He had never seen the wonderful building before, never even heard about it. Then he saw the engraving. Set into a solid gold plate and welded to the shining red brick wall, it read "The House of Many Mysteries", and in smaller script below, "also stocks answers". Of course, the last part confused him, but he would not be scared away by a phrase. He clicked on the door and was swept into the House.

The inside was even more magnificent than the exterior. The plush shag carpet was a rich blue that his eyes gratefully drank in. He saw a shining sterling silver reception desk, empty, on the other side of the cavernous lobby. Huge paintings of rather uninviting characters stared down at him; former City Workers, he supposed.

He clicked the desk and slowly moved towards it. Nothing unusual happened when he reached it. He had been expecting... something. Even as he came to a rest over the desk, nothing changed. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a doorway appeared. He jumped in surprise and rubbed his strained eyes. But the doorway was there. It was real.

It was dark and foreboding, allowing no view of the contents of the room beyond.

Fearlessly, imnalien clicked the doorway. His face dragged over to the doorway, and the screen went blank. A deep, black blankness. His heart dropped, and he realized it had been in his throat the whole time.

Then the screen exploded into color!

At first it seemed the room was filled with a mountain range of colorful blobs. But as his eyes adjusted to the sudden light, imnalien realized he was looking at a mountain range of OLD FACE PARTS!!!!

Near the bottom of the nearest sack were some parts he had never seen before... as the piles grew, the face part styles changed noticeably. As he stared at this tremendous treasure trove of virtual facial features, the full significance of his discovery hit him. He, imnalien, had found a hidden building that contained expired face parts! He could hardly believe his luck. Wait till his friends heard!!

He stopped. His friends... would he actually betray City Hall by giving away this link to all of Whyville? He knew that if he told one person, everyone would know in a few days, if not less.

Imnalien looked away from his computer screen; the brilliance of millions of shining face parts almost blinding him. He blinked, hard, several times. Once his vision cleared, he exited the room. He was surprised when his computer loaded not the lobby of The House of Many Mysteries, but the Greek Theatre. He saw one of his best friends there, chatting.

Imnalien clicked his friend's face and began typing. When he ran out of message space, he looked over what he had written: "Hey, you'll never guess what I just found! I was clicking around and found this HUGE building. I went inside and found a stash of expired face parts! You HAVE to go there!" And at the end of the message, there was the link to The House of Many Mysteries.

He stared at it. His friend whispered to him, "Hey, what's up?" but imnalien didn't answer. He slowly lifted his hand and let it hang over the Enter/Return key for several eternities. His hand jumped up to the Backspace key -- he held it down until his finger went numb. Then he left the Greek Theatre without saying anything to his friend.

Author's Note: Is the House of Mysteries a real place on Whyville? I'm not sure. If it is, I hope whoever finds it keeps the secret. Maybe someone has already found it. If so, they can definitely keep a secret.

Imnalien is a made-up character. If you look for him in City Records, you won't find anything. This story explains one of my many theories concerning expired face parts. I think when I started writing it I wanted it to be a funny story. Somewhere during the writing process it became a lesson. I've never really liked how people give out links to secret buildings on Whyville to anyone and everyone -- it ruins the surprise and joy of finding it yourself. So don't ruin it for people, LoL!

-ZookyQ-