Chapter 131

Hearing his suitable remark, Ellie might hold different opinions in her heart, but she knew that disagreeing with someone like him wasn't ideal. William had his views and histories, and he watched and grew up in some of them Outside, or he wasn't a suitable candidate for arguments. After yesterday, she learned a lot.

It was what opinion was for, and changing wasn't always fine. Learning was about growing. A lot of things about past and current reality were subjective to facts and opinions, and many people who visited this place were the same as him, or nothing alike. Some folks were dull toward what had happened, not interested, or not believing. Some even dared to call it fake nonsense and wondered why some Walkers even cared about this library or why they even funded it.

That was why Ellie didn't become upset or disappointed when she heard his opinion. There was something about the sense of discovery that Ellie loved, and anyone new who arrived with this concept was fine like a new page turned aside. And as far as she got to know William from yesterday, his opinion might change because he wasn't a stubborn fool about it.

She planned to help him as much as her conscience allowed, which was something Burton and Heidi kind of wanted. It was curious why, though Ellie would betray everything she stood for if she questioned it too much.

“History is a subjective matter, William. Everyone has it in some way. I find the old eras intriguing enough to see. For example, look at this skeleton. It is a huge former specimen that had a life on this planet for millions of years, if not longer. Then, suddenly, followed by an unprecedented catastrophe, there were none of them left. They became extinct. These large animals are the size of buildings, yet they lost it all, leaving the bones behind. Strange times happened so what even is millions of years? People are what? Flies? Little squirrels? We have so few years within us, we might be dust.”

“Sounds like Dawn to me,” William added.

Ellie nodded and sized the large skeleton. “Humanity is ants in comparison and the Dawn is our catastrophe. Can we live? Can we endure? For how long can we do that? Time is a very odd thing, William. It's scary. We had our millennia and small heads, yet all of it seems like very important matters instead. We are small, yet there is a big difference between many eras and instincts. Well, I am not downplaying people. Our brains are kind of ridiculous compared to some animals. Why? Many wondered about it, saying it is evolution and the world that made it possible.”

“You... sound afraid.” William wondered out loud, standing behind her.

“Perhaps everyone is. Or should be. Or will be. Anyhow, I think these bones are impressive. Something kept living for so long with not that many changes besides bones. Is it the size? Humanity got quite far in just a couple of years, but that is a very different sentiment, or is it because these beasts died so we could live? Is the evolution answer to eras and time, or something else? These dinosaurs lived for millions of years yet did not become something vast for the future. They were that before, so what do you think?” Ellie glanced beside her and eyed William.

He looked at her and shrugged. “Don't know. I think you are speaking of something interesting, but history is strange. Humanity lost too, so... what is your point? The Dawn? Some big analogy below my brain?”

“Oh, not at all. I think it is about the brain. We are clever and great with it, yet tiny. Thinking ability gives animals many things and evolutions are the same. Oh, and it points to Darks as well. Some of them are kind of scary.”

“I am not arguing about that. What are you trying to say, Ellie?”

“How somewhere down the line, our predecessors changed and grew exponentially in many ways that no other species ever did. Isn't it absolutely fantastic and broken? Humans are strange, yet these massive animals are nothing short of insane.”

“Eh, just bones. What are even Darks beside it? Jesters? Lizards?”

“Predators. Unnatural ones... but... well, it is complicated. Oh, I get it.” Ellie sighed and briefly lost her composure thanks to the documents in her hands. “You and everyone take Dawn for their target. Walkers are also predators and... still humans, in a sense, but different. It is insane. More so than these big overgrown lizards, or so you could say.”

As she talked, William returned to reading those signs, exposition, and paragraphs written around this exhibition.

“Dinosaurs. Prehistoric age and... there were even eras full of them? How do I even pronounce this shit? Millions of years is nothing. Tens of millions? What is even a hundred million years? Billions! Life is that old? What is even life if it is so old? What is... a century? Huh...” William couldn't wrap his head around those large numbers or depictions of primeval times of Earth. It depicted large-scale ingenuity, facts, and knowledge that felt unnatural because humanity was far too young.

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Yet it was young and better than most of these histories, or... was it even right? What if there were some great civilizations in these ridiculous time-frames that hadn't lived for long and got destroyed? William questioned it, unwilling to realize if they did survive, wouldn't they be around in some discoveries?

If some bones and discoveries came from hundreds of millions of years in the past, what was fine to doubt? He questioned if humanity would even be able to get going for one more century, so what if it went on for millions? What would become of humanity by that point couldn't come to his mind.

William thought a lot about it thanks to his curiosity and willingness to learn. He wasn't a stubborn idiot like Ellie realized, and he was willing to see things for what they were. Hopefully, it wouldn't disappoint him, or end up bad.

He decided to trust it if Ellie said so.

Thus, a lot of questions arose in his mind. Just what was a human life for, if it was so brief and abrupt? He was around fifteen years of age, so this concept of unfathomable eras was far beyond his imagination.

There were dozens of signs with many paragraphs, depicting information about a variety of exhibits, facts, and history. There were pictures, paintings, and many bones of smaller creatures, or half-full skeletons. Most words revealed interesting facts, but as he expected, their needs weren't as useful as knowing something recent, crucial, or necessary from the distant past or this century.

This shouldn't matter too much, but it sure as hell was very entertaining.

“So those things are like oversized lizards with wolf mentality? Sounds like Darks to me.” William said the cleverest things he imagined after walking around and pointing at the large skeleton many times his height.

“Were! These are old and don't even think about Darks like this. This is nothing like that. Also, the point of this exhibition is not related to something terrible, but to what once was. It is interesting, isn't it? They are all here, dead, yet remaining. They prove something interesting even after millions of years. A small glance at something older than anything human-related. That single fact shook my mind when I was here for the first time.”

“How old were you?” William bluntly asked.

“Six.”

“Six... No wonder you are like this.”

“What? What do you mean by that?” Ellie stomped forward and glared at him closely.

William glanced away and read some signs. “Not sure. I was just thinking out loud. Aren't a lot of children curious? Back when I was... well, I was young as well, and this is silly. Let's say growing out in this age and watching something from tens of millions of years are very different things. I just can't think about this.”

“There were no places millions of years ago. There was Earth in all of its savagery and ancient dangers.”

“So, nothing much changed, is that right?”

Sizing him up and down, she smacked his shoulder and turned away. “Hey, don't be like that. This is important.”

“I don't think there were humans millions of years ago...” William boasted no stops today and teasing Ellie without thinking was surprisingly easy. So much so, that Ellie swallowed her pride and proceeded onward, giving him lessons, pushing him around, and showing some stuff off. For the start, she dragged him where she thought his mind would melt, or where the conversation would go somewhere, rather than nowhere.

They walked around further exhibitions, spending time together, and it wasn't really about learning something crucial. It was a brief stoppage before the future, and Ellie considered this important for any young Walker, so they wouldn't be ignorant about it.

There were a lot of things to show off and follow, yet William held many surprising opinions and words that escaped his mouth. Today, it was much less sporadic than yesterday, which ended up frustrating Ellie to no bitter end because he seemed different.

Yesterday was so easy, so... could clothes change a person so much? Ellie barely knew him, yet she talked and took him for someone less than better. Today, William was speaking and feeling much better, which Ellie liked. Was it the change of clothes, or was William different because of those lower floors? In the Museum, books weren't a priority, so value showed its consequences in other ways.

Historically accurate findings of many organizations were here. In the last century, very few people cared for such things, yet wasn't it human to care for the past humans? It seemed honest while ignoring it wasn't.

Most exhibitions were engaging, and some were great only for weirdos, depicting grotesque matters, animals, images, and things that seemed fake. William watched them anyway and didn't think too much about it.

The ones with insects and extinct animals from not that long ago interested him, but as many who had come here, he barely recognized them. Darks were out there. Not... this. Not anymore.

One hope that this library had was a vast history database and physical evidence. Many hoped it wouldn't get lost as it did with the Dawn, so they protected it, increased its depths, and preserved texts and everything.

The loss that came with the past was terrible, causing the history to plunder to oblivion. In just a few years, hundreds of nations disappeared from reality, becoming records, old distant names, or not even that.

Still, the land remained, destruction tarried with marks of old, and many landmarks and sites showed some interesting things. Most might've long turned to infested and corrupted nests and dwellings for Darks or turned to ruins and dust. The sheer crash and oblivion with the Dawn dwarfed numerous expectations, almost becoming memories, since it was so long ago, that no one lived thought that.

Hundred and fourteen years helped with that problem, so what of the former humanity, if society as a whole cracked apart?

Well, there was a shocking number of things that William recognized and watched for the very first time. Ellie loved how the pace changed, his face and mind shifted, and her time as a guide around the Museum turned to her preference.