PART 20 - HALFWAY

 The coughing and sneezing still pumped away like a broken record, colliding with the mild rhythm of beats that came from below at the club's dancefloor.  I continued to slip my jacket, on my body like growing a second skin. Tips of my shoes, pressed on the polish eroded, wooden floor, crease after crease, as though time was slowing down, and my eyes pranced every space of the room to make sure there was nothing that was looking at me or monitoring me. Windows, captured the colourful lights of the club below, that decorated the darkness, crawling on the corners of the room, which had aged light lamps. I gazed at the desk, pulsating with, a bit anxiousness. My hands pressed against the cushioned chairs, and slid across the desk. Papers flew in the air, others poured out to the floor. Most of them were only about the business of the club. I turned towards the walls and scrapped through it, with every fingernail that could grasp the surface. Paint peeled off, the wall, revealing the hard cold stone wall, seemingly inscribed with cracks, and patched with moss. Continuous efforts, coloured my hands and filled the spaces between my nails with peeling paint. My attention suddenly drew to the floor after a sudden thud, jumped into my ear, echoing in the largely spaced room.

A yellow file, blew dust of the ground, and covered in small pebbles that came from the ground. I went back and forth, trying to poke it and to see that it wasn't something that would result in exposing my illegal entry into this part of the club. The rubber of my shoes, connected with the tinniest of pebbles, brushing them away, with the every swirling movement of my ankle. After, muscle straining swipes, the dust fell off, revealing the writing that was on the top of it. I gazed at the broken wood, that seemed to have been nailed to the wall, to keep the file hidden away, to see if they had been anything was there to collect apart from the file. "For the boss" it read. With the most gentle of touches, I clipped open the file. I saw John's portrait on the first page. Page after page, I began to flip, to satisfy more towards solving Nicholas' odd behaviour and clues that he had brought to my attention. In what seemed to have been a number of seconds, was actually a number of hours. I hadn't reached far with trying to collect anything from what I had seen.

Quickly from the ground I tried to put the papers from the floor together, and get out as soon as possible. The dust of the floor, covered the words on the papers, and pebbles from the opening on the wall, filled the top right side of the room. "Hello, hello, hello... Marr! Hello! Who is in the office?" Within my movement, of trying to get out of the room, a speaker under the desk seemed to be calling out. My curiosity was gripped tighter than a mountain climbers rope. The heavy file, stretched the fibers of jacket, after I had zipped it on the my side. I turned towards the direction of the speaker, which seemed to be coming from the bottom side of the desk. "What the... James, Susan, Mary, no ones answering" I heard the speaker sound, a few steps from it.