"Who's there?" Godric called out through the door. Silence on the other side. The banging stopped once he came near, whoever was there heard him coming.

A muttering responded.

"What—?" Godric began but was cut off.

"Why did you lock me in!" shouted a girl's voice. "What's the idea! Hmm?"

"What? I didn't!"

"Then who...?" she paused for an almost guttural "Cazzo de testa!" before completing the thought by kicking the door. "Then who did?" she went on. "If not you, hm?"

"You don't have a key?" The voice didn't sound like anyone he knew.

"No!"

Durst unlocked the door, and opened it a crack, before hands ripped it open from the other side. An angry, short figure stood before him.

Her hair was an inch shorter than bob-cut, and chestnut red. The eyes were brown and screwed half-shut. Her freckled face twisted into a grimace as though she were about to be sick—her hands were even shaking. Around her neck hung a CM lanyard that read: Adelheid Galli in typed letters. 'SPRING / SUMMER / FALL INTERN' sprawled along the top of the magnetic strip.

"It took you a long time to come," her words were calm, and she slowed her speech to pronounce each carefully. "A long time."

Godric regarded her with a puzzled coolness "Why are you here so late?"

Godric glanced behind her. The walls of the records room were lined with box after box, book after book. Dating all the way back to when the museum opened. Row after row. She followed his glance, and then looked back at him the way a girl looks at an unknown hound that's been following her around all day only to corner her in a dead-end alley.

"How long?" Godric began but Ada ignored the question.

"Are you going to let me leave? Or are you going to push me down the stairs on the way out too?"

"What?"

She said nothing more and slipped further back into the records room with careful, chosen steps that arced across the floor. Godric followed, and she glanced at him over her shoulder, and for her eyes one might have thought the hound had just growled and bared its teeth. At the first chance she took a corner fast into the rows of shelves that cluttered the room and vanished.

"Hey!" moaned Godric, and he cringed at himself. He had attempted to soften what had might otherwise been a mean-sounding shout into something that wasn't—but what escaped his lips had sounded childish. Like something a boy would emit when some girl classmate has snatched his milk and nipped off. Godric paused and stomped his foot, staring at a shelf.

A box that said 'acquisitions' sat before him. Labelled as 1988. He raised an eyebrow, and surveyed the other boxes around it, and those on the adjoining shelves. The earliest was 1905. The most recent was from this year.

Careful steps accompanied by the swishing of a jacket came creeping from deeper into the room. With motion to match Godric slipped along, and then as casually and non-threatening as a two-hundred-pound man who owes that weight to muscle and not fat can, he stepped out before Ada Galli.

She paused, a backpack slung over one shoulder, her other hand in her jacket pocket, gripping something.

"Do you want to file a report?" said Godric.

"Yes," she said, and then glanced to the side for a way out.

"Okay," said Godric. "Then we can go back to the security room."

"Against you," she spat.

"What?

"I was in here for over an hour!" her eyes were wide, and nearly watery. "Banging on the door... No clue what happened... Or why..." She looked at him with fearful eyes once again and stepped backward. Ready to run.

"I didn't hear it," said Godric. "And there's no camera in here. I'm sorry but I'm not a psychic. I didn't know."

"You knew. You locked it..."

There was such a tone of accusation and Godric almost shouted; "I did not!"

He whispered it instead.

She glanced at him, eyes incredulous, and then readjusted her backpack. An escape route still seemed her goal. But instead of darting to the side she shut her eyes.

"I'm leaving now!" she shouted it, and Godric merely watched as she stomped off to the side, down another row of records.

"What about the report?" said Godric, following her voice and swishing jacket. "If you think someone locked you in here, then you must file a report."

"I'll file it tomorrow," she said and stepped back into view nearer to the door.

Godric made no move to stop her, and instead said, "Wait! I need in investigate this if..."

"So do I!" she shouted back, her tone accusatory again, and she slipped through the door. Godric almost sprinted to it, and when he reached it Ada was halfway down the hall to the rear staff door already.

"I swear it wasn't me who locked the door."

"Cazzate!" cried Adelhaid Galli. She slammed the door behind her—and Godric locked this door after her—his hands shaking. This could be a problem. The thought swarmed him like ants.

Questions piled in—ones he'd wished he asked. Why wereyou here so late to begin with? What were you even doing? Why would someonecare enough to lock you in?

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884 words.

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