***

All of a sudden, Emma ran to a clearing behind some nearby trees. Thoma, Lani, and Alex gave her looks of confusion. What was she doing? She looked really panicked. Did she see something that they needed to be worried about? The orange-haired girl stopped between some trees and her expression turned into a puzzled one. Thoma and Lani called out to her, trying to get her attention. It was like Emma hadn't even heard them. Alex continued to watch the girl with a worried look on her face, "You okay, Emma?"

"Yeah." Emma nodded slowly. It was like she didn't even believe her answer. Alex knew that she would have to ask her about what happened later. Emma walked back to the others as she took one more look around.

Two of the kids, Alicia and Yvette, were looking down at the cave that they had just crawled out of. It was a long way down so they better avoid accidentally falling down into it. It could result in a nasty injury, or worse, death. "I see... These roots don't do too well with the cold!" Alicia commented.

"So that's why they stopped moving," Yvette said in realization.

"It is pretty cold up here!" Mark was shivering from the cold.

"Yeah..," Rossi agreed, "It's even colder than the area we were in when we first fell in!"

"It's good that we have these winter clothes. We probably would have frozen to death without them." Alex stated. It was good that they were able to prepare for as long as they did. It would have been incredibly difficult to get everything they needed in a short time span. They probably would have forgotten things if they had started any later than they did.

Dominic brought up his scarf to his face to block the cold from hitting him, "Why is the temperature so different even though we're in the same forest?" He started to look around for the source of what could be causing the cold weather.

"Who knows?" Anna inquired. She looked around at the trees that stood tall. "Maybe it's because the sunlight gets blocked by the trees here." There was barely any sunlight coming through the trees like she had said. It was being blocked by the leaves which was why it was so unbearably cold where they were. It would get warmer if they moved into an area with fewer leaves.

"Still, it's really friggin' cold!" Dominic complained. Alex nodded and hugged herself. He was right there. She just hoped that they would get someplace warmer soon.

"So..," Gilda adjusted her scarf, "As long as it stays this cold, does it mean that we won't have to be afraid of being attacked by those roots again?"

"Probably." Emma stopped beside her.

"Damn! Thank goodness it's winter right now! Or else we would've been in big trouble." Don said. Alex couldn't agree more. The cold air was what made the roots give in and made their escape. If it was warm then they probably would have died in there.

Nat, who was looking through a book he had, spoke up, "Still..," He showed the page to Don, "According to this, it seems like the ground doesn't cave in in the first place unless it's winter. It says that 'the Alvar Pinera is a legendary cave one can only enter during the winter season' in this book."

The book was taken from him by Don. Don was reading the page that was shown to him. Gilda placed a hand on Don's shoulder who was eagerly reading, "If only it weren't winter, huh?" You could tell that she was looking on the bright side of things, but the pained smile on her face showed how worried she actually was.

"We would've been dead," Alex said bluntly. She shivered at the thought of dying in that place. It was pretty before they saw the carcasses on the ceiling. "At least we know that this book is going to help us though."

Emma smiled with a nod, "This 'outside world' is full of unknowns! And the words of this book have meaning!" Ever since they had found out about what the book actually was, the world seemed a little bit brighter. There was a little more hope that they could hold onto for a while. It made the situation they were stuck in a whole lot better.

"So it's our guidebook, huh..." Don trailed off.

"Yep!" Alex exclaimed, "Anything that we need to know is in the book. We'll know how to deal with any dangers that will come our way and maybe even weakness for our enemies. Also..."

"Emma! Alex! Here it is!" Ray cut the girl off before she could say anything else. Everyone turned to him with confused looks. He found something, but what was it? "This is what we've been looking for!!" They all decided to walk over to him and see what he was talking about. The sight that Alex was met with was strange plants.

"Uh... What is this?" Nat asked.

"Water!" Ray replied. Alex moved her gaze from the plants to Ray. The surprise in her, and everyone else's, eyes was very apparent. Some questioned what he meant by water. "They're mentioned in the book. Anemones that store pure water."

"Anemones?!" Don questioned.

"Watch," Ray said. He held a jar under one of the plants and cut it with a knife. What came spilling out was clear and clean water. It fell into the empty jar and Alex could feel a bright smile stretch across her face. Everything was working out in their favor which made her want to jump for joy. The others watched with shock. Dominic, who stood beside Alex, made a noise of surprise. "These things obviously aren't real anemones. But if we keep following what the book said, this water should be drinkable. We won't have to go all the way to the river each time to get water. Food and water are the two most important parts of our blind adventure. We can't even tell what is edible and what isn't. So I'm quite thankful that we at least have something to base our decisions off of."

"Good eye, Ray!" Alex told him. Don closed the book in his hands and studied William Minerva's mark. They were all incredibly indebted to the man. He had been helping them so much without even being here. His books gave them clues that they needed to survive in this world. If Alex ever met him then she would love to thank him for all he's done for them.

"This world really is full of scary things..," Emma gestured to the roots. "But at least we won't be flailing around in the dark. Don't worry," She grinned, "We all aren't done. We've got each other. We've got an ally. Let's all go see Mr. Minerva! Let's all survive. Let's do our best to get out of here! All right, just a bit more! Okay, let's do our best, guys! It's time to go!"

The kids ran over to Emma and hugged her with expressions of happiness on their faces. How Alex wished this moment could last forever... But sadly they had to keep moving. So they went right back to walking. It was pretty boring so Alex was hoping to finally get to their destination. She grabbed the pen out of her pocket and fiddled with it. This would be a lot more fun if Norman was here. He would've struck up a conversation that would've lasted until they got to their destination.

The sound of Don asking Emma a question caught Alex's attention, but she ignored it. She opened the pen to see where they were. They were at the point, 'B00-15' now. A sudden voice from beside her made the girl jump, "I see," Alex turned her head to see Ray. "So that code represents our current location, huh?" He pointed at the code, "Both 'B06-32' and 'B00-15' show us where we are... In other words, they're kind of like coordinates. The numbers must be some indication of the direction we're headed in... Wait... But if we were 'northeast' when we first left the house... And now we're headed 'south...' Right now, we're at area B06-32... In other words, we're headed south within the eastern portion of the plan this thing is based off."

Emma had joined them and she jumped back in surprise when she heard Ray say this, "You're freaky! How could you figure it out so f- Oh, my God! You're right!"

"He's Ray, are we really surprised?" Alex questioned. Ray always was one of the smartest out of them. If anyone could have figured it out then it was him. He would've figured it out faster than she or Emma would.

"I mean, it's pretty simple if you think about it," Ray commented.

"Back at the house while I was looking at the projection, it only said 00-00. There was no letter, only those numbers." Alex broke up their conversation to say. It had bugged her when she first saw it seeing as she had no idea what it meant then.

"I see. So right now, we're basically directly east of the house. And since it was B01-14 before, we must've gone back a little north since then. So... How did you figure out that this was our location?" Ray directed the question at Alex, "How did you even figure out that Mr. Minerva is at area B06-32?"

There was a moment of silence. Alex handed the pen to Ray and he took it. Alex started to explain, "In the letter that Norman left behind, he said that we would be able to figure it out of we looked at the pen. If we weren't able to then he knew that you would be able to understand it."

Ray looked at her with a smirk, "Which means you couldn't figure it out, huh?"

"I actually could, for your information," Alex crossed her arms with a glare. The glare dropped when she went back to her explanation, "I didn't get too far though," Ray pressed the owl on the projection. He had done the exact same thing that Alex had tried. "I was only ever able to get up to that screen. I was stuck after that."

"I suppose you are pretty bad at this kind of stuff," Ray said. Before Alex could make a snarky remark, Ray yelled loudly, "Oh! Wait, I get it!" It was like he had been upside the head with an idea.

"You really did?!" Emma walked closer to him.

"Guys, the other book out of the two that stood out... The one with no morse code on the logo," Ray started. Alex nodded and motioned for him to go on. What kind of breakthrough did he have? "That book is our key to this pen."

"Our key?" Emma asked.

"That's right. Look," Ray pointed to the owl, "You can see the same 'morse-less logo' here, right?" He held the book in his free hand, "In other words, we need to use this book to find the passwords for this pen. The 3-18-02 is a code. We'll be led to the next panel if we enter the correct password. So for this, if we look at page thirteen, line eighteen, word two..," He flipped through the pages and scanned the passages until he found it, "'Human," Ray typed the word into the bar and a message popped up not long after. Ray read it out loud, "'Come to me if you need help. I am waiting in area B06-32. William Minerva.'"

"A message from William Minerva!" Alex grinned, "Now we know that he was actually a real person."

Ray smiled, "Norman must've seen this. And so for the next password..," He went to type in the next word, "Rinse and repeat-" The dark-haired boy stopped and closed the pen when they heard something. The three of them jumped to attention, looking around at their surroundings for the source of the sound.

"Hey, Ray..." Emma trailed off.

"You guys feel it too then?" Alex inquired. There was something heavy heading this way.

"Yeah... Something's coming." Ray agreed. This was the point in time that everyone else was starting to hear whatever was coming for them.

"No way... Again?!" Nat's eyes widened. He had a terrified expression on his face, "Holy-"

"Run!" Ray yelled. What came out from the trees was a huge monster with multiple legs. It had a huge mouth that Alex knew could swallow them all at once with no problem. Its mouth was wide open as it ran straight at them. None of them wasted any time running as fast as they could away from the monster.