The spherical stone rolled on the floor, carrying with it the weight of the only hope they both had of surviving the massive crushing ceiling that was mercilessly downing on them. It rolled at an even speed on a straight line, crossing the smooth floor without trouble. After half of the distance it started to lose momentum and began to slow down the closer it reached the center of the room.

“Come on, come on, come on…” Mr Chevalier said, cheering for the stone with clenched fists.

Both dared not blink once as they attentively followed the rolling stone as if their lives depended on it. As they did. 

The stone began to stop reaching closer to the star mark and it looked like it would fall right into it, like a golf ball slowly making its way through the green to fall into the hole at the last second. And just like in many incredible golf plays, the red stone stopped at the outer edge of the mark, threatening to move one last bit forward but then receding back to a rest.

Both Amy and Mr Chevalier stared at it in silent disbelief for a few seconds.

“Well, that was a great throw.” he said, finally breaking the silence, hand on hips as he nodded in acknowledgement to his skill.

“You missed!” she yelled.

“Hey! Any bocce player would tell you that was a great throw, ok?” he said.

“We… are… not… playing… FUCKING BOCCE!” she screamed. She wanted to pace around in circles, but they both had to share the same stone or risk being impaled if they tried to step out of it. “We’re so dead…” 

“It was a good throw…” he mumbled while looking down.

The ceiling, which was originally four meters high, was now closer to three meters and continued to come down at an even speed. 

Both tried to look around for an exit in the hope they had missed something when a small pebble dislodged from the ceiling and fell on the back of red stone, giving it the final nudge it needed and moving it into the mark.

“Look!” Mr Chevalier said, pointing at the red stone in excitement. 

A red column of light shot upwards from the red stone and onto the ceiling, disseminating into lots of red lines drawing a mirrored version of the floor on the ceiling above. The mirrored version, though, had all stones marked with different symbols.

“You did it!” she said, hugging him.

“Of course I did.” he said, blushing a little from the hot barely naked woman hugging him so tight. “I’m the national bocce champion.”

“The three guardians.” she said.

“What’s that?” he said, looking puzzled.

“There.” she pointed at the ceiling. “There is one symbol that only repeats three times. They form a triangle around the center of the room.”

“There, guarded by the three guardian spirits, the key awaits those who dare to seek it.” he said. “Step on the wrong ones you die. Step on the right ones…”

“And you get the key.” she said, completing his sentence. “Let's move that guy’s body on top of one of the guardian stones and see what happens.” 

“Good idea, but how do we know where it’s safe to step on?” 

“Look at the marks on the stone that killed him and the one that almost killed us. They bear the same symbol. So that symbol probably means where the traps are. They are all scattered in a pattern. Can you see it?”

“Yes. Every trap stone is surrounded by safe stones marked with the same symbols as the ones we are stepping on right now… theoretically.” he said.

“We have to test that theory, then.” she said and moved her foot over the stone to their right.

“Careful Mon…” he said, but she was already safely standing on the stone next to him before he could finish his sentence.

The ceiling was already under two meters high, forcing the taller Mr Chevalier to lower his head and them both to move with a higher sense of urgency. Without wasting any more time they safely reached the dead brute and dragged his body on top of one of the guardian stones. They heard a clicking sound but nothing else happened.

“Let’s hope this worked.” he said, putting the brute’s gun under his belt. 

Mr Chevalier noticed her concerned look at him grabbing the gun. 

“In case we meet more of them out of here,” he said. 

She remained silent and looked skeptical.

“Now go and step on that one.” he said, pointing at another guardian stone. “And I will step on that one.” he said, pointing to the remaining one.

The ceiling was already under one meter and a half as they went their separate ways, moving on all fours. Mr Chevalier reached the other guardian stone and looked across the room at Amy, but she wasn’t on her stone. Instead, she went to the center of the room to grab her red stone. 

“What are you doing?” he screamed, wide eyed. “Hurry!”

The ceiling was already under one meter when Amy grabbed the stone and dove to the ground, belly crawling her way to her guardian stone as fast as she could. Once she reached it, she heard a clicking noise and the ceiling dropped another centimeter, touching the side of her head, which was pressed against the floor. 

Then there was a loud rumble and the ceiling started to move back up. She sighed in relief, her eyes closed. Then she opened her eyes, stared at the red stone in her hand and smiled.

Once the ceiling retreated back to its original position, they were both standing on their respective guardian stones, wondering what would happen next. The circled mark with the star at the center of the room turned a few degrees to the right and then moved up as a cylindrical stone column rose one meter from the ground. The circled star on top of the column opened like a lid cut in half and retreated entirely, giving way to a green stone rising from inside the stone cylinder.  

Mr Chevalier walked to the center of the room while Amy looked at the green stone from a distance and then at her red stone. They were both the same shape and the same size. Only a different color.

What is going on?

“The key!” Mr Chevalier said, holding up the green stone at eye level and noticing the same white lines forming a star on it. 

Amy looked at Mr Chevalier’s face and it was like she was looking at him for the first time. As if he was wearing a mask this whole time and just now removed it. His facial expression was not that of a goofy, friendly, curious man. Instead, he was staring directly at her with intense eyes, furrowed brows and a firm mouth, like he was the authority in that room and she had done something wrong.

“Ms Amazonia Stone.” Mr Chevalier said. “Hand over the red key, please.”

She noticed that he had the green star stone in his left hand while the right one was holding the dead brute’s gun.

The room rumbled again and a door opened on the opposite wall from the one they entered, bringing a cool breeze from the cave tunnel on the other side.

“I’m not giving you my mom’s stone.” Amy said defiantly. 

“Mon Cheri…” he said, shaking his head and pointing the gun at her. “I know this sounds unfair. Or even wrong. But it isn't. You see, that red stone was never your mother’s to give it to you. It belonged to my father and she stole it from him. I am now just getting it back.”

“You’re a liar!” she screamed.

“I don’t need to lie. I can just shoot you dead and take the stone, if I want to. It’s just a shame you never truly knew your mother.”

“You don’t know my mother.” she said.

“Not personally. No, I don’t. But both your parents worked for my father. And one day they found something… incredible. And then they stole it.” he said and aimed the gun at her, touching the trigger with his index finger. “So now I am taking it back. Slide the red stone gently on the floor.” 

Who is this man? What exactly are these stones? What is this room? What is going on?

She was breathing hard, shaking bad thoughts from her head as she tried to find a way out of that situation. But there was none. There was nothing she could do except to try to live another day. Then she could hunt him down or try to find out what the hell was going on. Or both.

She knelt on the floor and gently slid the red stone towards him. 

Mr Chevalier smiled. He stopped the red stone with his boot, put the green stone in his pocket and then picked the red one, just to put it safely in the same pocket.

“Ms Amazonia Stone, it was a pleasure meeting you.” he said, walking towards the exit while still pointing the gun at her. 

“I’m gonna find you.” she said, staring at him.

“We both know that is not true.” he said, already standing by the door. “If it serves as any consolation, be sure that your life meant something. You played an important role for mankind today, unlike almost everyone else in the world, who waste their lives working meaningless jobs to get money to waste on meaningless activities. Not you. Your life mattered. And this is the moment you reached your destiny, allowing me to continue on my journey to fulfill mine.”

The door began to close and Mr Chevalier stepped outside, turned his back to her and shouted one last goodbye as he began to walk down the tunnel.

“Adieu, Mon Cheri!” he said, his voice distant and muffled by the closing door.

The heavy stone door closed with a deafening loud thud, severing the ethereal thread that once connected Amy’s and Mr Chevalier’s destinies. As the faint echoes of the door’s closing reverberated across the vault walls, the sound of the old mechanism controlling this ancient death trap could be heard activating the ceiling with a rumble. Dust cascaded down again as the ceiling started to descend once more, on its second attempt to crush her.

How am I getting out of here? There is no one else to step on the third guardian stone.

Desperation took over as she just stood there, paralyzed by fear and hopelessness as the ceiling continued to come down, oblivious to her predicament.

I guess he was right. This is where I die. My path ends behind the same door through which his journey continues. I’ll be just one more set of bones in this cold, heartless, death room… 

Wait…

She looked at all the other six skeletons scattered around the room and suddenly she had an idea. Running against time and having memorized the location of the traps, she hurried to gather all the skeletons and pile them on the same pressure plate that Mr Chevalier stood on before. 

“Still not heavy enough.” she said, after adding the fifth skeleton to the pile.

The ceiling was already one and a half meters high, forcing her to bend her head and soon to crouch. The last skeleton was far away across the room and she began to doubt if there was enough time.

Only one way to find out.

She ran across the room, gathered all the bones and hurried back to the pile. The ceiling was already one meter high. She added all the bones to the pile but it still wasn’t heavy enough to activate the pressure plate. There was only one skull left in her hand. She gently put it on top of the pile and sighed in relief at the clicking sound of the pressure plate mechanism.

It worked!

The ceiling was fifty centimeters high as she crawled her way across the room. The ceiling would soon touch the pile of bones and, if that happened, the pressure would scatter them around and deactivate the pressure plate. As she reached her pressure plate, she heard the mechanism clicking under it. She turned her head around and saw the ceiling almost touching the skull on the top of the pile. 

As the ceiling started to recede back up, she sighed in relief. She closed her eyes and sat there, her legs crossed, just resting and waiting for the ceiling to reach the top so the door would open.

“I did it. I can’t believe it.” she whispered to herself in a tired voice.

Then she felt something touch her leg. She opened her eyes and there was a skull from the pile next to her knee.

“What the…” she said, startled. 

The ceiling was almost touching her head and she laid belly first to the ground just in time, watching the pile of bones about five meters away from her.

The vibration from the ceiling must have dislodged it from the pile.

She grabbed the skull in her hand and aimed at the pile of bones.

Freaking bocce…

She only had one shot and had to make it count. Needless to say, she didn’t have the time to calibrate her throw. She just had to do it right there and then to the best of her abilities. With her belly glued to the ground, she put her fingers inside the eye sockets and, with a backhand swing, threw the skull across the room.

The skull rolled unevenly on the stone paved floor, losing a few teeth here and there as it zig zagged in the wrong direction. It looked like it was gonna miss the pile. Then, as if the inescapable result had already been weaved in the tapestry of destiny, the skull made a left turn as it passed by the pressure plate’s side and landed on it. The clicking sound of the mechanism was heard and the ceiling began to recede back up again.

Tears ran down Amy’s face as she laughed and cried uncontrollably. Once the ceiling reached the top and the door opened, she regained her composure, stood up and walked out of the room and into the cave tunnel.

“You frenchie motherf...”