Adam looks around to all the people gathered before him. There’s around twenty, maybe thirty people all staring up at him with their full attention. Next to Adam is a man and a woman on the other side.
The man is quite stoic and bulky, but that’s shrouded beneath his cloak. On his forehead is a crescent moon like that of Adam’s, but thinner. The woman is slender and significantly shorter than the other two. On her forehead is a solid black circle, presumably symbolizing a new moon. Her facial features are strangely a bit familiar, but Yume can’t quite get a good enough glimpse. All three of the people up on this stage are wearing the same attire: black hooded robes.
The audience members are wearing red robes, strikingly like what Junker gave Yume. There’s palpable dread accompanied by electric excitement amongst the people. An anxious buzz engulfs the room as they wait for Adam to speak.
The room is made entirely of concrete, aside from a large window pointing towards the night sky. Starlight is the only thing illuminating their faces. They are sitting on small stools arranged in orderly rows.
Adam finally cuts the tension. “I want to thank those who have made the choice to join us tonight, I know this is not an easy task to take on.”
“We commend your bravery” Says the man next to Adam.
“I’m assuming we’re all feeling confident in the plan?”
The crowd nods.
“Perfect. One last check before we get going. On the count of three, if you could all activate your shift switches so we can ensure their function.”
The crowd starts shuffling about, all of them getting up and lining up against a wall.
“Three…two…one!”
In unison, the crowd flips a dial on their chests, and they vanish. No shadows, outlines, or noise. It is as if they have disappeared completely from the room.
“Excellent! Thank you all again. You may revert now.”
One by one they begin to pop back into the room. Like a line starting from the soles of their shoes to the top of their heads they re-appear over the span of a couple seconds. The device that they are using conceals their presence completely.
“Please, follow us outside and get into formation. It’s crucial we begin this instant.” Says the woman.
The three leaders walk off the stage and through the crowd, leading them through a few rooms full of people. The new faces all cheer and chant at them as they pass.
“Cel-es-tial! Cel-es-tial! Cel-es-tial!” They yell.
The group makes it outside and line up in front of a wall. This is the boundary between the pit and The Rung, a seemingly infinite height separates them. The woman opens a large metal box and has Adam and the other man help her pull out this piece of equipment. It is very heavy, requiring at least two people to move it.
They unload another two of these and set them aside, while setting up the first one against the wall. It’s a hefty cylinder with two rings of light near either end. The woman leans it against the wall and presses a button near the bottom. Three legs shoot out from beneath it and it drills into the ground. After a few seconds it extends its legs and presses the rest of the cylinder securely against the wall.
She stands back and faces her head away from the top. Without looking at it, she feels around for another button and clicks it. It violently explodes and sends the top shooting far above them. It’s revealed that inside the cylinder is a spool of thin cable and it’s rapidly unwinding as one end is attached to the top.
Adam looks back onto the line of people. “Lemon and Brig, grab the secondary ascension rope. Melvin and Thyst, grab the third. In about 37 seconds we will be catching our ride. The moment you enter The Rung, shift out. We can’t be seen.”
The first four people in line nod and begin loading their equipment. Once out of the boxes they attach a small cord to each piece. Those four members and the rest of the line all attach a cord to their chests.
“Lemon and Brig, clip your rope and then yourselves. We’ll be with you soon.”
Lemon and Brig rush themselves over to the device against the wall and attach their equipment to it. It slowly moves up the line for a few feet and then instantly vanishes up. The two members clip in and then fly away in similar fashion.
“Melvin and Thyst, up you go!”
In less than a minute the entirety of the group is up the line aside from the three leaders. They look at each other, hopeful for what’s to come.
“This is it, huh?” Adam asks.
“Sure is. Let’s get this over with.” The man responds.
The three of them clip in and get shot up the wall. It’s a shocking amount of force, even though Yume isn’t controlling it, she can still feel the gravitational force against Adam’s body. He can’t even turn his head up to see how far they have before they reach the top.
He’s counting down from thirty in labored grunts. Yume can’t even see the view of the pit disappearing beneath them as Adam has closed his eyes to focus on maintaining the proper tempo.
As he reaches the last three numbers, the line cuts abruptly to a slow rise. The three of them take this moment to initiate their shift tech. One by one they vanish. Adam is the last to exit the line and as he does so, he turns around and kicks the anchor of the ascension line off the ledge.
As Adam looks around, Yume tries to determine where in The Rung they are. It’s not an area she’s too familiar with, they are very close to one of the pillars that hold up the ceiling. Where she lived and worked was far away from any pillars, with the closest one being around fifty miles away. Some of the pillars on the other end could be much further, maybe closer to a thousand miles.
Adam moves forward, running through alleys and abandoned buildings. After a few turns and twists, he enters a bent terminal door leading into a warehouse. As he walks in he peeks his head around and scans the room. He’s alone.
A hooded face appears from the darkness. Followed shortly by another, and then another. More and more surround him and he turns his shifting gear off.
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“Are we all here?” He speaks.
“Yes. We have both lines intact, and no one was caught.” A voice from the crowd speaks.
“Great. Now just ahead is our entry. Lemon, Brig, please, lead the group and set up the line.”
“All right, you heard the man!” Lemon yells. “Follow me!”
The group lines up behind them and follows them through a hole carved out of a concrete wall. It’s an incredibly tight space covered in trash bags and broken bottles. Small lights are poking out of the area around them, leading straight up above them. There’s a wall made of pristine metal harshly contrasting the filth around it. Lemon leans the cylinder against the wall and pops the legs out of its bottom.
Adam looks up at the metal wall. It is part of a much bigger structure. This wall is not a wall, but one side of a center post incased in a much wider concrete shell that surrounds them and leads straight up. They are inside of one of the ceiling pillars.
“Step back now, we don’t wanna lose anyone before the fun starts!”
Lemon presses the button on the top of the cylinder, and it sends the line flying upwards, towards the next layer of the ladder.
“Get into formation two now please! Melvin, Thyst, you’re up!” Adam orders the team.
The members head up one by one in formation again, leaving the three leaders behind. The three of them share a glance of pure excitement before getting their clips ready.
“Hey Adam, you think we’ll see our folks up there?” asks the man.
“Even if we do, we can’t stop to chat. I’ve got somebody up here I’m dying to see, but we can’t risk it. At least not right now.”
“Yeah, you’re right. This is a bit bigger than blood I suppose.”
“Nothing is bigger than the people we hold dearly, Gael. That’s what this whole group is fighting for. Remember that when we get up there.”
The three leaders silently lock in and ride the line up. From Adam’s eyes, all that can be seen along the way up is a blur of lights lining the cover of the pillar. He’s moving so fast that the individual bulbs become a solid line of red and yellow. This ride was significantly quicker than the first. Adam doesn’t even bother counting down, they arrive in less than ten seconds.
The line slows to a cruise, and they climb up onto a platform. It’s eerily quiet on top of the platform and dimly lit with a soft red glow. The members all un-shift and huddle in a circle surrounding the leaders.
“We don’t know where the next point of entry will be here, so we can’t shift again until the pinnacle. Melvin, Thyst, you will move in the center of the group carrying the rope. We will protect you until we find our way up.” Adam says.
Melvin and Thyst exchange a smirk at each other and nonchalantly shrug.
“Get in position before we exit the door. Those in the front, unsheathe and be ready to do whatever it takes to protect the line.”
The group cheers animalistically and jumps around, ready to take on what lays beyond the exit. Six of them form a half circle in front of Melvin and Thyst. They all press their nodes and begin to glow. The person closest to Adam presses theirs and he sees it happen first-hand. The intricate web of sensors and wires woven through their body all light up. It looks as if their veins are glowing. Each member summons long, straight swords from the light inside them.
The room fills with a violent buzz from their plasma burning dust particles in the air. A member turns to Adam for the go-ahead, and he looks towards the other leaders. They silently nod at him. Adam turns and walks towards the door.
“MOVE!” He yells, as he rips the door open.
The first thing to hit them is the smell. A vile, putrid scent assaults their nostrils with notes of molten copper and raw sewage. The light from outside is blinding. The members sprint out into the unknown, shielding the two holding the line. Adam waits for the other two leaders to exit, and he runs out after them.
With what little vision Adam has, he can see the silhouettes of the group hunching over, all rubbing their eyes, trying to get their pupils to dilate to see. The first few seconds are absolute chaos as only a few have adjusted to the environment, and those who have adjusted wish they haven’t. Slowly, each member shrieks out in anguish and falls to their knees.
As Adam’s vision adjusts, it’s ever clear why these people are screaming in horror. The promised paradise is not what it was made out to be. No houses, restaurants, or farms in sight. In front of them rests a sea of despair stretching as far as the eye can see. A collection of bones and flesh swaying in an ocean of blood. Its size is massive, it looks like it could go on for miles.
The large enclosure is almost perfectly silent, aside from the sounds of a group in the grasps of terror. That, and a sloshing noise from the gentle waves of remains. The light shining down upon them is not from the sun, but from millions of panels above them, creating an angelic glow along the shore. There’s only one other feature aside from the ocean and shore, a long, tapered tube coming from the ceiling. It has a shape like a funnel that feeds directly into the pool below it.
“What is this place?!” A member cries out “My sister is supposed to be up here!” yells another.
The leaders look towards each other in shock.
“We knew they were killing us, but this is… unbelievable.” The woman says, shaking in disgust.
“This isn’t killing anymore. This is a stockpile.” Says Adam.
“What?” Snaps Gael.
“This is no longer about control, Gael. They’re collecting bodies. Look around you! Think for a moment.”
Gael looks back towards the pool, staring intensely as he processes his thoughts.
After a moment, he speaks back to Adam. “You’re right. We had theorized they were up to something; I just didn’t ever think it could be this bad.”
“Neither did I. No one could have foreseen this. We must push forward; we have to go see for ourselves why they’re doing this.”
The woman chimes in. “I…I can’t do this. This is too much, really, I can’t.” She begins to tear up.
Adam and Gael embrace her in a tight hug.
“Hypatia, I can hardly muster another step myself, but who knows what security systems we’ve already tripped. We need to move if we want to live.” Says Gael.
If Yume had control of her body, she would be gasping. She thought this woman looked familiar, but it was difficult to connect the dots with the hood and moon on her forehead, not to mention the undisclosed date that these events took place in. Hypatia appears much younger than when Yume met her.
“Where do we even go from here? This isn’t what we planned at all.”
Adam points towards the funnel. “That looks like our only option.”
Hypatia shudders. “In the middle of that pool of blood?”
“Yeah…I think we can shoot a line up the center.”
The three of them share a wince and then address the frontline group. Most are still collapsed on the shoreline, pacing in disarray, or screaming towards the pool. Adam speaks towards them.
“Listen up! This is not what we had planned for, I know it’s horrifying, but we cannot fall apart now.”
The members cease their screams and start moving towards Adam, still quite distressed.
“I want you to take a look at what’s around you. We thought they were killing a few of us, but that is not the case.”
Gael tags in. “This is systemic. This is the hidden horror above The Rung. Do not let this stamp out your flame. Use this passion to make it stronger. Use it to burn this system to ashes.”
“We are the tiny dots tearing holes through the night, we will rip open the sky before we fade away!” Yells Hypatia.
The members shout and hold each other, spirits lifted. Adam and Gael grab the line from Melvin and Thyst.
“Follow us, we’re going to make our way up.”
The three leaders share one last embrace before rallying up their members and sprinting into the pool. The moment Adam’s feet touch the bloodied water, Yume is abruptly returned to Junker’s workshop.
She looks around desperately for something and knocks over the tray holding the other nodes. Junker, who was asleep off in the corner, wakes up in a jolt from the commotion.
“Jesus, girl, what’d you see?”
“Help me find the other opal nodes. I need to know what happens next!”
Junker jumps out of his chair and the blanket that was wrapped around him falls to the ground. He stumbles over to where the nodes fell, half asleep, and starts to grasp around. Yume gets off the chair to help him.
Tucked behind one of the legs to the chair, is a shining, opal node. Yume and Junker both dart their hands towards it and Yume grabs it first.
“Well…? What did you see!! You gotta tell me, I been here for hours!!”
“Let me finish the memory, Junk. I’ll explain it all when I get the whole picture.”
Junker sighs. “Ah, alright, dear. Don’t get too attached now, remember this is all in the past!”
Yume chuckles. “Doesn’t make it any less important.”
She gets back on the chair and presses the new opal node into the scepter. Just as the times before, her body dissolves and she breathes in the liquid, ready to be immersed in a glimpse through her father’s past.