Now the sun was about to set, it was around 6 p.m. and soon it would be night. The group had just reached the next floor; on this one there were only pipes like the one they had just been to.
"This project really was big, it isn't common to see multiple similar floors," said Darian as he thought about all the servers he had seen below. 'Two floors were full of them, just how much data did they need to store?'
"As much as I know, soon we would reach the end of the tower. I have never been there because you know…" said Lily as she was pointing to her eye patch.
"I'm sure it was on the higher floor where the incident happened," muttered Lily, looking up at the roof.
"Now we're with you, so nothing bad will happen," said Vane, passing nearby her. Darian and Liro already went exploring the room, hoping to find something useful.
"Guys… I think you want to see this," Darian called for everyone in the room he was in. In front of him there was a huge hole in the wall; he was on his knee near the debris.
In his hand there was this paper, another letter that he was able to find. "It was hidden under these debris," said Darian as Liro reached the room really fast.
"Another letter?" asked him, breathing deeply. Darian nodded his head before starting to read it aloud again.
"What just happened doesn't have any sense… the Earth just started to move away from its elliptical path and it's now wandering in space, what the hell is happening? First, we discover these powers, but then… I don't think we can contain this power, it might spread out before it even is ready, the lab rat is acting strange…" The letter got again ripped off brutally.
"It can't end like this, there must be some other parts nearby," said Vane, getting closer to Darian, and as he got on his knee, he started to search inside the debris, trying to move them away.
"Vane, I don't think it is there," said Darian, kneeling next to him. Vane didn't hear him and kept searching.
"I think too that we might find something there, I'll help you Vane," said Lily. Thanks to her power she was able to get many rocks up.
Roots came out from the floor and grabbed the rocks before rising up, but as they were up on the floor, there wasn't anything there anymore, just the body of an old bug.
"Eughh," said Vane almost shouting as he immediately looked away. He then looked at Darian, "Guess you were right…" whispered Vane. Darian looked really proud knowing that he was right.
"Is it before the Earth crashed against the black planet?" asked Liro as he got closer to the group too.
"I think so, but I wonder why the lab rat started to act strange as they said here…" pointed out Darian as he kept reading the letter, still trying to find something.
"I hoped they could tell us more about the sudden change of Earth's rotation… why it happened is still a mystery," said Darian as he carefully folded the letter and put it in the backpack.
"It feels like there are so many mysteries that we have yet to discover," said Lily as she looked outside the huge hole in the wall. The wind slowly moved her hair.
"Now I want to find the truth too… c'mon, we should not waste any time, maybe we can find other letters," said Vane as he walked towards the exit of the room. Everyone else followed him from behind.
The group now headed towards the stairs. As they went up, on the other floor the first thing they noticed was this big room in the middle of the floor. A huge rock had fallen in the middle, smashing what seemed to be a big table.
There were still some chairs left, also if most of them didn't even have the seat. It had a hole and many legs were missing. All around these chairs there were small pieces of glass; it felt like there was a huge window all around this room.
"What do you think this was, Darian?" asked Liro, wandering around. He took one side while Darian took the other one; they went around the huge rock that had fallen.
"It was probably a sort of meeting room," said Darian, kneeling down exactly to the place where the rock had fallen, trying to see if something important got smashed by the huge rock. Darian moved his eyes to the left, it was clearly a table that got smashed.
"I guess this was a huge table and people would sit there to talk about important stuff…" said Darian, getting up from his knee to have a better view of the whole destroyed room. Right under his feet there was a white cup still intact.
Darian gave that a small kick; the right moment his foot touched the cup, the object completely broke into multiple pieces. "I haven't done anything, and you Snowy… you haven't seen anything," whispered Darian while looking first at the broken cup, then at the small creature on his shoulder, who looked confused.
Lily directly went towards a room; she clearly remembered this room. It was the place where she had lost her eye, as she went in the room where the rock had fallen on her eye, completely destroying in half her eyeball.
"Mhm, now I won't get hurt anymore," whispered Lily annoyed, as she passed nearby the place where the rock that smashed her eye was still on the ground. Near the wall there was still some of her blood, also if now it became dry.
"I didn't come here to cry on what has already happened here… I have already done that, now… I came for you!" murmured Lily as she kneeled down right behind the rock that fell on her eye.
"I remember that it was around here…" A root came outside the floor and grabbed the huge rock and slowly lifted it.
"HERE!" shouted Lily as with her hand she grabbed the paper blocked because of the rock, without getting hurt. The roots still lifted the rock, and after Lily grabbed the paper, the roots slowly retreated back, leaving the rock on the ground.
"Guys, I found another oneee!!" shouted Lily. After that the group immediately reached her.
"C'mon, let's read it," said her, reaching her friend. She then passed the paper again to Darian, who first coughed because of all the ash on the paper, then started to read it.
"3 weeks have passed since the Earth got away from the sun… NOW OUR PROJECT HAS SPREAD WIDER, OUR DNA HAS CHANGED, WE SUDDENLY UNLOCKED POWERS… I THINK IT CAN BE DEFINED AS MAGIC, I'M GRATEFUL THAT THE EARTH IS IN SUCH A BAD CONDITION RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE IF IT WAS ALL NORMAL… I CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT PEOPLE WOULD HAVE DONE WITH THESE POWERS… the lab rat said something about them…" The letter got brutally ripped off again, leaving no trace of what was written.
"Guys, don't you find it strange? Like how the letters always end before they talk about the creature…" pointed out Liro. Everyone seemed more confused now.
"Well at least we were able to find the truth about this tower, they really did experiments about the magic that we can use…" murmured Lily as she created a small root next to her.
"But what does it mean that the writer of this letter was grateful that it happened while the Earth was in that bad condition?" asked Vane.
"Many people would use that to create new wars…" answered Darian as he felt a shiver going down his spine.
"Once I was born the humanity was able to live in peace, but my parents told me that during their times there were a lot of wars and the times were really hard," said Darian as he lowered the tone of his voice while speaking.
"By the way, I agree with Liro, it feels strange, all the letters are ripped apart exactly when they talk about this creature," said Lily.
"Yeah, it feels strange… especially because in almost every letter we found, it has been ripped apart exactly when we were about to know more about this thing," answered back Liro.
"Maybe someone has done it on purpose? Maybe they don't want us to know the real truth about this creature?" said Vane almost shouting.
"I think so… maybe if we keep going we might be able to find more," said Darian as he folded again the paper, putting it into the backpack another time.
"Guys, I have never been to the next room, I don't know what we can expect," said Lily with a serious face. There was a small window inside this room; as she looked outside she could see it clearly — the end of the tower was really close.
"I think that we have another 2 floors left… let's go everyone," said Lily. Everyone agreed with her and they all headed towards the stairs. In a few steps they would reach the other floor, and then they would reach the end of the tower.
The moment they reached the next floor, the air around them suddenly started—it felt more oppressive, especially because the room was really small, and it was all black.
This room was a single hall; no one could see the end of it.
"Guys… attention," said Darian as he became more careful. Everyone else did the same.
They started to walk. As they walked, they reached a point where there were two rooms, one in front of them. One of them was opened, while the other had metal bars; they were still intact. Darian recognized them almost immediately.
"Is this a prison…?" said Darian as he looked inside of it. There were some chains attached to the wall; it really felt like one of them.
"Hey, look here!" said Vane. He was already a few steps in front of the group; he then entered a jail. Everyone else reached him. The right moment they saw what was inside the room, their bodies shook hard, there was a skeleton of a person there, on his feet there was a paper, one of the letters.
"Is that real?" asked Liro as he slowly took a step behind. The moment his back touched against other bars he immediately turned around, just to see more skeletons all over each other.
"Ahhhh," shouted Liro scared. Everyone turned towards him.
"Calm down Liro," said Darian, getting closer to him.
"Y-yeah—" said Liro as he tried to calm himself. Vane came outside of the room and gave the letter to Darian.
"I… I can't believe, he entered here and killed all my colleagues… he had magic, but that was too much powerful for us to fight against him, it felt like he used that for years. I don't know how much time I have left before he finds me. He looks really mad, but he hasn't spoken a word yet! I don't know if anyone will ever be able to find this letter, but I will keep it secret, if he will kill me, he won't find out about this letter. To everyone who came here… us humans made an error, we should not have made these experiments, because of this humanity is even fighting back against the krukin… we should have gone for a chiller way like they were doing… I'm sure that we completely misunderstood their intentions… Oh no he's here… I can hear the scream of my companions, but he will never find this letter. From what I could see he used…" The letter got brutally ripped off again.
"I guess he didn't hide the paper that much well…" said Vane as he tried to joke a bit, seeing the sad faces of his companions, but none of them laughed at this joke.
"WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?! I WAS SURE WE SHOULDN'T HAVE ENTERED HEREEE!" shouted Liro as he walked behind. The moment his back smashed against the black wall he fell on his butt.
"What if he will arrive for us…" said Liro as he felt extremely scared of everything around him.
"Liro, this tower has been abandoned for so many years, no one will ever arrive here," said Darian, trying to calm him down, also if his legs were shaking too.
"HOW DO YOU KNOW? YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ALL OF THIS, THE LETTER EVEN SAID THAT THE KRUKINS WEREN'T MAD, WE SHOULD HAVE NEVER UNLOCKED THESE POWERS!" shouted Liro as he broke down in tears.
"You know how Krukins really are, Liro. They probably were all calm, but humanity knows their true intentions, they want to eliminate us, have you forgotten about the time we spoke with them?!" said Vane as the tone of his voice slowly raised.
"Exactly Liro… maybe we should not believe everything this letter is saying…" said Darian. Liro immediately looked at him and started to scream again.
"THEN WHY DID WE KEEP GOING INTO THIS TOWER?! I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE WHAT TO BELIEVE, THE KRUKINS GOOD? IT CAN'T BE IMPOSSIBLE… right?" said Liro as he slowly lowered the tone of his voice at the end of the sentence.
Darian walked slowly next to him and sat down next to him.
"It could have been true Liro… but now you've seen them, they kill without hesitation every human they find, it is useless to cry about this anymore, humanity just has to fight back," said Darian after sitting down next to his friend.
Liro slowly wiped away his tears and looked towards his friend.
"B-But…" said Liro before getting interrupted by Lily.
"Liro, humanity can't fall because of the mistakes they made in the past, and we should not be the ones to pay for them. Maybe what we fought for has always been wrong, but this doesn't mean we have to stop now. We can only look forward and still go towards the future, there is no turning back anymore," said Lily, kneeling in front of her friend. She slowly patted his head, smiling warmly.
"Ma-maybe you're right…" said Liro. His face slowly returned normal without any more tears. While everyone hadn't noticed, Vane had left the room.
Darian was the first one to notice it.
"Guys… where is Vane?" asked Darian, scared. Everyone looked around the room, but he was nowhere to be found.
"VANE?!" shouted Lily. The moment she came out of the room she saw him at the end of the hall.
"Vane, what happened?" said her as she felt relieved. Vane was standing still; he didn't even answer.
The moment Lily reached him she felt the same way; her body remained still.
"Hey guys, what happened?" said Darian. As he and Liro walked closer to them, what they saw made them feel sad and at the same moment surprised.
In front of them there was a huge metallic cage still intact. Inside of it there wasn't anyone; it was empty, but the cage was extremely big. All around it there were some black crystals.
"What is all of this…" whispered Darian, looking around. Everything felt wrong; he had never seen these black crystals around the Earth.
Darian was the first one to take the first step. Everything felt different; it felt like these crystals were watching him. He could clearly see himself reflected.
"It feels so different from all the rooms we have seen before…" said Vane as he walked inside the room with an amazed expression. Everything felt surreal. Lily and Liro slowly reached the group too.
"Do you think that here was contained the lab rat?" asked Darian with fear in his eyes. Everyone else nodded their head, scared.
"Let's search around… there must be something important," said Vane. Everyone else slowly nodded their head and started to search around. Liro and Lily went towards the black crystals, Darian went inside the cage while Vane went right behind it.