***

The panic started to settle in even more. No matter how hard Alex looked, there was nothing in sight besides sand. They were at the location they were told to go so why was there nothing? It was just desert for miles. Everyone else was starting to feel panicked as well as they looked around. Was this whole thing just a scam? Was there ever a William Minerva? What if this was just some rouse set up by the demons?

"What can we do?" Emma inquired. "This is really..," The girl looked out again at the scenery around them. "B06-32."

"This doesn't make sense..," Alex glanced down at the pen, "Is the pen wrong?" It could be a possibility. It was in her pocket whenever she and the others fell into the tunnels. Maybe she landed on it when she fell which caused the pen to mess up.

"What does it mean?" Gilda asked.

"There's nothing here!" Thoma had an annoyed expression on his face.

Alex closed the pen and opened it again. She was hoping that maybe it was just an error with the pen, but the same coordinates were still being shown. Alex let out a sigh and moved some of her hair out of her face, "The pen still says we're here already." The pen wasn't messed up which meant that they had to be where it said they were.

"No sign of any kind..," Don's voice was shaky, "Nothing at all..."

Glancing around, Alex could tell that everyone was starting to spiral. Some were looking really frustrated while others just looked discouraged. Nat was looking around with some binoculars he had gotten from the house before they left. Telling how his expression didn't change, he probably didn't find anything still.

"So, can you see anyone in the area? Any humans?" Ray asked Nat.

"I think there's..," Nat looked harder like something would just appear. When nothing did, he replied with, "No one..."

That was when Alex finally snapped. She huffed in frustration and said, "You'd think there would be something here!" They were hoping that there would be something. Anything. But there was absolutely nothing whatsoever. Were they lied to? Was there something here and it ended up being destroyed? If it was destroyed then there would be some ruins. So what happened?

"So Minerva isn't here, after all?!" Alicia expressed her concerns with Anna who was trying her best to calm the children down.

"But why?!" Christie questioned.

When no one said anything, the kids started to lose it. They all immediately started freaking out over this fact. The change was so fast that it caused the others to be shocked. Alicia grabbed Mark by his hair roughly and screamed, "Liar, Liar, pants on fire!!" Alicia fell to the ground and banged her fists on the ground, "He said he would be here!! He told us to come visit!!" In an instant, Alicia had grabbed the front of Mark's shirt and was ready to hurl him into the stratosphere, "And we came all the way here!!"

It would be best to start calming them down before they completely broke. Alex turned to the kids, "Okay!" She clapped her hands together. "Let's all just calm down for a second!" She gestured for them to take a deep breath to calm down.

Thankfully, the yelling had stopped after Alex said this. They were breathing heavily and still had some angry looks on their faces. The older kids were looking at them with deadpanned expressions. Ray crossed his arms, "Feel better now?"

"Yeah!" The kids shouted.

"Then calm down and listen," Ray stared down at them with a stern gaze. He started his explanation that would hopefully shed some light on this situation. "If Minerva is the one going back and forth between the worlds... Then he won't always be on the demons' side," Ray pointed at the kids and bent down, "And even if the demons usually avoid these deserted areas... Imagine if the humans just stood around like sitting ducks, or if they left obvious signs... They wouldn't last long, right?"

"You're right." Alex nodded.

"Alex, the pen," Ray glanced over at the redhead. Alex handed the pen over to him which he took. Ray stood up, "Yesterday, I found out about the next part." This caused Alex to perk up. There was another part to the pen? "The contents of the pen go on after what we had seen."

"And what did the next part show?" Gilda asked.

"Nothing at all," Ray replied. Alex had to stop herself from dramatically falling to the floor and laying there, never to get up again. What Ray said next made her feel a lot better, "To be more precise, nothing I could see."

"What do you mean?" Emma gave him a curious look.

"I couldn't access the rest of the data. I'm sure I put in the right answer, but even then... No matter how many times I tried, I could only see as far as Minerva's message from before," Ray held up the pen for them to see, "Ever since way back then, when Norman didn't leave Alex clear instructions to memorize it all... I've been wondering whether that extra information was something we'd only need out in the field.  But that wasn't it. I got it wrong. Norman, too, couldn't access the data in that house."

A grin appeared on Alex's face, "I think I know what you're saying."

Ray grabbed the book from before, "I think that's because... The pen will only show the next part once you bring it to a certain location."

"You mean..." Emma smiled as she realized as well.

"Exactly," Ray grinned. "Here in B06-32," Ray handed the book off to Don so he could look for whatever he needed them to. The projection showed up again and Ray got started, "Let's give it a try. First..." Ray wasn't able to finish what he was saying since he was cut off by some very eager children.

"'Touch me!'" Yvette and Jemima called out.

Touching the owl, the next screen showed up. It was time to type in the word from before. Or, at least, that's what Alex thought. Alicia and Dominic spoke up, "Page 45, line three, third word." It was different this time.

"Right." Don smiled.

"Huh? The codeword is different from before..." Emma seemed to notice that it changed too. Alex was starting to think that maybe she was just mistaken.

"Does it change every time?" Nat inquired. "What a pain."

"It's probably in case the pen falls into the wrong hands," Alex suggested. If the pen ended up in the hands of the demons and they didn't know how to find what word to type in then they would just type in the previous word if they saw that word being typed in. They would probably have no idea how to decode what word to use like they do.

"Here's Minerva's message!" Someone said after Ray typed in the word. On the screen was, indeed, Minerva's message. Seeing his message reminded Alex of what they were here for. She really hoped that they would meet Minerva in whatever was waiting for them after this.

"Next!!" One of them called out.

The screen moved to the next part. This part was also where you typed in a word. Ray hesitated, "Now let's see. This is the part where it only showed an error message." So this would be what they needed so they could see what was out here.

"It might work this time since we're at the correct location." Alex tried to be hopeful. It wouldn't do any of them well to just focus on the negative. They needed to have some hope for what was to come.

"Page 108, line fifteen..." Dominic and Yvette told Don.

Don flipped through the pages until he finally landed on the right one. He scanned the page and stopped on a word before saying, "'History.' The word is 'history!!'" This was it! They were so close!

"Come on!!" Christie and Alicia shouted. Anna had her hands clasped together with a desperate look. Once the word was typed in, a map showed up. Christie punched the air and both he and Alicia had big smiles, "It worked!!" They were right, it did work. They just had no idea what this map even was.

"But... What's this..." Jemima trailed off.

Everyone stared at it in confusion. Alex glanced around at the others. It seemed like they hadn't even noticed what it was. Alex helped them out by just telling them, "It looks like a map."

"It is a map..," Ray confirmed. He was silent as he also pondered what the map was for. After a moment, it looked like it hit him like a ton of bricks. "There's an underground entrance! " He points over to the side, "It's around that area! Go look for it!"

This made everyone spread out to find this underground entrance. The words on the projection suddenly changed to, 'Welcome: Unlocked.' That was when something being revealed on the ground caught Alex's attention along with everyone else's. They walked over to look at what it was. It looked to be a metal entrance with a wheel to open it.

"Here it is..." Emma stated.

Bending down, Ray turned the wheel to open the entrance. He lifted it up and Alex looked inside. All she could see was a ladder leading down into the unknown place. Alex scrunched her nose as she commented, "Looks kind of freaky." It looks like something that would be in a horror novel. It gave her chills just thinking about going down the ladder into the darkness.

"It was really here after all..." Alicia said.

"He wasn't lying!" Christie exclaimed.

"Let's go!" Emma was the first to go down the ladder. Alex went after her and the other kids filed in after. Both Alex and Emma had lanterns to light their way. What they were met with when their feet touched the ground was a tunnel with a dark entrance at the end.

"I feel like we're in a horror novel," Alex whispered.

"Finally! Just a bit more..." Thoma was looking at the entrance at the end of the tunnel.

"Yes." Lani chimed in.

Alex led the group down the tunnel and through the entrance. The entrance had led into a hallway. In the hallway were numbered doors on both sides. They were probably rooms for people to stay in. The place was kind of cold so she doubted that there was anyone here. There were also lanterns on the walls to keep the place lit up.

"This is..," Ray analyzed his surroundings, "An underground shelter for human beings?"

"It looks like it..," Alex agreed. Her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as a thought hit her. She voiced it out loud, "Where are the other humans though?" The feeling of something tugging on Alex's sleeve caught her attention. Alex looked down to see it was Jemima, "Huh? What is it, Jemima?"

"Alex!" Jemima pointed to a door without a number on it, "I heard somebody behind that door!"

Well... That answered her question. Unless it was a demon. Alex slowly walked up to the door and knocked on it. No one answered the knock. She finally decided to open the door and walk inside. The sight she was met with was surprising. A man sat at a table with a bunch of monitors behind him. He had dark hair with white streaks in it. His feet were propped up on the table with a tin of cookies not far away. The man was also holding a teacup.

"Hi there." The man said. He grabbed a cookie and continued to stare at the kids, "You've come a long way. Congrats... And welcome to shelter B06-32." Alex was getting the feeling that this guy wasn't William Minerva.