‘This, this is isn’t right’ thought John to himself as he looked at the pages. He might not know exactly what it was, but the large type face letters on the cover of the sketchbook brought horror to his face. He scanned it meticulously and sure enough it read, “property of Homeland Security.” He groaned, he thought it was over. He thought he had escaped the maze of events but there it was, staring right at him, the book he fought so hard to destroy.

‘A copy?’ He wondered. ‘It has to be, the foreigners book was set aflame off the coast of London. But there it is all the same.’

So John picked the book up and was about to toss it in the already burning fire place when he realized he didn’t know where he was, and that the page next to the coordinates was no longer empty. He didn’t remember anything being there before, but as he looked it changed from the blurry outlines of a paragraph into a well detailed portrait of John’s brother, Samuel Leer, a missing person for 13 months.

Amazed he looked closer, and sure enough it changed again, but instead of becoming another pictures, it just faded into the page.

“Well that can’t be” he said to himself, in almost a mutter sort of way, “It wasn’t supposed to be a magic book… there’s no such thing…”

“Oh, but there is agent Leer” echoed inside his mind, reminding him of the forced surgery and the new micro chip the government had out inside his head.

“At least, I’m inside your head. You see, we can make you see things, bot just view what you see.. recall old memories, and implement them in the world around you.”

John shook, the voice sounded like Aura’s, the person who had double crossed him in the first place.

“You see, once you destroyed the book, we had nothing, well, not until we managed to capture you.” She toyed. “And seeing as you’ve been the only person who can read that very distinct Latin dialect, we recalled the book into your world, too see what you would think as you read it. You thought we needed the book, no we just needed the translation, we’ve had those coordinates for years, we just, didn’t quite know they were coordinates, so thank you, John. You’ve been quite a bit of help.”

—

John looked around again and noticed the light were only dimmed. In fact, everything was dialed down. The colors were washed, and the carp new but frayed. Something was wrong, or already he thought something was wrong. Things seemed just a little… off. He tried the door. Locked. He tried the dresser, only the first drawer opened, and inside, a single note with four numbers: 6780. He didn’t recognize them. He looked around, and saw a book on the shelves. It almost looked like the other other ones, but this one’s binding was just a tad bit glossier. Kind of like matted plastic polyester mix. He’s used one of these before, so he wasn’t shocked when the book had a key hole on the top. Hollow.

“Great.” He thought, ‘they have the location and now I’m stuck in an escape room. Why?’

“Because we don’t want you escaping, at least not yet.” Was the only reply he got from the chip. But after a few hours, he still had no idea.

However, he had managed to find the key, which was inside the alarm clock. The four numbers apparently had to be imputed into it, even though it want an actual time. ‘Maybe a part of a date?’ He wondered? Anyway, the book opened up, in where he found a single diamond ring, but this clue, this clue he recognized. This diamond was red in the middle, set on a simple iron band… his grandmothers ring. Not her wedding ring, but the secret one she told him if as a boy. The ring he was looking for. The ring with the only laser imprinted biometric scan drive ever, and the only way into the grand vault. The vault at South Mc’Asters Bank in New York.

He’d only seen the ring a couple of times as a kid, but it went missing when his grandmother passed away. And that’s when it hit him. They weren’t trying to play with him, or even get the translation of the coordinates, there was something else… something he couldn’t let himself think