Leaving the library, Lloyd felt as if he had swallowed a stone. The words "living corpse" echoed heavily within him.
'Though, to be fair, I knew most of it already,' — he brushed aside the intrusive thoughts.
Without even noticing, Lloyd mechanically trudged towards home through the park, pondering the Something that had driven humanity underground.
'It's probably still wandering the surface somewhere.'
He had seen Resonators of the Gifted rank — their power seemed beyond his comprehension. But that creature surpassed even the Darkened rank.
'A worm like me would probably die on the spot from just one look.' — the young man concluded with bitter irony, lazily shuffling his feet.
He passed through the gate made of thin metal rods. A sign hung on them: "Park of the Extinguished Light."
Walking along the old-fashioned sidewalk, he boredly turned his head. This park was linked to many memories.
There was the abandoned ice cream stall where he used to beg his parents for a coin for a vanilla cone.
Walking a bit further, about thirty meters, he found himself before a grove of tall green trees with elegantly twisted branches — here he used to play tag with his sister, Sonia.
"Who would have thought..." — he sighed heavily, forcing himself to move on. His mood was thoroughly spoiled.
He walked, staring at the ground, towards the old gazebo, intending to rest.
He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice his own feet carrying him to the gazeway.
Raising his head, he met a pair of dark-honey eyes.
He froze on the spot, caught off guard.
"Ah, um... Hi.." — he squeezed out, feeling how stupid it sounded.
Before him, having lifted her head towards him, sat the same black-haired girl. Her book now lay closed on her knees, and all her attention was fixed on the unexpected guest. In her dark-honey eyes, there was neither irritation nor fear — only a quiet, studying curiosity.
"Hi." — she replied. Her voice was quieter than he expected, but distinct, as if it arose in the very silence of his own consciousness.
An awkward pause dragged on. Lloyd cleared his throat, feeling his face begin to burn.
"Just... Wanted to sit down." — He jerked his head towards the free space on the bench, as if asking for permission.
The girl nodded slightly, and he, trying not to look at her, plopped heavily down on the opposite end of the bench. He stared ahead at the trunk of a gnarled underground tree, feeling like a complete idiot.
'Brilliant, Lloyd. Just brilliant. Scared the girl, you creep...'
"Do you often do that?" — her question sounded just as calm.
Lloyd turned to her, frowning.
"Do what? Lose the power of speech at the sight of strangers?" — he blurted out and immediately cringed inwardly at his own rudeness.
The corners of her lips twitched in a hint of a smile.
"No. You freeze like a rabbit before a boa constrictor. You look, but you don't see."
Her words struck a nerve. It was... accurate. That's exactly how he had lived these past years — languishing, staring at the ground, trying not to bother anyone and remain unnoticed.
"Maybe I'm just tired." — he muttered in justification, looking away.
"Tired? Of what?" — she didn't let go.
Lloyd shrugged, his fingers instinctively tightening on the strap of the backpack containing the scroll.
"Lots of things. Of this stuffiness. Of the eternal darkness overhead."
Hastily changing the subject, he risked looking at her again.
"And you've been here since morning. Did something happen?"
The stranger squinted.
"Creep."
Lloyd, imagining how that must have sounded, immediately began to justify himself.
"No! I just happened to notice you this morning!... Lately, I've had this luck with the color black..."
He said the last part under his breath.
Smirking, she followed his example and shrugged her slender shoulders.
"It's quiet here. And the trees... they're real."
At that moment, the ground beneath them shuddered.
At first, it was like a faint jolt, as if a heavy truck had passed somewhere far away. But then the stone tiles under their feet strangely... yielded, became soft, like plasticine. The bench swayed.
"What's that?..." — Lloyd began, but his question was drowned out by a growing rumble.
The world swam. The park floor was literally turning into a shifting quagmire, pulling them deep. It wasn't a fall — it was an immersion. The stone flowed like thick water, enveloping their legs, dragging them down.
Lloyd instinctively cried out and grabbed the bench, but it was already sinking with them.
"Hold on!" — he shouted, reaching out his hand to the girl.
His fingers found her wrist. Something sharp flashed in her eyes— not fear, but a swift, cold assessment of the situation. Then her other hand came to rest on top of his, confirming the grip.
They were jerked downward sharply.
The grey vault of the underground overhead vanished, replaced by a flickering of dark rock, roots, and rusty pipes. For a second, something else showed — a fragment of a poisonous lilac sky, fluttering like cheap fabric, and two suns, one of which was black. The air hit their lungs — not stale and dusty like in Pleraz, but cold, damp, and reeking of metal and decay.
Then — an impact. Dull, resonating with pain throughout his whole body.
Lloyd lay on his back, in the dust, and saw above him not a stone ceiling, but an endless, ominous veil of mist, concealing... nothing. Emptiness. He was on the surface.
Next to him, coughing, the girl was getting up. Her black hair was covered in dust and clinging blades of grass.
"You alive?" — her voice was quiet again, but now a slight tremble was audible in it.
"For now" — Lloyd rasped, reaching his right hand behind his back to check for the backpack.
He looked around. They stood on the outskirts of gigantic ruins. The skeletons of skyscrapers, like the ribs of prehistoric monsters, pressed against the grey sky. Everything was covered in a thick layer of rusty dust and strange, pulsating lichens emitting a dull purple glow. The air vibrated with distant, unfamiliar sounds.
And then he heard it. A faint, multiple whispering. He turned around.
Ten meters away from them, as if driven by the wind, floated several pale, translucent beings. Their forms constantly fluctuated, and from them came that very whisper — not a sound, but a vibration, right in his brain.
Drifters. Rank 0. Ghostly Traces.
They paid no attention to the duo. They floated in one direction, as if driven by an invisible force.
"They're... fleeing" — Lloyd whispered, remembering the book. Cold horror gripped his spine. — "That means, somewhere nearby... something stronger."
He grabbed the girl by the sleeve.
"Run. Now."
They dashed through the labyrinth of ruins, stumbling over debris and hiding behind twisted car frames. The whisper of the Drifters faded, but it was replaced by another sound — a heavy, measured shuffling coming from the next street. It was getting closer.
Lloyd, almost dragging the girl behind him, spotted a breach in the foundation of one of the half-destroyed buildings leading to a basement. Without a word, they dove inside.
It was dark, damp, and smelled of mold, but quiet. They collapsed onto the floor in the dark basement, trying to catch their breath, listening to the shuffling outside. It passed by, slowly fading away.
Silence finally settled, broken only by their ragged breathing. Lloyd leaned his head against the cold concrete wall, feeling the adrenaline tremble slowly recede, replaced by a chilling clarity.
"Lloyd" — he exhaled into the darkness and, realizing he was still holding the girl's wrist, hastily pulled his hand back.
A small pause.
"Ariel." — came the quiet, but clear reply. It seemed it didn't bother her in the slightest.
He nodded, as if she could see it.
"What was that, Ariel?" — his voice sounded louder now, with a hint of despair. He stared at the ceiling, not seeing it. — "When I said I was tired of the darkness and stuffiness, this isn't what I meant! Why did the ground just... dissolve?"
Ariel sat, hugging her knees. Her profile was faintly discernible in the light breaking through the breach.
"The world outside was always unreliable. We just... forgot about it, locked in our burrows."
"No, no. We have to get back!" — Lloyd said with sudden, burning resolve.
It wasn't just a wish, but a necessity. To return was to confirm that the old life, however grey, still existed.
"Home?" — Ariel asked, and a sincere, detached interest sounded in her voice. — "Is someone waiting for you there?"
Lloyd hesitated for a moment, embarrassed.
"Well... Snakey. Hungry."
Saying it out loud was incredibly stupid, but that black worm with white eyes had suddenly become a symbol of something normal.
"An important reason." — the corners of Ariel's lips twitched.
"And you?" — he couldn't resist. — "Is someone waiting for you?"
The silence dragged on.
When Ariel spoke, her voice became almost a whisper, merging with the rustle of dust.
"No one... is waiting for me. But I need to return. I'm looking for something. A record. The diary of a person who studied the Gates of Darkness."
She didn't say whose diary it was or why it was so important. Lloyd felt a solid wall and didn't push. Everyone has their own demons.
Fatigue took its toll. After a while, Ariel's breathing evened out and became deep. She fell asleep, sitting, her head leaning against the wall like an ancient statue guarding its secrets.
Lloyd couldn't sleep. His fingers found the scroll in the backpack again.
'I think now is the most suitable moment.'
He took it out, untied the red thread, and unfolded it with trembling hands.
The yellowed paper was covered in strange, angular symbols. He tried to peer at them, to understand something. And then...
Agony.
A sharp, burning pain pierced his skull, as if someone had driven a red-hot nail into his brain. He suppressed a groan, biting his lip until it bled.
The runes on the paper stirred, swam, and then seemed to imprint themselves not on his retina, but directly onto his consciousness. Now, even with his eyes closed, he saw them — flickering, unbearably bright signs at the very periphery of his vision. It felt as if they didn't want to be read. They wanted to be remembered.
The pain receded as suddenly as it had begun, leaving behind only exhaustion and these blazing symbols, forever inscribed in his mind. He convulsively gulped air and looked at the sleeping Ariel, then at the scroll, which had lost its intricate symbols.
The knowledge was already inside. And with it came the realization — the dream that would lead him to the next step was already creeping up, promising new nightmares. He felt the reality around him thinning, preparing to let them in.