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The breath caught in River's throat when Jordan seemed to sink into the wall, but in her next step, she saw that he had discovered the dip in the wall and was standing at a narrow door. His fingers traced the letters of an engraving, softened and weathered with age, in the center of the stone door.
River looked at it, but she couldn't read the characters. She could feel the seconds ticking by. There was a rusted latch on the door and she reached for it, doubting it would work. At any moment, the other guards would come into place and catch them. She pushed harder on the latch and felt the rust grinding to powder beneath her palm and the edges biting into her skin.
The sound of grass-muffled footsteps filled their ears and Jordan pushed her hand out of the way to grab the latch. He pressed it, shaking it. Suddenly the latch gave way and the door shifted, opening just enough that they could slip through and push it closed behind them.
Darkness engulfed them, sharpening their other senses so that River felt like she could hear the blood rushing through her veins. She tried to control her breathing, but the panic at nearly getting caught by the guards made it ragged and heavy as it poured from her lungs. A soft glow appeared in front of her and she saw that Jordan had turned the flashlight on his phone on and was holding it beneath his shirt to filter the light.
He placed a finger on his lips to quiet her again and gestured deeper into the space they had entered. She followed him cautiously, aware of the foreboding silence from outside that told her the second shift of guards had taken their place.
"What do we do now?" River whispered.
"Those guards will be there until morning, so we are stuck in here until then."
River's head fell back and she gave a sigh of exasperation. When she said she wanted adventure, she hadn't meant that she wanted to get trapped inside the Great Wall overnight. At least she had some bottled water and a few snacks tucked in her backpack she had reserved for getting through the lectures.
"As long as we are stuck in here, we might as well do a little exploration," she finally said, deciding that sitting around on the floor and bemoaning her current state of existence was not a productive use of their time.
"Absolutely," Jordan said, brightening up.
"Could you read those words engraved on the door?"
"'Knowledge is Power.'"
River looked at him quizzically.
"Really? I wonder what that means."
Jordan shook his head and they continued along the narrow corridor they had entered when they stepped through the door. The light from his cell phone illuminated just enough space in front of them that they were able to follow the turns and curves of the corridor. Suddenly the beam fell on the sharp edge of a staircase that looked like it was carved directly into the stone as it disappeared down into the darkness.
River glanced at Jordan. He shrugged at her and the two stepped down onto the next step, both pausing for a moment as if worried there would be some sort of alarm or trap that would alert the guards outside to their wanderings. When nothing happened, River took another step down and soon they were making their way down the stairs, her hand grazing the wall beside her to keep her steady on the steep passage.
"Do you have any idea what the whole 'Knowledge is Power' thing is all about?" she asked, glancing over at Jordan who seemed to be concentrating intensely on making his way down the steps.
"No. The characters looked weathered, so they were definitely old, but they didn't look like someone just randomly them carved there. They weren't graffiti or something somebody did quickly. I've never heard that phrase used when talking about the Wall."
"Neither have I."
River took another step and felt herself stumble. Jordan reached down and grabbed her arm to stabilize her and help her back to her feet. She looked down at the steps at her feet and then back in the direction from which they came.
"When did we start going up?" she asked.
"What?"
"We were going down the stairs. When did we start going up?"
Jordan looked back and then up the stairs ahead of them. They had been walking down the stairs, but now all of the stairs they could see behind them and in front of them showed that they were climbing up.
"I don't know."
River watched Jordan run back down the stairs for a few feet and hold up his phone to shine the light down the staircase.
"I can't even see where it changed," he said.
"What do we do? Do we just keep going up or do we try to go back down?"
River was starting to feel nervous. The sudden, unnoticed change of direction was disorienting, and she realized that she didn't even realize how long they had been walking, making her unsure of how far from the door they must have gone.
"We can't be too far from the top of the wall. Let's just keep climbing for a few more minutes."
River nodded and they started climbing again, silent now as they both concentrated on counting the steps beneath their feet and trying to orient themselves in the space. They climbed for several more minutes before the light from Jordan's phone shone onto the top of the staircase and what looked like a trap door set into the ceiling.
He handed River the phone so that she could hold the light steady on the door while he tried to open it. The metal handle on the bottom didn't look rusted or aged like the one outside and he wrapped his hand firmly around it. He gave a hard tug and the door fell open, forcing him to step back so that it didn't hit him. River caught him by flattening his hands on his back, indulging herself for just a moment by letting her fingers trail over the muscles that she could feel beneath his shirt.
Jordan pulled the door the rest of the way down and a bright light poured into the staircase. River immediately noticed that it didn't look like sunlight. She followed him up through the door and the moment she stepped up onto the smooth white floor, she heard the trapdoor slam closed as if triggered by their weight.
River gasped at the loud sound and stumbled back, hitting something hard behind her. She turned and saw a wall of what looked like thick, clear glass. Taking a step back, she turned to look at Jordan. He was a few feet away, his hand pressed against an identical wall in front of him. She glanced around, looking for an opening, but they were standing in a fully enclosed glass cube.