Read The Blackhope Enigma for Free Online

long?”
    “Charming,” said Sunni. “You’re lucky I figured out where you were. I bet you don’t even know how you got here.”
    “No. I must have blacked out or something. I woke up here with those frozen zombies and food you can’t eat. I wish Mom had never made me go to Blackhope with you.”
    “So do I,” Sunni said with a sigh. “If you walk around that labyrinth in the floor and say the word
chiaroscuro
, it transports you into the painting. But I don’t know how to get us out.”
    “You don’t?” Dean hung his head. “But you told my mom and Ian, right? They’ll come and get us, won’t they?”
    “I didn’t tell them anything. I came straight in after you.”
    “So, they don’t know we’re here?”
    “No.” Sunni saw his incredulous look, and her anger rose. “Well, they were never going to believe me, were they, so what was the point of telling them?”
    “That’s just brilliant. Nobody knows where we are,” Dean spluttered. “We’re doomed.”
    “You’re right. Doom is the option I always go for.” Sunni kicked at some loose stones. “Like you weren’t doomed before I got here?”
    “I can’t believe you didn’t tell anyone. Any grown-ups.”
    “Do you know any grown-ups who specialize in getting kids out of paintings?”
    “No one else knows where we are,” Dean bellowed. “Because of you!”
    “For your information, Blaise knows. He was there.”
    “That guy you were with?”
    “Yeah,” said Sunni. She didn’t add,
And I told him not to tell anyone
.
    Dean let out a long breath. “Maybe he won’t be as dumb as you and he’ll get help. Maybe all we have to do is wait.”
    Sunni slumped back against the rock face, glaring at the sky.
Maybe. Maybe not
.
    “I’m starving,” said Dean. “You got any food?”
    Sunni rooted around in her backpack and handed him her last piece of chocolate. “That’s it.”
    He shoved it into his mouth and practically swallowed it whole.
    “What’re we going to eat now?”
    “Forget about your stomach,” answered Sunni. “Let’s find the way out.”
    “We’ve got to stay here so they can rescue us.”
    “Who knows how long that will take?”
If it happens at all
, Sunni thought. “Let’s try getting ourselves out.” She gestured at the slit in the rock. “This must lead somewhere. There are no other roads.”
    “It’s dark in there.”
    “Yeah, and . . . ?”
    “I don’t want to go in.”
    “Stay here, then,” she said. “Though I would have thought you’d be used to creepy caves from all your monster and demon games.”
    “But this isn’t a game,” he said. “This is real.”
    “That’s right: it is real. We can’t just skip the scary bits.” Sunni pushed through the opening, waving her arms in front of her. “Besides, what if the way home is just around the corner?”
    They inched through dense, heart-stopping darkness. In the distance was what looked like a bright white door cut out of a black wall. Sunni tiptoed toward it, puzzled by its brilliance.
    “Is it snow?” whispered Dean. “A blizzard?”
    “I haven’t a clue.”
    The door was just wide enough for Sunni to walk through. She and Dean emerged into the light like rabbits from a winter burrow.
    There was nothing here except whiteness. No objects, no colors, only brilliant whiteness.
    Sunni took a few steps and bumped into what appeared to be some sort of wall. There was no edge where it met the ground. She turned around. The door they had come through was now just a black slit.
    “This is giving me a headache,” Sunni said, feeling around the black shape. “There isn’t a wall. But then there is a wall.” She ran her hand up and down the whiteness. “It feels rough.”
    “It’s got streaks in it,” said Dean, sticking his nose up against it. “Like when your dad painted the kitchen table.”
    “Dried paint.” She could make out great whorls and swirls, as if a huge paintbrush had sloshed white over everything. She edged