin in my hands. "Yeah right."
"No, seriously. I'm just a peon. I do what they tell me to and that's all. I have no idea what the big bosses are planning."
He glanced behind him and lowered his voice.
"But I don't think it's going to be for the 'good of the world.'"
"What does Shinra even do? I never hear any explanation other than that."
"I can't really tell ya. The only thing I know is that Shinra doesn't give a flying fuck about the world."
"So then.. What's all this 'expansion' business?"
He gave me an earnest look and stood up. After watching my face for a moment he turned and walked out.
"Yeah, thanks a lot, Chad!" I yelled after him.
The lights downstairs were shut off and the hall light was cut too. A woman in a suit walked into the atrium to turn off the light and looked at me.
"Oh, Miss Myranda. You should be heading to bed now. It's nearly ten."
"I'm waiting on my bath... still."
She nodded and left the light on, but I heard her muttering on her way out.
The house was silent with the exception of a few scuffing footsteps as Shinra men made their way up and down the stairs in the dark. Someone knocked on my bedroom next door and I peeked out of the atrium.
"May I help you?"
"Your bath is full, ma'am."
"Thank you."
I ran to my bedroom and plucked my robe and nightgown off of my bed, pinned my hair up, then dashed across the hall to the bathroom where an iron claw foot bathtub was filled with steaming clear water. Bumping the door shut and hastily stripping my clothes off, I slid into the water and felt my muscles relax in unison. I'd nearly forgotten the luxury of my hot tub back home, but the memory came back and I sighed. I really missed New Midgar. I'd been soaking in the bath for a few minutes when I heard someone sliding around in the hall. I guess they thought they'd be quieter if they slid their feet, but it was much noisier. Shrugging it off as one of the less intelligent members of Shinra, I soaped up a rag and started scrubbing. About fifteen minutes later there was a bellow from down the hall, then a muffled grunt. I sat straight up.
"What are those buffoons doing now," I asked myself with a big of annoyance.
There was stomping up the stairs followed by some more stomping. Then someone was rushing down the hall. To my absolute horror, one of the double doors to the bathroom was pushed open partway. Someone had opened it, but the crack wasn't big enough to see who it was. As I was opening my mouth to shout at this horribly clumsy person, fingers poked through the crack and braced themselves on the oaken door. No, they weren't fingers at all. They were bronzy metal claws tipped in red. Tipped in blood. The light caught someone's eye behind the door. It went wide as it spied me.
I was ready to make all kinds of snide remarks about how stupid the person was, but once I saw that claw, that blood, and that crimson eye I started screaming like a banshee. I stood up in the bathtub and grabbed the first object I saw, flinging it at the door, but by that time the door was already shut and nothing was there. I pulled my mother's hairbrush off a shelf and shoved it through the handles of the double door to brace it shut. As I saw the four crimson stains of where the bloody claws had been, I started screaming again.
"Someone help me, help me!"
There was violent beating on the bathroom door.
"Oh God! Oh God! I'm going to die!"
"Myranda it's me, goddamn it, now open the door!"
My father's gruff voice came from the other side.
I tossed the hairbrush away and opened the door, running into the hallway and dancing anxiously from foot to foot as I screamed my story.
"There was a man but it wasn't a man because there were fingers but they were metal and there was a lot of blood I think he killed someone, Daddy, someone was there!"
My father and the five Shinra security officers behind him stood staring. They all had the same peculiar look of embarrassment and shock on their faces.
"What the hell!? Go look for him!"
My mother appeared on the scene and she gasped.
"Myranda! Put some clothes on!"
The group of men scattered, looking at the ground or scratching their foreheads.
I flushed and slammed the double doors shut
When I'd returned to the hallway the entire mansion was ablaze with fluorescent lights. Every Shinra official in our house seemed to be gathered in the area of the staircase. On the carpet, blood was trailed from the stairs to the bathroom, then down the hall.
I started to the staircase but Chad stopped me.
"It's really nothing you want to see, ma'am."
"What is it? What happened?"
"Seems like someone was killed."
"Who?"
"Ronnie Sparks. Head of the records department."
My father grumbled from behind me. "Damn, now I'm going to have to replace him and our records will be backed up for a week."
He began to walk away and his shoes made a squishy sound as he walked past the stairs.
"Oh and, uh.. Someone clean this up? It's really gross."
I balked at his lack of concern. Chad took my arm.
"Let me walk you to the atrium."
Once we'd settled in the wicker chairs of the room, flooded with ghostly moonlight, The questions began.
"How did he die? What killed him? What did I see?"
"He was stabbed in the back five times. In a really weird pattern. And his throat was really cut up. His face was almost completely gone, really. The only way we identified him was by his ID card."
"What do you mean his face was gone?"
"I don't know. I guess he was stabbed in the face too, but this person must have been really skilled with a knife, because.."
"Five holes?"
"Five major holes, I guess."
"Something opened the door while I was taking a bath. It had claws."
"Claws? Myranda, don't make this situation any worse by adding some sort of supernatural being."
"I'm so fucking serious, Chad. I think it scratched the door if you want proof. There was blood on it."
He just sat in silence for the longest time. Finally he stood and broke the silence.
"If there's anything in this house we're gonna find it, and we're gonna kill it."
"Chad there's.. There's something downstairs. A library. Full of records, and it might give us the answer to what's happening here."
"Downstairs?"
"Yeah. Catacombs.. Or something."
"Oh, no. I'm not checking out any catacombs."
"You don't have to now. Tomorrow. In the morning."
"When it's daylight?"
"Right. Scary things don't happen in the morning."
"Alright, I'll go."
"Until then, you'd better get me a lot of coffee because there's no way in hell I'll fall asleep until that thing is dead."