“Howdid you feel about your first trip?” The man asked in his deep voice. The trio thought it was pretty fun but figuring out the mystery needed a lot of thinking. The man nodded. Suddenly, a blaze of light appeared in front of them. The golden medal from where they just came from appeared out of thin air, emitting a light, and landed softly on the man’s hand. “I believe this is yours.” He said, handing the medal to Kyle. Kyle nodded and took the medal to examine it. It looked exactly like it was before.
“Could we take items from the worlds we experienced?” Kyle asked, placing his medal in his pocket. “Only specific items and only I have the power to take them.” The man answered, “Do you need a moment to rest, or do you want to continue your journey?” He asked.
The trio looked at each other and agreed to take a small break. The man told the three children to go through the same door when they were ready and disappeared. “Guys, did you hear a sound when you passed the door to come back here?” Kyle asked. Charlie shook her head. “Nope, I was sure that there was no sound, or voice.” She said and Vivian agreed. Kyle nodded but started thinking if he was mistaken. After getting some rest on the train, the trio decided to continue their journey.
They opened the door like last time and walked into blazing white light.
The next thing Charlie knew, she was sitting in a coffee shop, with a beautiful girl in front ofher. The girl looked about 18 and she had long, flowy hair with a white pin decorated on it. She smiled warmly to Charlie and passeda folded envelope to her.
“So, what do you think about my idea?” She said, her smile widening. Charlie obviously did not know what was going on, but since they were in the middle of a discussion, saying that she did not know what was going on seemed very strange.
“Would it be possible for me to take more time to think?” Charlie asked, hoping for the girl to not notice her excuse to avoid answering her question. Suddenly, as she laid her eyes on the envelope, she caught avery important message. On the top of the paper, there was fancy, cursive writing which read “To Charlie, from Vivian.” This could not be a coincidence.
“Of course,but remember that sometimes without sacrifice, things might not work out.” The girl said, still smiling. “I still have some matters to attend to remember to notify me when you make a choice.” She said as she sat up and walked out the coffee shop, waving goodbye at Charlie.
Just as the girl left, Charlie quickly snatched up the envelope and opened it. Inside was an address and a photo stuck onto the bottom of the paper. The photo was black and white but blurred out as if it was wet. From the faint shape, Charlie could see that it was a photo of a boy standing, holding a piece of paper.
Charlie tried to decipher more information from the photo but did not see anything else. She folded the paper and placed it back into the envelope, taking it with her as she headed to the address marked on the paper.
Charlie somehow knew that this challenge would be harder than the last one. She was in a busy city, so the area where the main event might occur would be much larger. She also had no idea what kind of character she was playing, not to mention she still did not know where Kyle and Vivian were.
It took her some time to find the address. It was inside a large building with a lot of windows, and it looked like where rich people would work. It was in the middle of a small plaza that was quite eye-catching. Charlie walked in the building, becoming nervous in front of so many guards and people dressed in business attires surrounding the entrance. Her grip tightened on the envelope and approached the front desk.
A middle-aged woman dressed in black greeted her and asked her what she needed. Charlie wanted to know if Vivian was around but did not get the answer she was looking for. She thanked the lady and headed to the elevator. The address said that it was onthe 5th floor. Strangely enough, the 5th floor button was the only button marked with a label on the side “The Grand Piano”. Charlie did not understand how a piano could be related to a serious business building like this one, but she headed to it anyway.
The elevator door opened to a bright hallway with faint music sounding from the two sides. Charlie walked through the hallway and saw that there was a piano room on both sides of the hallway, all sorts of different people playing beautiful music. After looking at all the rooms, she saw a familiar girl sitting next to a piano in a room at the end of the hallway. They made eye contact and Charlie was sure that it was Vivian.
Vivian openeda small door on the left side of the room, gesturing for Charlie to come in. “I finally found you.” Said Charlie with relief. This was much harder than last time since Vivian was by her side.
“Bythe way, why is your piano much larger than the others? It seems really cool.” Charlie said, walking to the piano and examining it.
“I’m not sure, but I think I’m playing the role of the best pianist on this floor.” Vivian said, coming to sit on the seat to play the piano.
Charlie was confused by her statement. “What do you mean, playing a role?” she said, frowning.
“I discovered that the people here call me by the name ‘Charlotte’, and I could play the piano fluently without having to think. Here, let me show you.” She said as she placed her hands on the keys. Beautiful, flowing music streams out of the large, shiny piano. Vivian’s hands skipped from one note to the other, not pressing a single key wrong. She looked as if she had been playing the piano for years and mastered the song by heart.
Charlie was stunnedby her incredible performance. “Did you know how to play this song before?” She asked. “Actually, I’ve never touched a piano before I boarded the train. This was my second time performing and both were performed here. This proves my role as ‘Charlotte’ further. Even the label on the outside of this room is ‘Charlotte’.” Vivian said as she stood up. Charlie nodded and processed the information in her head.She did not know how the worlds inside the train worked,but it seems it was not impossible that their job was to perform a role.
“Did you find Kyle yet?” Charlie asked as she looked for a phone or other similar devices to communicate inside her backpack, but only found a camera, a notebook, and apen. “Yes, actually, Kyle is one of the teachers in this organization of pianists, but he didn’t teach me.” Vivian said as she peered into Charlie’s backpack with her. “Why do you have a camera?” She asked.
“I have no idea, but I could try to look for some information on these things.” Charlie said, as she started to flip through the notebook. The writing was hard to understand and was blurred like the photo attached to the message Vivian sent her. After trying to decipher it, Charlie could understand a few words.
“‘Dancer,’ ‘performance’, ‘August 17th’,” Charlie said as she read the words from the notebook. She shook her head since she did not see any other information from the book. Thinking about the blurred-out notes reminded Charlie of the picture on the message. “Who was the person in the black-and-white photo attached to your message?” She asked as she took out the piece of paper.
“Actually, I’m not sutimeline of When I came to this room, I had already passed the envelope to a girl with a pin in her hair. I don’teven know Charlie concluded,side.” Vivian said as she looked at the photo.
“Then I guess in the timelineof this world, you teleported here before me. When I arrived,I was already talking to the lady with the envelope.” Charlieconcluded, placing the piece of paper back in the envelope. “How about we go find Kyle and discuss this together?” She suggested.
Vivian nodded in agreement and led Charlie into a lounge area where the pianists rested through a door the opposite side of where Charlie came in. It was half past noon, and the young pianists were ordering food to eat, so the lounge area was quite crowded. Charlie quickly caught the figure of Kyle and called to him. Kyle turned and followed the girls into Vivian’s practice room.
“So, do you have the phone with the hints and messages to make us figure out our mission?” Charlie asked as she leaned onto the wall, folding her arms.
“No, unfortunately not. I’ve already looked everywhere reasonable where a phone could be located. I don’t think that this time we will get hints.” Kylesaid.
Charlie nodded. Just like she had guessed, this challenge would be much harder than the last one. “Do you by any chance know what date it is? I discovered a date, possibly quite important, on a notebook in my bag.” Charlie asked.
“I think it’s...August 16th. I remember a student mentioned it today.” He spoke. Just as Charlie was about to continue questioning, somebody called into the room and stopped their conversation.
“Charlotte, come over here, we need to talk about the performance tomorrow.” A lady who looked about 30 called Vivian and gestured to her to come out. The trio looked at one another before Vivian decided to follow the lady. The lady led Vivian to a room at the left side of the lounge and closed the door behind them, blocking Charlie and Kyle. After a few minutes, Vivian appears out of the room.
“What did she talk to you about?” Charlie asked. Vivian turned to her and asked her to take outher notebook.
She pointed to the performance and the written date. “I’m going to attend this performance tomorrowat 6 p.m. This is the most important performance, and I can’t afford to make any mistakes.This would also be a competition between two people, me and a dancer called ‘Selena.’ There would be professional judges at the performance and their ratings would affect the career of us a lot.” Charlieand Kyle nodded. The main event of this world is probably the performance and Vivian’s job was to beat Selena and get high scores from the judges.
“I guess you better go off and practice the songs you're playing tomorrow.” Charlie said. “After getting the key information, this would be a lot easier than the last one since we have lots of time to practice.”
Vivian agreed and headed back to the practice room to make sure that she would not play anything wrong tomorrow during the performance. After she went back to practicing, Kyle pulled Charlie aside.
“I don’t think that this is going to be that easy. I did not want to tell Vivian this since I did not want her to have any pressure, but I seriously don’t think we could win this as easily as it seems.’ Kyle said, “Do you have any other information that we haven’t figured out yet?” Charlie suddenly thought of the black and white photo of a blurred figure. She quickly took it out and examinedit closely. The photo felt like it was printed from a printer rather than a polaroid and the ink on it seemed rather new, printed withina few hours. The marks of water on the photo were dried, but also new since the paper was still wrinkled. The pattern of the water marks was also strange, with some parts strangely blurred out and some parts dry with no water on it at all. Just as Charlie was about to give up on examining the photo, Kyle suddenly took the paper from her hands and after turning it the otherside, placed it back into Charlie’s hands.
Kyle was originally standing directly in front of Charlie, so as Charlie was seeing the photo rightside up, he was seeing it the exact opposite. The water marks on the flipped photo looked as if it was dropped upon on purposeand with a lot of skill, making it almost impossible to recognize that it was marked with a pattern.
Charlie could see a faint portrait of a girl appearing through the lines the water did not touch. Like some of the illusion pictures, the photo originally also showed a portrait, but was blurred out by the water. Just as Charlie was wondering about who this girl was and what this meant, Kyle grabbed the paper again.
“I’ve discovered something else,” he said as he pulled out a pen from his pocket and started scribbling on the blank areas of the paper. After a few moments, he gave the paper back to Charlie. On the large area of pencil scribbling, were words that were created by indenting the paper. “Be careful of the dancer. Becareful of the judge.” Charlie read out loud. This message made things quite clear. The dancer mentioned in the message was most likely Selena, who was the competitor of Vivian. She might act like Leon from the last world and act crazy when first place was taken. But what about the judge? Why would a judge be any threat to a competitor? This was still quite confusing, but they have gotten another piece of warning. This might help tremendously to the trio with avoiding trouble.
“How did you discover the markings?” Asked Charlie.
“Since the markings were indented, from my angle and the lights shining from above, I could see some light bouncing off the words.” Kyle answered.
Charlie tried Kyle’s method, but no matter how she turned the paper or herself around, she could not find anything else from the paper. Charlie sighed, “I guess this is all the information on this paper.” She said in disappointment. The girl from the photo was likely Selena, but they could not be sure until they met Selena in person. It could also be the judge, but it seemed too young to be fitting for a professional judge. Charlie placed the paper back into the envelope. No matter who she was, she was important.
The piano institute closes less than an hour after Kyle and Charlie’s discussion. Vivian continued to practice the piano and was quite happy with “her” talent. After figuring out the mission, they needed to find a place where they could stay the night. Fortunately, there was a nice hotel they could afford nearby, so that did not cause a lot of problems. Vivian and Charlie shared a room while Kyle had his own. They ate some bread for dinner and went to bed since they had nothing to do.
While it was almost Charlie saidivian woke Charlie up. “I think ‘Charlotte’ has some problems about going on stage.” She said, looking solemnly.
“What do you mean?” Charliesaid as she rubbed her eyes and sat up a little.
“Whenever I think about the pestrange. I tomorrow, there’s an urge in me to get nervous and anxious, tensing up my body. I think if I could use Charlotte's skills to play the piano, maybe I also get some of her instincts consequently. I don’t think this would be a huge problem, but I’m afraid that if I go on stage tomorrow, Charlotte’s feelings might come over me again and that would be horrible.” Vivian said as she sighed.
Charlie frowned. “Huh, that’s strange.I can’t think of any way to deal with this at this moment. I hope that this does not affect Charlotte’s skills in playing the piano.”
Vivian nodded. “I guess I'll just try and stop thinking about the performance for now.” She said and headed back to sleep.
The next day, after getting a light breakfast, the trio headed to the piano institute to practice early in the morning. The center was already filled with people, possibly all practicing for the performance. The lady who talked with Vivian yesterday called to her the instant she caught the trio entering.
“Hello Charlotte, we meet again.” She said with a warm crowd to reach the trio, “Linda’s here.” By her side was the girl with the pin in her head Charlie had seen yesterday. Vivian and Charlie were both surprised at the girl’s appearance, but Vivian seemed casual as if she already agreed with them that she was going to come today. She still had her white pin in her head today, but she was equipped with a camera around her neck and full makeup.
“Hello Charlotte, we meet again.” She said with a warm smile, “You’re here too!” She exclaimed as she turned to Charlie. Charlie smiled in return and tried to hide the fear of having to discuss Linda’s plan which she knew nothing about with her.
“Charlotte, I'm here to discuss with you the photo shoot during the performance today. Charlie would oversee taking down notes for the newspaper and I’ll take your photos. Would that be cool with you?” Linda asked.
Vivian nodded. “Sure, no problem.” She said as she glanced towards Charlie, possibly confused about her being a journalist. Charlie did not know about her profession either and prayed that her mission was not to publish an article since she knew nothing about writing for an ewspaper.