Thread:Rocky Fish/@comment-26888167-20190611114400/@comment-37228694-20190612100438

The day would have been called lonely, if not for the torrential rain and blistering wind to give company to an otherwise empty evening. Anyone outside would wake up to a supercold if they dared stay out there for more than a few minutes - and a regular cold the second they exited the warmth of their own house. Most people would be tucked under multiple layers of blanket, snuggled with a cup of warm beverage against the fire, watching the torrents outside as if it were a television program. Most people would be quietly reading inside, catching up on work, playing computer games, but nobody would be out in those conditions.

Except Show Time.

She had begged her employer to let her stay inside for this one time; maybe help with paperwork or run some errands that needed doing. Nope. She was set on the usual fieldwork, and so here she was, in the numbing, crashing cold. Even with her enhanced durability, she felt subzero wetness cover her whole being, even with her enhanced eyesight she couldn’t see half in front of her, even with her enhanced strength she had to plow through deep puddles beneath her. All for something she didn’t even know was real or not.

Three years prior, a large amount of people suddenly went missing, and more followed in the months after. Around a year ago, all of those people suddenly appeared in some area in the United States; even the majority who had never even been there. The police were baffled; interviews all turned up stuff about “Locked Rooms”, which sounded nonsensical and the case was dropped. For the Magical Kingdom - however - it was investigated into further. The current theory was that those people were pulled into a series of subdimensions, each working like “locked rooms”. Their only lead on how each subject had ended up there was a golden key that had pulled some in (though not the majority). Magic could have easily been involved - as sub-dimensions with different laws had been created by magic before - and so Show Time was set on the mission to find this “key”.

She personally believed that it was rubbish. Not the subdimensions, but that the key would be findable by a single girl. It was more than looking for a needle in a haystack; it was looking for a key in blinding weather conditions. The case was from a year ago, it wasn’t urgent, and these conditions would just make the search longer and more trouble, so why should Show Time have to go? She dreamt of being back home, playing a good game while drinking hot chocolate, but that dream was broken by the 50th puzzle that she misjudged the depth of, falling for a second before regaining her balance and cursing this situation again. Then she had an idea.

She emptied her hat, letting five ring cases fall out. Looking over them, she picked out the case labelled “12”, and returned the rest to her hat, re-adjusting ti on her head. As she put the 12th ring, known as Search, on her left ring finger, she pictured a glowing key; tried to imagine it as vividly as she could. Then, the ring briefly became warm on her finger and a pillar of light burst from somewhere northwest of her. Show Time had found it. The water beneath her splashes as she ran as fast as she could towards the beacon, jumping over houses and across roads. Closer, and closer, but she couldn’t tell if it was a meter or a mile; that part wasn’t the ring’s job, though she desperately hoped it was the former.

Finally, Show Time slowed down and skidded through a stream of water, coming to a stop directly in front of the beacon. As she unequipped the ring, the beacon faded and revealed its source - a small, slightly glowing key. She bent down to pick it up, and it felt warm in her hand despite what the weather must have done to it. She’d bring it back to the Magical Kingdom, and they’d investigate it and--

Then suddenly Show Time wasn’t in the freezing rain. It was still freezing, but her surroundings had completely changed. Snow. And people, in the distance, but still people. Fighting? What had happened? Why had the weather changed so suddenly, and why where people out in these conditions? Then she realised.

Show Time was in the Locked Rooms.