It was a nice summer day. Not a cloud in the sky, a far-off lawnmower could be heard, which had been humming for so long it had become background noise, and Reko was basking in the sun, dozing off and enjoying its warmth.
He felt like he could stay in this moment forever, without a care in the world.
However, he knew this moment had already long passed. This was just a memory.
A very bittersweet memory.
The incessant and never-ending noise of the lawnmower came to a sudden halt as if signalling the end of Reko's peaceful moment, and his eyes slowly fluttered open.
'Dad always did say that if the neighbour ever stopped mowing his damn lawn, the end of the world must be starting,' Reko chuckled to himself, knowing that was exactly the case here.
Reko realised he was dreaming, reliving a vivid memory from his youth. He decided to keep observing.
After young Reko stood up from the grass he had been lying on for the past couple of hours, he was already thinking of heading inside and enjoying a nice ice cream with his parents.
Just as he was about to turn around and head to the front door, he noticed he couldn't feel the warm rays of the sun anymore, so he took a look at the sky.
Black.
Nothing.
The blue sky was missing.
It was as if the Earth itself had been suddenly thrust into an infinitely empty void, where even space itself didn't exist.
Reko looked at the sky, completely stunned. He was quite young at the time, but even he knew it wasn't every day that the sky disappears for no reason. He completely forgot about everything in his small world: himself, his parents and the ice cream. Feeling the significance of the moment, he completely immersed himself in it, etching every bit of the surroundings he could into his memory.
It was unnaturally quiet, similar to walking through the woods in heavy snow, where everything was muffled and suppressed.
Reko continued staring at the sky, knowing something was bound to happen, when suddenly an array of bright lights flashed in the sky, along with a loud bang, and Reko's memory cut off there.
Reko sighed in the now pitch black recesses of his mind, where the memory took place moments ago.
'I still miss it sometimes, that final moment of normalcy. It's so far away now, I doubt I'll ever feel any semblance of that again.'
He'd done enough reminiscing about the good old times of the world pretty much ending. It was time to wake up.
Reko's eyes fluttered open.
There was no warm sun to greet him, but instead the shine of fluorescent lights and the smell of sweat. The room he was in had a simple bed, where he lay, a door to the bathroom, a pile of dirty clothes and a desk covered in all sorts of junk. There were no windows.
He'd fallen asleep in his room again in the middle of the day.
'Damn, that's like the eighth time this week.'
He'd been falling asleep and feeling dizzy all the time recently, and he was starting to get worried. He'd been slaving away at this containment zone for years now, doing mindless work. Reko thought that maybe it was starting to take a mental toll on him, but he wasn't sure if that was the case.
Sometimes strange things happened here due to the excessive amount of Essence in the atmosphere within the containment zone. He believed it to be a side effect of prolonged exposure to such a high density of Essence for several years.
'What if it gets so bad I fall asleep in the Pit? At least I'd be done with this hellhole then, most likely.'
Reko set aside his self-deprecating thoughts and got up to stretch. He still had to visit the Pit today, and he knew skipping would bring him more consequences than he was willing to handle right now.
He'd fallen asleep with his clothes on, so he grabbed his well-worn backpack, put on his torn pair of gloves and headed out of his room.
The corridor outside his room was dead silent. It was rare to see any traffic here except for guards, considering how everybody moved in accordance with their own schedule.
Reko happened to see a guard heading his way from down the corridor, so he decided to get a move on towards the cafeteria. He hadn't eaten properly yet.
Reko moved down the now all too familiar path of the twisting and turning hallways and soon arrived at the cafeteria. Unsurprisingly, he saw a few others eating. Some in small groups, chatting about their latest expeditions into the Pit, while others quietly ate alone. He recognised one such person and gave him a wave. The man quickly recognised him and shot a smile back at Reko.
Reko smiled at him.
'Steven's actually a pretty nice guy if you manage to look past the fact that he murdered a family of four before being sent here.'
Reko went to a counter, where several machines stood in a row. He flashed his card on a nearby scanner and received his portion of food from the machines. He received his plate of brown sludge and a cup of water and then went and sat down across from Steven.
Steven was a man in his late twenties, with striking grey eyes and tangled blonde hair. He had a sharp face and nice features. He wore the standard prisoner uniform consisting of an all-black body suit, a pair of black sweatpants and a black t-shirt.
Some people got sent here randomly, like Reko, while others, like Steven, were criminals who were sent here most likely as some kind of punishment or as a part of a rehabilitation program. Of course, that didn't explain why Reko got sent here at the ripe old age of 11. He still didn't know after being here for five years.
"You look like shit, man," Steven greeted Reko.
Reko smirked at him and put a spoonful of the fishy sludge into his mouth.
"Nice to see you too."
"No, seriously, you gotta stop staying up so late and sleep some more. You're gonna get yourself killed in the Pit at this rate. A boy your age needs at least eight hours of sleep, or your brain's not gonna develop properly, and in this hell it's not gonna develop at all, because you'll be dead without that good night's rest."
Reko shot him a cold glance.
"Does it really matter if I get slimed out by some random horror down there? We're not getting out of here, so I might just be better off dead."
Steven furrowed his brows and put down his utensils.
"You know that's not true. Do you really think they sent us here just to be tortured? No, of course not. There has to be some kind of bigger reason."
Reko shoved some food into his mouth. He knew fully well Steven was right, but it was still difficult to maintain that way of thinking after so many years. How did Steven do it?
"Let's just hope you're right."
They both went back to eating in silence, which was interrupted after a couple of minutes by a loud shout.
"REKO! STEVEN!"
Reko and Steven, along with a few others in the cafeteria, both turned to look at the source of the commotion, clearly used to such a scene.
A boy in his late teens was cheerfully walking up to their table. He had blazing red hair and crimson eyes filled with infinite mischief. He wore a stupid smile from ear to ear on his face, and he wore a red jacket and red cargo pants, which were covered in ash stains, and both reeked of gunpowder.
Steven shot a disdainful glare at the youth.
"Shut up, you're being too loud, Ash."
Ash gave him a mocking look and put his hand to his ear.
"Whaaaat, I can't hear you over all the sludge on your face."
"What are you talki-"
Steven was cut off mid-sentence, as Ash clapped his hands together and the pile of brown sludge on Steven's plate burst up at him.
Splat!
His whole face was covered in the disgusting brown sludge.
Steven was silent for a moment, then roared.
"DID YOU ACTUALLY PUT A FUCKING BOMB IN MY FOOD THIS TIME!?"
Reko was taken aback by the scene he had just witnessed. Ash was good at making explosives and constantly tinkering with something, so it was no wonder that Steven immediately reached that conclusion, no matter how illogical it may have been.
Ash burst out laughing.
"Still can't hear you!"
Reko furrowed his brows.
'How did he pull that one off?'
It wasn't unusual for Ash to pull all sorts of stunts, but nothing as impossible as what he'd just done.
Steven prepared to charge at Ash.
"You little-!"
Ash's smile quickly turned into terror, clearly not having thought his plan through, and he was soon caught by Steven and put into a headlock.
Reko laughed.
'You can't get this type of entertainment anywhere else, I'll give this place that much.'
Once Reko got tired of seeing them fight, he got up and broke the two apart. Being the youngest of the three, he still found it somewhat comical that he had to play peacemaker.
"Alright, alright, that's enough for one day. I've gotta get over to the Pit soon. Also, how did you do that?"
Ash gave Steven a cheeky smile and then turned towards both of them.
"Not telling, but I did actually come here to go to the Pit with you two, before slop face over here got all sensitive over a joke."
Reko set aside his questions for now, knowing he's not getting any concrete answers for now. However, he had a nagging feeling that something improbable had happened with Ash for him to be able to do something like that.
'Hmm, maybe...'
"You could've killed me!"
"Yeah, yeah. I wanted to go as a squad today cause I'll get bored sulking down there all by myself."
Reko and Steven looked at one another. Both were a bit hesitant, since they knew things tended to go awry in the Pit even in small squads. Reko calculated whether this expedition could be worthwhile.
'Maybe I could figure something out about how he blew up Steven's food? Definitely something
After a bit of hesitation, Reko and Steven spoke up.
"All right, it's been a while, so it should be fine."
"Yeah, sure, just make sure you blow those abominations up and not me."
Ash looked excited.
"All right! Let's get moving. Either of you take a request yet?"
"Yeah, I took a corpse retrieval. Should be around the 28th floor," Reko said, while finishing the remainder of his food.
Every Diver had to take a request. Well, not necessarily, but unless you want to spend 20 hours down there doing nothing, taking a request was the better option.
"That deep?" Steven shot a confused glance at Reko.
Reko got up and put his plate on a nearby tray.
"Seems so, it's not past the 30th floor though, so it should be fine."
Ash was bursting with excitement.
"Hell yeah! The lower floors are always more fun! You both got your gear, so let's go right away."
The squad of three promptly left the cafeteria after Steven washed his face and headed towards the entrance of the Pit.
They soon arrived at the intimidating, pitch-black entrance of a wide, deep slope.
A few others, who paid the squad no attention, were near the slope, either heaving on the ground covered in cuts and bruises or checking their gear and preparing to head into the dark abyss.
Reko turned away from the other Divers.
'Best not to stare too much. Never know who it might tick off.'
"C'mon, what are you two waiting for. Let's head in!"
Ash rushed in headfirst as always. Steven and Reko took a moment to gather themselves and stepped into the pitch black abyss that was the Pit.
'This isn't going to be a simple expedition, is it?'