The Black Orphanage

When they approached the gate she pressed the button on the panel calling the front desk. "Do you have an appointment?" said a whining voice, coming from the speaker directly above the panel. "No, we're uh." replied Beth, thinking unsure exactly what she was going to say, but before she could finish she was cut off. "No visitation without an appointment." Beth looked at Alison, trying to decide how to proceed. "Well I guess we're out of luck, we can always come back tomorrow." Alison said timidly, leaning away from the gate and taking a few steps back. "No, don't worry, I got this." Beth replied, trying to sound confident in front of Alison. Beth pressed the button again firmly stating. "Scarborough PD." after a brief pause the voice came back saying, "Well why didn't you say so?" In a much more chipper voice as the gate swung open. "See, you just gotta be assertive." Beth said, stepping over the threshold into the Orphanage grounds.

                  It was a brief and quiet walk to the front door from the gate, but they faced no more trouble and they were soon at the front desk. A middle aged woman, with shoulder length hair tied back into a ponytail was working on a computer behind the desk. She looked up from the computer surveying the pair before saying, "Yes then, what can I help you with?" Her voice was different than the one that had welcomed them in, so Beth suspected she wasn't the same person. "Hi, my... friend here was adopted out of this institution, and we were wondering if we could find anything out about her parents, and/or any siblings she might have had." Beth said questioningly. The front desk attendant raised an eyebrow slightly, but didn't question it, "Name?" she asked. Alison stepped up closer to the desk and timidly replied, "Alison Hendrix." the attendant swiftly typed the name into her database and after a brief pause her information popped up on the screen. "It seems you were brought here April 4, 1984 and left the same day with a pre-arranged family." she paused for a minute, furrowing her brow, as if reading something on the screen. "...other than that we can't really tell you much. There was an electric storm about a week ago that wiped our systems, and we're still working on restoring them. We still have the hard copies in the basement if you'd like to know more today." Beth looked at Alison and then back to the woman, "Can I have a minute with my friend?" Alison asked, looking earnestly at Beth, the woman looked back to her laptop and started typing again while saying, "I'll be here all day." Beth stepped away from desk and moved back to a comfortable enough distance from the front desk that they could speak without being overheard. "I'm getting a bad feeling about this place, maybe we should come back when the system is back up." Alison whispered as to not be overheard. "By then your husband will be back with the kids and we may have lost our chance, if we're going to do this we have to do it now." Beth whispered back forcefully. After a brief second of thought Alison sighed, and conceded. They moved back to the desk and the woman asked, "Ready?" with a nod from Beth the woman led them around a corner and back to the basement.

                  "The files are sorted alphabetically by cabinet, you should see the label clearly displayed." the woman said as they walked into the room. "I'll be just upstairs if you need me." she concluded, closing the door. They heard her footsteps slowly go up the stairs until they finally faded away; turning to face the room they began looking for the right cabinet. It was a rather small room, despite the institution's large size they didn't seem to have had a lot of children come through. About four rows back they found it, file HA-HM. "Ready for this?" Beth asked. Alison seemed slightly unsure at first, but then she steeled herself giving a nod. As Beth pulled it opened it gave a faint click, followed by an echoing click somewhere behind her, but Beth paid it no mind; she riled through the files. "Here you are." Beth said handing Alison the file. "You're the cop, you would probably understand what all this means better than me." Alison replied, taking the file though nonetheless. "It's your history, you should get to see it first." Alison smiled at Beth, accepting her duty and flipped the file open. "Name: Alison Hendrix, Born: April 4, 1984, Birthplace: Ontario Canada" Alison read off aloud, "This is all very basic, what exactly are we looking for?" she asked looking up at Beth. "Um, look for your parents, that should give us a lead." Alison skimmed the page, and after a second read off "Jerry Mattson, and Tiffany York, does that mean anything to you?" Alison asked looking up to Beth. Pausing for a second Beth replied, "No, those aren't my parents, I sought mine out a few years back out of curiosity, completely different names, so I guess we aren't twins; which means..." Alison began but stopped, hearing again a sound in the background, a faint grinding of gears. She looked down at the ground to think and noticed a vaporous gas beginning to spread across the floor. "We need to get out of here Alison." Beth said urgently, grabbing Alison and running towards the door. "Why!?" Alison exclaimed while being dragged away, but it was quickly apparent as the gas was much thicker closer to the walls. Beth yanked on the handle but the door was bolted shut. "What are we going to do?" Alison cried worried. Beth's police instincts kicked in and she quickly looked around taking in her surroundings, "Give me a bobby pin and I'll try and pick the lock, the gas is coming from those drains in the ground, try and cover them, it should buy us some time." Beth commanded, but she gave a cough after, the gas was already starting to get to her. Beth kneeled, grabbing the bobby pins that Alison had thrown to her and began to work, she didn't have much experience with this, but she had to try something, and seeing as how there were no other exits, this was it. There seemed to be eight drains, two on each wall, evenly space apart, Alison ran to the nearest one and, taking off her sweater, covered it. This greatly impeded the expellation of gas from that vent but there were still seven, running to the one to the other side of the door Alison quickly stripped her thin shirt and through it down, sat on it trying to keep as much gas inside the drain as possible. Beth glanced over, but then chided herself, she couldn't be distracted now, not that she was making much progress with this lock. "Keep your head down, try and breath as little gas as possible." Beth barked out, they were both beginning to cough more heavily now, and Beth was beginning to get light headed. "And if we don't make it" Beth began, beginning to contemplate the worst, but Alison cut her off, "Just keep trying, we're going to make it!" Alison yelled desperately. Beth continued to work furiously but soon grew weary, so tired; the pins fell from her hand as she began to slump to the floor, "I think that's it for me, princess." Beth said, her voice failing. "Beth!" Alison cried scrambling to her side. Beth had slumped fully onto the floor, hardly breathing any more. "No, no." Alison murmured, a tear falling from her eye, as she held Beth, beginning to get light headed herself. Then, all of a sudden, Alison heard a slight click, as the door suddenly unbolted. While slightly confused, Alison did not hesitate, she grabbed Beth and pulled her out the door, resting her upon the stairs, and slamming the door shut so no gas would get out to them. Gasping in the fresh air she looked down at Beth, she wasn't waking. "Beth? It's ok now, we're out, we made it." But Beth refused to move, so Alison did the only thing she could think of.

Beth sat at her desk, drumming her fingers against the hard surface of it as she stared at her computer intently. She was technically supposed to be following up on a local robbery, which she had done, she had just got lucky and found a lead upon that very early, now she was trying to find a lead on her own situation; the robber could wait. Not that she had very much luck, both Alison and herself were orphans so it was probable that they were twins, but it was odd, they had both come from different orphanages, and what parent splits up their twin kids? Something seemed fishy. Beth milled through the pages of her own orphanages website looking for any kind of link between the two orphanages, any link between her and this copy of hers. "Eosdem" Beth murmured under her breath, reading the name from the list of donors to the orphanage. The name looked familiar, it was a bit of a leap but it was the only thing that had stuck out to her thus far. Deftly switching tabs back to the orphanage that Alison had provided her with and preformed a search of the name. Nothing came up, zero results, Beth lowered her head, resting it upon her hand so that she could think. She had no leads, no clues, not even the slightest hint of what was going on here; Beth sighed getting up, looks like it's back to good old fashioned police work, she thought, walking over to turn over the information she had about the robber.