The floodlights which lit the immediate outside were glaringly bright as if we were about to walk onto a football pitch. The Pied Piper officers ushered us forward. As one large group all of us teenagers, us mice, were lined up against a railing and counted by one of the officers. My stomach found the metal railing; I winced from the pain of having my stitched wound pressed against it and eased off it, choosing instead to grip the railing with both hands; the railing was wet and the air felt thick with vapor because it must have recently rained. The smell of the air was bliss compared to the sterile confines of the third floor.

I gazed down, noticing we were in a high position compared to a maze-work of temporarily erected metal paths and buildings reminiscent of what one would find on a construction site.

There were dozens of Pied Piper officers and well as other workers in high-visibility clothing busily going about their tasks. The Pied Piper officers in charge of leading our group led us down the left-most side of the mountainous basin we were in. I had to concentrate on not falling over and slipping on the wet metal path on the way down. Although it was dark beyond the floodlights I was able to get a sense of what lay beyond the basin we were in: fields, huge sweeping fields; farmland most likely.

On our way down the other Pied Piper officers, officials, and high-visibility workers continued with their work but weren't shy about shooting quick glances our way.

We reached the lower area paths that we had seen from higher up and continued on. The workers stopped what they were doing as we moved down the main path two at a time. I did my best to ignore them despite the loathing I felt for them; these people, however they had come to be affiliated with the facility and the Pied Piper's Return operation as a whole, were in some way responsible for the bad things that had already happened, and were to happen. I wondered how many of them were aware that the whole blowing up thing was a lie. I then wondered how many of the teenagers chosen to be a part of the special dinner were also aware of the lie; had Robert told them? Had they figured it out themselves?

My gaze landed on a series of large cylindrical machines lined up along the right side of the basin. I counted eight in total. They were each about as big as a small truck; there were several attachments on each cylinder and there appeared to be round, mechanized doors to each as well, with gas-pistons as the means of opening and closing them.

We passed by the eight cylindrical machines and up along the edge of a very wide metal ramp, which I imagined construction vehicles used to get in and out of the basin we were leaving.

On the way up I kept an eye out for Blain, Tiffany, and Mikayla. There was no telling what the Pied Piper officers might be up to, even if under the orders of Robert Hoffman; there was a chance some of our group could be led away for some malicious reason. Tiffany was two side-by-side teenagers ahead of where I was, walking beside Mikayla. Blain was to my right.

I also noticed ahead of us were Jay and Amar; seeing them walking together in silence hit me with a wave of melancholy. For a little while in the facility we had become something like friends, talking about the onset of our new powers; they had been the ones to first demonstrate to me that powers which seemingly defied conventional logic were real. But they had steadily grown addicted to using their powers and I couldn't continue on that path with them.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Maybe this special dinner would be an opportunity to talk with them again. Maybe the temporary friendship we had before could be salvaged?

I looked over my shoulder and saw the staff that had stopped to let us by had gone back to work. It was then I saw one of the cylindrical machines opened up, making a decent amount of noise. Before our group was made to turn the path to our left I spotted what lay inside the cylinder: it looked like a stretcher made of dark, rusted looking metal. I realised then what the machines were for and felt vomit rise up in my throat. I swallowed it down and kept pace with the others.

"You alright?" said Blain, beside me.

I shook my head in a 'no' gesture and raised a hand for him to leave me be. Thankfully Blain relented.

We moved in single file up a very long upward flight of metal steps. Large, natural rock walls prevented any exit on either side on the way up. Once at the top, our group spread out in a loose formation, with several more Pied Piper officers waiting for us with machine guns in hand.

The Pied Piper officers at our rear followed us all the way up, making sure none of us might double back.

At the top, perched close to the edge of the mountainous peak we were on, lay a large temporary building. It was three times the size of the temporary buildings which had been erected at my primary school whilst construction of a new wing of the school was being done.

Lights were shining a bright golden light from within the building. We were all counted again by a Pied Piper officer, then we were once again ushered forward. At last we reached the building and, after going up a short ramp, passed through the doorway and into the building proper.

The inside of the building was at odds with the functional, modern equipment and constructions we had just passed.

"Wow," said Jay, ahead of me.

The rest of us seemed to share his sentiment. I felt a similar feeling like what I had felt when at the depot way back at the start of the evacuation; a curious wonder at what might soon come. Back then my wildest optimism was hoping to be somewhere near nature; here on the mountain (or perhaps it was just a very big hill with lots of huge rock formations), we were near nature; albeit also deep below ground so we couldn't actually enjoy any of it. Now, us specially selected teenagers were like school children on a trip; for a few brief seconds I found myself forgetting all the nightmarish things which had happened and just took in the sight in front of me.

The inside of the building was made out to look like a lavish restaurant; with numerous round tables, with chairs tucked into them; the tables were laden with cutlery, place mats, and drinking glasses. The floor was carpeted and there were even curtains at the square windows. There was something uncanny about the whole thing however; at first glance it did look like a fine dining restaurant experience, but the more I trained my eye on the space the more I noticed the little off-details that gave away that it was merely made to look like a restaurant within the constraints of the mobile building construction.

My mind worked hard to fathom how and why such lengths had been gone to by Robert to create this facsimile of a fine dining experience; the money, man-hours, attention to detail; none of what lay before us looked like an easy thing to put into place.

Although I knew this special dinner was important to Robert Hoffman, only upon seeing the lavish space set out for us did I feel the real weight of it. Either that, or this space was routinely used for other higher ups, officials and such, wanting to wine and dine away from the unappealing construction going on nearby, as well as the depressing architecture of the facility. But I doubted this was the case. Knowing the little I did about Robert Hoffman, this was all for us.

Which begged the question: what did he want?