Chapter 2 Part 1

The door on the far left clicked, and everyone knew that it was open. On the screen, John picked up a large hourglass and flipped it. The sand started falling. The group turned to each other, tried to read each others' body language, but failed to do so. "So," Said Esther, "What do we do?"

Ivan said, "I doubt that this is real. This has got to be a hoax, or at least a gross exaggeration."

"What? The guy was just talking to us through a wall, how is that a hoax?" Said Esther.

Ivan said, "Well, obviously that's not a trick, we just saw it. But it was also just a picture, it doesn't mean that everything he said was true. What if we go in there and it's a trap? Maybe we're not supposed to go in there."

Esther raised her voice, "If he didn't want us here, then he easily could have left the front door locked. Or he could have told us not to go in there when he was speaking to us. Or, you know, he would have just left the door locked!"

Ivan raised his voice, as well, "Maybe he's just sick! You heard him, 'I look forward to meeting you.' What the hell is that? He's clearly nuts, this place is, according to him, something like 700 years old!"

Esther yelled, "So he was a little eccentric, who cares? Look, we need to go in there. If there's anything in there like what he just did with that picture, then we could be walking into a goldmine. Besides, if he really wanted to kill us, he would have done it by now. He could have just made spikes come out and stab us. Hell, he could have just locked the front door and let us starve to death. He unlocked the other door, gave us the option to leave, and left the front door unlocked."

Ivan calmed down a little bit, "It's still probably a big waste of time."

Esther didn't calm down, "Then we'll leave after we look! I'm going in. Listen, if nothing else, we should try to get that moving picture machine out of here. If we can get that back home and figure out how it works, then we could be rich just for that."

Ivan paused for a moment, then spoke, "I suppose you're right..."

Esther calmed a bit, "Even if he's exaggerating, and the stuff in there isn't world-changing, there should at least be a few cool machines we can grab and use. He also clearly has some sort of fuel here to run this stuff, we can grab that, too."

Ivan paused again, "What if it is as big as he said? Should we be the ones to find out?"

Esther, now perfectly calm, said, "Absolutely."

They both looked up at the screen to see that the hourglass was now half-way through. They both walked toward the door and stopped a couple of feet away from it and stopped. Esther took a breath, and stepped forward to open it. She reached out her hand to grab the door handle, and jumped out of her skin when Stephanie shouted, "Yeah! Let's do it!" Esther and Ivan both turned around and glared at Stephanie, who had her fists up in the air and a ridiculous grin on her face. She looked embarrassed, put her hands down, and wiped the grin off her face. Esther grabbed the handle and pulled on the door. It wouldn't budge.

"What the hell?" Yelled Esther, as she began pulling the door with all her might, "It won't open!" She then kicked the door and it swung in easily.

Ivan walked up to the door to inspect it and pointed at some writing above the handle, "This must mean 'Push'."

Chapter 1 Part 3

"Well," said Ivan, "Shall we look through the door, first, or pull on the friendly-looking levers that could do anything?"

"Flip a coin. Heads for the door, tails for the levers." replied Esther. Ivan pulled an uneven, strange copper coin out of his pocket and flipped it off his thumb. He reached out to catch it and missed magnificently. It bounced off of Esther's shoe and rolled away toward the levers. They followed it and it bounced off the wall and landed on heads. "The door it is."

They all walked over to the door. They paused, looked at one another, and then Ivan pulled on the door handle. "It's locked." he said.

Esther frowned, "Then that was all pretty pointless..." They walked back over to the levers and looked it over in more detail. Unfortunately, there was no more detail to be seen, just a smiley face, a glass window, some switches and roman numerals.

"Well, I'm guessing that we're supposed go in order." Said Stephanie.

"Really?" The other two sighed in unison. Esther rolled her eyes and pulled the first lever. A click was heard behind the glass. She waited a moment for something to happen, but nothing did, so she pressed the button. It resisted and then clicked as she pushed it in, and a dim flame lit behind the glass. After a few seconds a blinding white light burst out of the glass panel and lit up the white screen. Ivan shielded his eyes and felt for the second lever and pulled it. A sound like rushing water was heard behind the wall, and the light faded to a dim charcoal grey.

The lights began flickering and numbers started shining on the white wall, counting down from 4. The horns in the color beeping with each change in number. After the number "0" appeared on the screen, it went blank, and then displayed, "Welcome to the Library Alexandria, Revision 2." The group, confused, looked at one another in confusion, as they still could not read this antiquated English. Then the title was read aloud through the speakers, and they all jumped and looked around for the man who was speaking.

- - - - Apologies to the reader. You have likely already guessed (correctly) that Esther, Ivan, and Stephanie were all watching a film. You know what a film is, and the description above probably seems condescending, or at least annoyingly over-descriptive. While it is true that you have seem a film before and understand what it is, the three people involved had not. The three people involved discovered this film in the year 2787, Over 600 years since the anti-technological revolution, and 400 years since the last bit of useful information about humanity since the industrial revolution was lost. This will be thoroughly explained shortly, until then, please turn off your cell phones and enjoy the show. - - - -