The silence in Level 17 was not normal.It wasn't the artificial silence of muted announcements or deserted streets.It was real silence.Alive.Waiting.
I walked with my flashlight trembling in my hand, passing walls covered in graffiti no one should have written, in a place where no one should be. There were symbols I didn't recognize, scratched-out phrases, drawings with peeling paint.
On the corner of a rusted door, someone had written:"If you can read this, you're already inside."
I didn't know inside of what.Only that I was no longer outside.
The corridor ended in an unmarked fork.Left: total darkness.Right: a faint orange light flickering in the distance.
I went toward the light. Out of stupidity or instinct.
The door at the end was one of those old mechanical ones, opened with a hydraulic lever. It shouldn't have worked, but when I pushed, it yielded with a soft metallic sigh, as if someone had oiled it recently.
Inside, there were no ruins.There was life.
A wide underground room, shelves filled with papers, old portable screens, boxes labeled with dates and names. In the center, a table.And at the table, three people.
They weren't adults.They weren't soldiers.They were… like me. Teenagers. Two girls and a boy. They looked at me as if they had been waiting.
The first to speak was the one with short hair and steady eyes."You're late," she said. "We thought you'd been caught.""Who are you?" I asked awkwardly, my throat burning.
She studied me. Not with distrust. With curiosity."My name's Kael. That's Lira and Sol."
The boy, Sol, nodded lightly. The other girl, Lira, stared at me in silence, as if trying to see through my skin.
"How did you know I'd come?" I asked.
Kael gave a humorless smile."We didn't. We left three notes in three different zones. You're the first to respond."
I pulled the yellow sheet from my pocket and laid it on the table."Remember," I read aloud. "What's it supposed to mean?"
Kael pointed to a metal box beside her. She opened it.
Inside were more sheets. Dozens. Hundreds. All different, but all carrying the same word and variations of the symbol: circles with lines, broken triangles, split spirals.
"We didn't write these," she said. "We found them. Other people have received them too. For years. Always with different symbols, but the same word."
"And what does it mean?" I insisted.
Lira spoke for the first time."It means there's something we've been made to forget. And someone, somewhere, is trying to make us remember."
I sat down. Not by choice. By sheer necessity.
Something we forgot?The entire city? The whole society?Could that even be possible?
"We thought we were alone," Sol said. "But now you're here. And if you got a sheet, it means others will too. Or already have."
Kael pulled out a thicker sheet. A map. Hand-drawn. Marked with symbols and crossed-out zones.
"We've been exploring the lower levels for months," she explained. "What we know is fragmented, but enough to make one thing clear: X hasn't always existed."
The room fell into silence.
"There are records. Images. Old recordings. Data erased but not completely. Places sealed by the system. Places like this. The official history is a lie. And if that's true… then everything we believe is too."
I swallowed hard. My chest ached."What do you want to do?"
Kael looked at me as if the answer was obvious."We want to remember. Everything.And when we do…Tell it."
We stayed there until my flashlight flickered.Until the hum of a patrol drone echoed faintly, muffled by the layers of concrete.Until my head stopped spinning.
When I left Level 17, I wasn't the same anymore.My world hadn't changed.Only my place in it.
End of Chapter 3