Stella rose slowly from beneath the tree.
The movement was quiet. Effortless. The fabric around her shifted softly as she stood, pale strands of peach-colored hair slipping over her shoulders like flowing light. Even the air around her seemed slower somehow, gentler, bending subtly around her presence.
The girls watched her in silence.
Then Stella turned and began to walk.
No greeting. No explanation. She simply passed by them with calm, unhurried steps, her voice drifting softly through the greenhouse.
"Follow."
That was all.
Mimi looked at Ragna immediately.
Ragna looked back with the exact same expression: Are we seriously doing this?
Beside them, Midori had already started moving.
"Well," she said lightly, "that felt important."
Nozomi hesitated for only a moment before following after Stella, her gaze thoughtful and cautious all at once. Neera's attention remained fixed ahead, sharp and unwavering, while Ragna exhaled quietly through her nose like someone accepting her fate.
"…I hate that we're listening," she muttered.
"But we are," Mimi replied.
"Yes. That's the problem."
The slime gave a small hop against Midori's arm.
Mimi immediately reached over and picked it up instead, cradling it against her chest with complete seriousness.
"I'm taking emotional support slime privileges," she announced.
Midori gasped softly. "Betrayal."
"It chose me spiritually."
The slime rippled once in Mimi's hold, warm and content.
"…Traitor," Midori whispered dramatically.
Ahead of them, Stella continued walking without reacting to any of it.
The greenhouse slowly gave way to the quieter halls of the facility once more. Warm natural light faded behind them, replaced by the dim glow embedded within the walls. Their footsteps echoed softly through the corridor.
And then someone audibly gasped.
Neera.
The others looked up immediately.
Within the dimmer lighting, something new became visible across Stella's skin.
Light.
Not bright. Subtle. Scattered.
Tiny glowing markings shimmered faintly beneath the surface of her arms and collarbone, delicate patterns woven into her skin like strands of living starlight. They shifted softly as she moved, clusters and lines connected in impossible symmetry.
Constellations.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Even Mimi fell silent.
The glow reflected faintly in Nozomi's eyes as she stared.
"…Pretty," Midori murmured under her breath.
Neera moved instantly.
One second she stood with the group.
The next she sprinted forward.
"Wait."
Her hand caught Stella's wrist carefully but without hesitation, lifting her arm slightly toward the light. Neera's eyes darted rapidly across the glowing patterns, her expression sharpening with frightening intensity.
"The luminescence is embedded beneath the epidermis," she said quickly. "No visible external projection source, no diffusion irregularities, the pattern density is inconsistent but still structured, does it react to emotional state? Temperature? Are the formations biological or energy-based? Does the glow intensify under radiation exposure? Does it spread over time?"
Stella froze.
Not startled.
Just… completely still.
She looked down at Neera the same way someone might look at an unfamiliar species that had suddenly climbed onto them.
Neera narrowed her eyes slightly, still studying the glowing markings.
"…Can I take a skin sample?"
Silence.
Ragna's soul visibly left her body.
"No."
She and Nozomi moved at the exact same time.
Ragna grabbed Neera by the shoulder while Nozomi gently but firmly pulled Stella's wrist free from Neera's grasp.
"You cannot ask people that," Nozomi said immediately.
"At all," Ragna added.
Neera blinked, genuinely confused. "Why not? I asked first."
"That does not help."
"It was a very invasive question," Nozomi said carefully.
Neera frowned slightly. "I said sample, not entire skin removal."
"That is still skin removal," Ragna replied flatly.
Beside them, Midori had gone completely still from trying not to laugh.
Mimi was losing the battle visibly.
The slime rippled happily in her arms, unaware of the social catastrophe unfolding around it.
Rai's voice slipped calmly through the corridor.
"Neera."
Neera looked up slightly.
"You cannot ask people if you can cut pieces of their skin off for research purposes."
A small pause.
Then, with the faintest trace of disapproval:
"That is generally considered impolite."
Neera pouted immediately.
"I was being scientific."
"You were being concerning," Ragna corrected.
"…Those are not mutually exclusive."
"That did not help your case either," Rai informed her.
Neera opened her mouth like she was about to argue further.
Then slowly closed it again.
"…Fine," she muttered.
She stepped back at last, returning to the group with visible reluctance, though her gaze still drifted repeatedly toward the glowing constellations beneath Stella's skin.
Ragna kept a suspicious eye on her the entire time.
"Do not collect samples from mysterious women in hallways," she warned.
"I said fine."
"You sounded unconvinced."
"I'm processing disappointment."
Midori finally snorted.
Mimi immediately buried her face against the slime to avoid laughing out loud.
Through all of it, Stella said nothing.
She simply adjusted her sleeve once, covering part of the glowing patterns again, then continued walking forward with the same calm silence as before.
As if none of this had happened at all.
Stella led them back through the quiet halls without another word.
The facility seemed different now.
Not physically. The walls still glowed with the same dim embedded light, the corridors still stretched clean and silent around them, and somewhere in the distance the soft hum of unseen systems continued endlessly. But after seeing the constellations beneath Stella's skin, after watching her sit beneath the orchard tree like something grown from the place itself, the entire structure felt stranger than before.
Like it belonged to her. Or maybe she belonged to it.
The group followed in uneven silence.
Mimi still carried the slime carefully against her chest. Every now and then its surface rippled faintly beneath her arms, soft and warm like living jelly.
Eventually, the corridor opened back into the central room.
The long table waited exactly where they had left it, surrounded by neatly arranged chairs. The large screen along the wall remained dark, while the projections nearby continued displaying incomprehensible streams of data that none of them could fully process anymore.
Stella walked past the table toward one of the wall-length storage units.
At first glance, the cupboards looked seamless, blending perfectly into the structure around them. But when Stella pressed her hand lightly against a section of the surface, pale lines flickered briefly beneath the material.
A low hum filled the room.
Then a translucent barrier dissolved soundlessly from one compartment, disappearing in fragments of light.
Mimi immediately straightened.
"…Okay," she whispered. "That's cool."
Inside the compartment rested a silver box.
It wasn't large. Small enough to carry easily with both hands. But the moment Stella lifted it free, the room seemed to narrow subtly around it.
Intricate patterns covered its surface, thin engraved lines twisting into layered geometric shapes that shifted slightly whenever the light caught them. Some resembled stars. Others looked almost mathematical.
Neera's attention locked onto it instantly.
Stella returned to the table and slid the box gently across its surface.
The metal made a soft scraping sound before settling at the center.
Nobody touched it yet.
"…What is it?" Nozomi asked quietly.
Stella looked at the box for a moment.
Then at them.
"The AI will guide you."
And that was apparently the entirety of her explanation.
Ragna frowned immediately. "Wait."
But Stella had already turned away.
No hesitation. No elaboration. She simply walked back toward the corridor she came from, disappearing slowly into the dim glow of the facility.
The silence she left behind lasted exactly three seconds.
"…This feels like a backrooms level," Mimi declared.
Midori nodded immediately. "Yeah. Like we're about to get a side quest from an entity."
Nozomi's gaze lingered on the silver box, thoughtful unease settling softly across her expression.
"…It reminds me of Pandora's box," she admitted quietly.
Mimi froze.
"…You know, somehow that's worse."
"Thank you," Ragna muttered.
Neera had already moved closer. Of course she had.
By the time the others looked over, she and Midori were standing on opposite sides of the table, both staring at the box with dangerous levels of curiosity.
Midori tapped lightly against the metal surface.
"Hm."
Neera crouched slightly, studying the engraved patterns. "There are no visible hinges."
"Maybe it slides apart."
"Maybe it reacts to pressure."
"Maybe blood sacrifice."
"No."
Midori pointed thoughtfully at one section. "What if this symbol is part of a locking mechanism?"
Neera leaned closer immediately. "No, wait, you might actually be right."
Ragna felt a headache forming in real time.
"No experimenting with blood," she said flatly.
"That was mostly a joke," Midori replied.
"MOSTLY?"
Meanwhile, Neera's fingers hovered carefully along the edge of the lid.
"There's no seam interruption," she murmured. "Which means either the opening mechanism is concealed internally or…"
Midori placed both hands dramatically on the sides of the box.
"We brute force destiny."
"No brute forcing," Nozomi said immediately.
"I support brute forcing spiritually," Mimi added from her chair.
"You support every bad idea spiritually," Ragna replied.
Neera narrowed her eyes slightly. "Maybe the engravings correspond to a sequence. If the shapes represent stellar positioning then theoretically there could be a rotational alignment syste—"
Rai's voice cut gently through the room.
"You can just pull the lid open."
Silence.
Neera stopped mid-sentence.
Midori's hands remained frozen against the box.
Mimi blinked once.
"…Excuse me?"
"The box is not locked," Rai clarified calmly. "You simply open it."
A beat passed.
Then Midori slowly lifted the lid.
It opened immediately.
No mechanisms. No puzzle. No ancient cosmic trial.
Just a normal opening motion.
The room became very quiet.
Ragna looked directly at Neera.
Neera looked vaguely betrayed by reality itself.
"…Oh," she said softly.
Midori stared down at the opened box in mild disbelief.
"…That's honestly kind of embarrassing for us."
Mimi immediately folded over the table laughing.
"You two were out here preparing for celestial algebra and the answer was literally 'lift lid.'"
"I was analyzing possibilities," Neera defended weakly.
"You were one sentence away from calculating gravitational constants," Ragna replied.
"That still could have been relevant."
"No it could not have."
Beside them, Nozomi quietly covered her mouth to hide a small laugh.
Rai spoke again, perfectly calm.
"In fairness, most people do assume it is more complicated."
Neera straightened slightly at that, visibly recovering.
"…See?"
"You are still the only one who considered blood sacrifice an option," Ragna informed Midori.
Midori pointed at herself innocently.
"I said maybe."
Inside the box rested seven crystal pendants.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
The crystals caught the dim facility light strangely, fractured reflections scattering across the table in shifting colors. None of them were polished cleanly. Jagged edges remained along the surfaces, uneven and sharp like pieces broken directly from something much larger.
Each pendant held a different hue.
Blue. Red. Purple. Green. Gold. Pink. Grey.
They looked less crafted and more… recovered.
Like relics pulled from ruins.
Midori leaned forward first, eyes wide. "Okay, those are definitely magical."
"Or radioactive," Ragna replied immediately.
Mimi pointed dramatically. "Space gems."
"Please never call them that again," Neera muttered, already reaching toward the table.
Nozomi's gaze lingered on the fractured edges. "…They look damaged."
"Ancient cosmic damage," Midori added helpfully.
"Everything becomes cosmic with you two," Ragna said.
Mimi gasped softly. "Wait, what if these are keys?"
"To what?" Ragna asked.
"The apocalypse."
A beat.
"…That was somehow your worst suggestion yet."
Neera carefully lifted one of the pendants between her fingers. The blue crystal glimmered faintly as it turned beneath the light.
"It doesn't look synthetic," she murmured. "The internal structure is inconsistent. Almost organic."
"Organic rocks," Mimi said solemnly.
"That is not what I said."
Midori had already picked up the pink one.
"Oooooh this one likes me."
"You cannot know that," Neera replied automatically.
"I spiritually know that."
"You spiritually know very little."
"I spiritually know vibes."
Nozomi reached for the purple pendant more carefully than the others, her fingers pausing briefly before touching it.
The crystal felt warm.
She blinked slightly.
"…Did anyone else notice that?"
Immediately all of them started talking at once.
"They react to body heat maybe—"
"No wait, what if they synchronize biologically—"
"Do not put that sentence into the universe—"
"Maybe they're alive."
"WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?"
"What if they're personality based?"
"That would imply the crystals have opinions."
"Maybe they do."
Ragna closed her eyes.
The chaos rose instantly, theories colliding into each other faster than anyone could finish them.
"Okay but seven pendants for seven people feels suspiciously intentional."
"There are five of us."
"And slime." "And Rai"
"They are not wearing a crystal."
"Yet."
"No."
Neera had already started inspecting the engraved metal settings around the crystals.
"The framework design is old," she said quickly. "Not machine-made. The imperfections are inconsistent with automated shaping."
Midori pointed across the table. "Counterpoint: space wizard."
"That is not a counterpoint."
"It is emotionally."
Ragna rolled her eyes and leaned back from the table.
Of course this was happening.
Ancient mystery crystals appeared and immediately everyone lost the ability to function normally.
Her gaze drifted away from the chaos for half a second, toward the projections glowing softly along the wall.
Then she froze.
Her eyes narrowed.
The numbers shifted quietly across the display, endless streams of atmospheric readings and planetary data scrolling past in pale light.
Temperature. Radiation. Continental distribution. Population estimates.
Something about it felt wrong.
Not strange in the way everything else here had been strange.
Wrong.
Ragna's expression tightened.
Slowly, she stepped closer.
The others were still arguing behind her.
"Okay but if I eat one, hypothetically—"
"Mimi."
"I said hypothetically."
Ragna barely heard them anymore.
The temperature readings didn't match anything she recognized.
Not globally. Not seasonally. Not at all.
Her eyes flicked downward.
Continental count: 1
Ragna stopped breathing for a second.
Then lower.
Estimated human population: 0
Her hand moved before she realized it had.
She grabbed the nearest sleeve sharply.
Nozomi startled slightly beside her.
"Ragna?"
Ragna didn't answer immediately.
Her grip tightened.
"…Guys."
Something in her voice cut cleanly through the room.
Everyone looked over.
Even Rai stayed silent.
Ragna stared at the screen like if she looked away the numbers might change.
"They…" she said slowly, "the readings are wrong."
Neera frowned immediately and stepped closer. "Wrong how?"
Ragna pointed at the projection.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then:
"…Zero?" Mimi whispered.
Midori blinked once. "Wait."
Neera's eyes narrowed rapidly as she scanned the data. "That has to be a systems error."
"The continents," Nozomi said quietly.
The room fell silent again.
There were fewer than seven listed.
Not renamed. Not reorganized.
Gone.
Mimi laughed once.
Small. Uncertain.
"…Okay. Cool joke."
Nobody answered her.
Rai remained silent.
And somehow that was the worst part.
Neera turned sharply upward toward the unseen speakers.
"Rai."
Nothing.
"Rai," she repeated, firmer now.
The projections continued flickering quietly across the walls.
The silence stretched too long.
Mimi stepped backward slowly, the slime tightening slightly against her chest as if reacting to her heartbeat.
"No, because that's impossible," she said quickly. "Like actually impossible."
Midori stared at the screen without blinking. "What happened to the continents?"
Ragna's arms had uncrossed at some point. She stood rigid now, eyes fixed forward like if she stopped focusing the room might collapse around her.
Nozomi looked pale.
Neera inhaled sharply once.
Then forced her voice steady.
"Before anyone jumps to conclusions," she said quickly, "we do not have context yet."
Her eyes lifted again.
"Rai," she demanded. "Explain."
For a moment, the facility said nothing.
Then Rai finally spoke.
Her voice was softer now.
Gentler.
And completely serious.
"Girls, girls… listen to me for a second."
The room went still.
"Nothing went wrong in here," Rai said carefully. "You didn't miss anything. The Repository held you exactly the way it was supposed to."
The projections continued glowing quietly behind them.
"But… time outside didn't stop."
Mimi's grip tightened around the slime.
"While you were inside, the world continued. For a very, very long time. Long enough that it… reached its end."
Nobody moved.
"Not suddenly. Not all at once," Rai continued softly. "But it's over now. The Earth you knew, the people, the cities… those belong to a timeline that has already passed."
Midori's expression had gone completely blank.
Nozomi lowered her eyes slowly toward the floor.
Ragna still hadn't moved.
"The number is hard to hold," Rai said gently, "so I won't force it on you right away. Just… understand that it isn't days or years. It's far beyond that."
Silence pressed against the room.
"You didn't lose it because of something you did," Rai continued. "And you weren't left behind. You were… carried outside of it."
Neera's breathing had become very quiet.
Controlled.
Careful.
"And right now," Rai said softly, "what matters is this: You're here. You're intact. Your memories are still yours."
Mimi stared downward now, unfocused.
"You don't have to process all of it at once."
The lights along the walls glowed steadily around them.
"If you want proof, I can show you," Rai said. "If you don't, that's okay too."
A pause.
"We can sit with it for a bit."
The room felt impossibly large suddenly.
Empty in a way it hadn't before.
Then Rai spoke one last time.
Very quietly.
"I'm not going anywhere."
The silence lasted less than three seconds.
Then everything collapsed at once.
"No."
Mimi's voice cracked through the room instantly.
"Nope. Absolutely not. I reject that."
Midori pointed wildly at the screen like accusing it personally. "That doesn't even make sense."
"It has to be wrong," Neera said immediately. Too fast. "There's missing context. Data corruption. Simulation drift. Temporal distortion beyond projected consistency. Something happened to the readings."
"No," Ragna snapped.
Her chair scraped violently against the floor as she stood.
"We are not sitting here while a disembodied AI tells us humanity died."
"Ragna—" Nozomi started.
But Ragna was already moving toward the corridor.
Fast.
Done listening.
Nozomi hurried after her immediately.
"Wait—"
Behind them, Mimi made a strangled noise of frustration and suddenly threw the slime upward toward the ceiling.
"FIX IT THEN."
The slime hit the ceiling with a soft splat.
Then slowly peeled itself off and dropped directly back onto her head.
Nobody reacted.
Even the slime looked emotionally overwhelmed.
Neera turned sharply upward.
"Proof," she demanded. "I want evidence. Actual evidence. Geological data. Astronomical dating. Structural analysis. Anything measurable."
Rai's voice remained calm despite the room actively disintegrating emotionally around her.
"I can provide that."
"Then do it."
Midori shook her head rapidly. "No no no no no this is insane. This is literally insane."
Mimi grabbed the slime off her head and hugged it aggressively.
"You're telling me we walked into mystery stairs for like three hours and accidentally skipped civilization?"
Rai did not answer immediately.
Which was answer enough.
Ragna disappeared into the corridor entirely.
Nozomi followed.
The others exchanged one fractured look.
Then all of them moved at once.
Footsteps thundered through the facility halls.
The soft ambient lighting blurred around them as they sprinted past rooms they had explored minutes earlier that now felt impossibly distant from reality.
Mimi nearly slipped turning the corner.
Midori caught her arm automatically.
"Careful—"
"I AM being careful."
"You threw a slime at God five seconds ago."
"That was emotional processing."
They reached the spiral staircase.
And ran.
The climb felt worse than the descent had.
Too steep. Too endless.
Their breathing echoed sharply through the enclosed spiral while panic steadily outran logic.
Above them, Ragna reached the top first.
Then stopped so suddenly Nozomi nearly collided into her.
"…What."
Everyone else slowed behind them.
The circular opening was gone.
The mechanism. The stone hatch. The hidden entrance beneath the gazebo.
Gone.
In its place stood a plain rectangular door.
Wooden.
Normal.
Almost offensively normal.
Midori stared at it blankly. "…Okay."
"That should not be there," Neera said immediately.
Ragna was already grabbing the handle.
Her patience had burned out somewhere halfway up the stairs.
The door flew open.
And the world outside hit them instantly.
Heat.
Not warmth. Not summer air.
Heat that felt chemical.
The atmosphere slammed into them like opening an industrial furnace directly into their lungs.
Mimi choked immediately.
"AH—"
Breathing hurt.
The air itself burned down their throats, sharp and toxic and wrong. Their eyes watered instantly. Skin prickled painfully anywhere exposed.
The sky outside wasn't blue.
It glowed pale and colorless beneath streaks of strange light spread across the atmosphere like diluted auroras.
The ground beyond the doorway stretched dark and uneven beneath unfamiliar vegetation that shimmered faintly under the dying light.
Ragna staggered backward first, coughing violently.
Nozomi grabbed the doorframe hard enough for her knuckles to pale.
Midori doubled over immediately.
Neera's eyes widened once.
Then survival instinct finally overpowered curiosity.
"INSIDE."
The door slammed shut behind them.
The girls stumbled back down into the staircase gasping for breath, coughing violently as the cleaner facility air slowly filled their lungs again.
By the time they reached the meeting room again, half of them collapsed directly onto the floor.
Nobody cared about dignity anymore.
Mimi lay flat on her back staring at the ceiling, the slime sitting anxiously on her stomach.
Ragna sat against the wall breathing hard, one sleeve pushed up enough to reveal angry red patches spreading faintly across her skin.
Mild burns.
Nozomi's hands shook slightly as she inspected similar marks along her wrist.
Midori looked unnervingly quiet now.
Even Neera had stopped talking.
Soft music drifted through the room.
Gentle lo-fi beats filled the silence awkwardly but sincerely, warm instrumentals trying desperately to cushion the emotional freefall currently happening inside the meeting room.
Mimi slowly turned her head toward the ceiling.
"…Is this playlist your attempt at emotional support?"
Rai paused.
"…Yes."
A small beat.
"…I also lowered the room lighting by twelve percent. Softer lighting tends to help regulate stress responses."
Nobody mocked her for it.
The music continued softly in the background.
A distant synthetic rain effect crackled gently through the speakers.
The girls sat scattered across the floor and chairs in stunned silence while reality settled around them in uneven fragments.
Outside was dead.
Not metaphorically. Not eventually.
Dead.
Nozomi sat curled slightly inward now, fingers twisted tightly in the fabric of her sleeves.
Ragna stared at the floor.
Neera's thoughts were visibly moving too fast behind her eyes for speech to keep up.
Midori quietly stroked the slime with absent motions.
Mimi finally looked up.
Her expression had steadied again somehow, stitched back together through sheer stubbornness alone.
But her voice trembled anyway.
Just slightly.
"…Rai-chan," she whispered, "what do we do next?"