It wasn't an error. It was a glitch and my Stella, never glitched. From the soles of my shoe, I took out a cell phone and opened it, but the sim error popped up continuously. I had changed my sim to an Indian one as well, it couldn't possibly go wrong. Then a thought struck when the IP address of the network changed. Perhaps we weren't on Earth anymore. Perhaps a parallel universe? No, there were no elves or advanced technology for that matter.
I hummed in thought.
There was a flicker in my screen, like earlier from the tunnel and two options popped up.
"Take" or "Counter".
I chose to take, and the screen went complete black.
Had I made a mistake? The screen flickered again and then a hologram appeared in front of me, a girl. Standing tall till my shoulders with bouncy brunette hair and a maroon sweatshirt with leggings on and a converse.
"Master!!!"
She spoke, and I instantly remembered my stella. My motherboard. She was alive. I stuttered at first, testing the waters.
"Stella?"
She glitched a bit but answered, nonetheless. She nodded her head vigorously and I fell to the floor at her feet. The program I spent years designing had come to life. A flicker of hope alighted in my chest. The hows could be solved later. Now, it was time for some rescue.
"Can you put virus in all of the systems?"
She nodded her head. She transformed into a screen where I made a virus and send the link to the system through the circuit that was there on the wall, kept for electrocution. One by one the system failed, and I watched the doors open. There was a blackout too. I quickly ran out with Stella hovering behind, mid-air.
I slowed when I heard the noises of people down below and around me. I felt guilty for letting all the prisoners out. May the officers forgive me. Considering that there was a limited time between the system running again and finding all my friends, I signalled Stella to scan the entire palace. They could be farther away for all I knew. Enin seemed closer than the others and stella could only map out the ones nearer to her. I followed the blue markings on the map Stella provided and met with Enin.
"Enin!"
"Abhay! I thought I would never get out. What happened?"
She looked at me then at Stella, glowing bright, acting as a torch.
"Long story, Stella"
I said, my friends knew what I called my computer buddy. Enin craned her head at the mention but there was no time to waste. We needed to find the others.
"Wait!"
Shit! A guard. We ran down the hallway into the darker part of the castle.
[Low battery]
I cursed again. Using her as a torch drained her battery life. She disappeared and we were left in the darkness. The only light we got was through the ventilators, giving us a peek of the starry sky outside with rays of the moon, glittering through the holes. Enin knocked into what seemed like a statue, my feet got stuck in a tight gap between whatever it was, throughout the time, we kept bumping and destroying things.
"Do you really think they're here?"
I shrugged. But seeming she couldn't see me I answered a don't know.
"There! Look!"
I looked at where Enin pointed and saw a marvellous statue of what seemed like a woman, glistening under the rays of the moon light. She went ahead to touch the beauty but accidentally knocked on a thing below which opened a door.
We looked at each other, a side of her face slightly visible in the dark. It was a question of should we or shouldn't we but considering we were fucked anyway, I went ahead, she followed. It seemed like we were in a library. I shielded my eyes when the light turned on. For a moment, I was scared but after I knew it was Enin who had turned on manual light, I relaxed.
It was a big library. We looked at each other and started going through books for our dear friend Anasa. He had been working hard these past couple of years, and we wanted to be supportive of him. Together, we went through eighteen books, his thesis was on the topic of the Soulstar war that occurred a hundred years ago.
We were shocked to see it having a section of its own in this world or planet, whatever it was. I used my phone's last battery, to use Stella and scan all these documents. Hopefully it would be there on earth. Then panic settled in. How were we going back to our home in the first place?
Enin flicked my forehead and told me not to worry. We resumed our search.
When from the top of the roof, something fell on the second floor. We jumped in happiness when it was Ilira.
"Fucking hell!"
She dusted off the cobwebs on her head. And glared at us like we were the one responsible for her fall. She sighed.
"Those fucking robots. And fucking guards"
She looked at us and took a breath of relief.
"They're not up"
I nodded my head. We found stairs at the end of the long hallway, darker than before where not even the moonlight reached. We walked in a line, holding each other's hand not to lose sight of each other.
"I'm worried"
Enin said with a small voice which trembled a little. My own heart rate spiked after potentially stepping on a bear trap.
"Hello!"
Ilira yelled.
"Hello!"
Sobul! We practically ran in the dark, calling each other out. Once we reached the upper grounds of the palace, there were numerous prisoners out along with the robots and guards, creating a mayhem in the palace grounds. A guard saw us through his flashlight, but we beat him to it and ran from the place through one of the windows.
The lights turned on as soon as we hid under a bush, for the soldiers outside who were on alert.
"Fuck!"
We were heaving by the time we were away from the palace grounds. Once cooled, we noticed the little fireflies encircling around us lighting up the dark. I looked back at the tall skyscrapers filled with streetlights that blinded the beauty above. There were slides for streets where the cars ran at a hundred miles per hour. The spot we stood was the only place that had any greens on it.
"Have we travelled to the future?"
Valid question. I charged my Stella on one of the battery terminals, darkening a spot and we walked, marvelling the designs of the cars, the buildings, the models which costed probably one of my kidneys, but the wonder failed when hunger roared in our stomach.
"I can't anymore, guys"
I said, leaning on the trunk of the tree. They looked equally famished. Stella started acting out again, the IP address changing again. I typed in a code and found the IP address of the real world and soon enough, we were sucked inside the internet, throwing us to where we were before on the forest, near the tunnel.
"What the fuck!?"