kpwu
long
tale
After a few hours of walking, they arrived in a station hall. The glass ceiling of the hall towered above them, showing only white light beyond. A few train tracks arrived in front of them, empty. The sounds of trains started fading around them.
There was no one. The station was silent.
They looked around, demoralized. They had been walking around for a long time now.
"You know" started Esgol, breaking the silence, "we should stop here for a bit." The silence came back, wrapping them like a strangling embrace.
Then, a sound made the embrace loosen. It was an electronic beep. Three electronic beeps. And a vibration. The devices.
On the screen, a single line of green text was displayed over the black background. The line read
>>SBT: hello ?
Their morale soared. Finally someone else !
>>FLG: Hi ! oh it feels so good to be talking to someone else
>>CRC: thk god thrs someone :sob: i felt i was going 2 go crzy
>>CHM: Don't say that, come on. Yeah it feels good but still.
They sighed of relief, then they all sat down, either on a bench or directly on the ground.
>>SBT: we should present ourselves. my name is aria
>>CRC: im yedor asdaf
>>FLG: Feaser dertar ! glad to meet you
>>CHM: And I'm Esgol Nessed.
They looked at Devan.
>>STR: devan elsest.
>>SBT: soo... did you meet beforhand ? i can't go back earlier than my first message
>>CHM: Ha. we woke up in separate... rooms ? Then we all met.
>>FLG: Yeah where are you btw
>>SBT: oh uhh... i think im in some sort of control room ? big circular room with lots of screens and dials and panels
>>CRC: wht so the scrns show
>>SBT: uhmm
>>SBT: there are many, many charts. i don't get any of them. one of the screens is this chat. i think another one is a map ?
>>CRC: map ?
>>SBT: yeah
>>SBT: or a 3d wireframe
>>CHM: How do you know it's a map ?
>>SBT: "MAP : RED STATION" is written in big at the bottom
>>FLG: What does it look like ? as in what does it show
>>SBT: ah well... there are 4 dots in a big room. a long corridor is going to that room, and goes off screen. on the opposite side of the room, there are 6 other hallways that go in different directions.
>>CRC: cnt say i recognze tht
>>SBT: can you try moving around the room ?
Yedor got up, stretched, then paced from a wall to the opposite one.
>>SBT: oop, one of the dots moved. somehow this map can track your position.
>>FLG: That seems. worrying
>>STR: maybe they installed a gps chip in our skulls.
>>CRC: made us swllow a bomb lol
>>CHM: Let's make the most out of this anyway. Where do you think we should go ? From your description of the room, we came from the single corridor.
>>SBT: hmm let me see
>>SBT: ill be back in a few
Feaser lied down on his bench. He was getting tired. Everyone was. Devan also lied down. Yedor sat down again.
>>FLG: Ykw, i think ill go to sleep. im getting tired, we spent all day walking. id love to find something to eat tho, but too bad.
>>SBT: wait i just found it
>>SBT: you should go through the 3rd tunnel from the left. after some time it seems to start going down, and then eventually it reaches... something.
>>CRC: smthing ?
>>SBT: a... room
>>SBT: hundreds of corridors go to that room.
>>SBT: maybe thousands ?
>>CRC: wow
>>SBT: though... that corridor to get ehre seems reakky really long
>>SBT: it would take a few days of going down.
>>CHM: Is there another path ?
>>SBT: the other tunnels get lost in a maze. i can't follow them for too long. the 3rd one is the only one with something noteworthy
>>CHM: We'll go there tomorrow then. We should sleep, as Feaser said... and as he is doing.
>>SBT: good night then ! i think ill be awake for a bit more. ill try to figure out whats the deal here, and how to get out
>>CHM: Thanks.
One after the other, they put away their device and lied down. They were all hungry. The warm light of the glass ceiling made sleeping difficult, but not impossible.