Chapter 137

“Different from Camps? That's... not fine to say. Some camps have it good like some vaults and stuff. Some are also smaller in scale, or less than good. At least the one I was for the past two years had electricity for a couple of hours a day for almost all of its residents, though it was kind of regulated. Here? I suppose electricity is like water. Out there, the military provided solar panels and wind turbines to the camp, or was it the Federation all along? I don't know.”

“Possible. Anything else?” Ellie asked curiously.

“Well, there were some farms, Enginists, other craftsmen, and we even had some machinery built in there, including some big ones. Some old people, who learned through the crafts from other old people in the past, helped a lot. It is like a cycle. The old teach the young, and years will follow and those youngsters grow old and teach the next generation. That's how it is Outside, city girl,” William explained the simple reality he knew about.

Ellie understood most of it since she knew pretty much the same thing about camps from the library's records. There were many topics towards them, and she read most of them since they weren't restricted in the slightest. Usually, that was. Not until they would be no more.

“You see it, right?” Ellie said. “Humanity will prevail no matter what. We can do it if we can or are forced to the corner. Even if humanity has lost a lot, we are not so easy to die off completely. It's like with this place. Adapt. Overcome. Drink. Eat. Read something. Grow? It sounds easy until it isn't, but some keep going because they want to.”

“I know. Are there some statements about the beginning of the Dawn here?” William suddenly asked about a rather sensitive topic that he was curious about. This piece and gap in history was hard to come by since Outside had hundreds of legends and mixed rumors about it. The Dawn of a new history that changed the world was the craziest time imaginable. Nothing ever came closer. Not even these old texts.

From the modern-age perspective, at least, it was a new advent.

It didn't matter of this planet endured many catastrophes that wiped lives, and changed landscape or weather.

It was also very diverse.

For William, the nineteenth or twentieth century didn't matter all that much. Even if their advancement meant great technologies or new discoveries, what did it matter for Darks?

One or two things were interesting. The military had a whole bunch of things that even someone like him found great, and they came from the advancement of the military and how to kill... other humans.

Guns, helicopters, cars, tanks, and various other vehicles were the best of them, second to medicine which was kind of a tougher topic at current age. Although not as great as in the past, the Federation had hospitality and research to help anyone. It was enough for the current population, if not some more.

Ellie heard his question and frowned afterward as if she was in trouble. Stuff about Dawn was in the papers she left on a table. It might be within her scope to talk some stuff about it, though they weren't very attractive. Up and somewhere else, some room would help more than her words.

She pondered about what to say and decided to let it go.

“There aren't many depictions of the Dawn in this room. I think you won't like them, as they aren't anything great. There is a huge understanding gap and void in terms of the Dawn. That is what you want, I guess. It will come later, I think? Up and close. Not here.”

William accepted this and returned this book to the bookshelf.

“Then, let's keep going with whatever you are leading me with. I think we have time for more.” William spoke his mind and walked towards the staircase. They both left and entered the Museum after glancing once more at that huge globe.

Above, the book that William half secured on the bookshelf fell to the wooden floor and almost broke apart. It was his blunder.

Unfortunate and tragic, with its open and old pages, it portrayed pages full of words, yet, it moved afterward on its own. Something mysterious picked it up with an invisible force, and even those pages closed on their own. Then it moved back to its rightful place as if nothing happened.

Nothing and no one was in this room. Not for the eyes to see, or for people to feel. In fact, William noticed very few people in the Museum or in any of the restricted rooms. Was it a bad timing, or no one was curious about them? Both, probably.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He didn't think about it, let alone consider if something or someone was following them for quite some time. Perhaps William was the only one being followed.

In the Museum of many exhibitions and hidden secrets awaiting rare visitors, William was reading, watching, and reaching for knowledge he found interesting—or Ellie did. She never resigned and followed or dragged him around, rather than going to the upper floors. She argued the time might not be right for that anymore, so William begrudgingly accepted her arm.

At least she had wits to not touch his right arm too much, or... beg for his Emblem.

He found many pieces of knowledge to get familiar with. He had six whole weeks to get them into his head, so it was overwhelming when he thought about it, or less harmful when Ellie guided him. For now, he couldn't imagine what awaited him without her, or what these six weeks would be like.

Unbeknown to him, bearing Kaufman's card, things might not get distant, or he should take everything into some consideration even if he wasn't aware of the harm or blessings that might come with it.

This card was almost as unrestrained as Heidi Kaufman, the one sole person who could come to every single place and room and secret passage in or under this building. There were no stops or guards here, yet knowledge was a nice lock, and for someone like him, it wasn't about gifts. It was about opportunity and take care of it.

Kaufman might not even know what awaited William, or what would happen in this library when he gave it away. He either hoped for something else, or he didn't care what ruckus it would create.

There was a lot to this museum as one would expect. Plenty of stuff had survived the essential eradication of humanity, or was it through some well-protected vaults that they showed off more than a century later? It was worth centuries of work and no vaults were ever simple. Build to last and survive, some of them were very frail and precious, yet to whom, why, or how?

It was the Darks that eradicated the living, while their sheer terrors and darkness and corruptions dealt with the rest. It was either an unwilling reaction to their sheer Madness, or it was the inevitability of their lives that drowned this world. History followed suit, with tools, technologies, and buildings.

Anything destroyed by the Darks hardly even saw a new beginning. As long as the Corruption remained, or if Walkers wouldn't use their powers and abilities, there was something immensely menacing about the steady despair.

Terrors of those monsters aimed not just at humans, but anything between them became collateral damage. Animals and even insects were the same, and there was an immense variety of them.

Then, there were Walkers. Those who were tasty treats, great targets of their desires, and most Darks found them the greatest. No creatures were close to them, though, not in numbers. Humans were few but the most fun and Darks long neglected other animals, taking them for rare instances of survival. That idea depended on the status of the Darks or Corruption.

Nature survived and pushed and lived as humans did, with some animals becoming Darks, siding with them willingly, or without much of a choice.

It was an interesting phenomenon that not many people understood. Was it about the Darks alone, or was it simply the status quo of the food pyramid that changed? The Madness might be the answer. It was like an eclipsing desire and new law of this world. It tried to subdue everything, coming from Darks, or was it even right? It wasn't; it tried to change the world, while humans watched it first and foremost out of anything living, for they were the greatest.

Now, the apex was no longer theirs, while the peak was desolate.

For many years, Darks had no opposition. They feasted, grew, and evolved until they saw and felt no small disgrace in those acts. It wasn't stopping. It wasn't fine to stop.

A lot of things changed in those hidden times, outside of human views, or broken opinions. Over this period, survivors adjusted and acted like scary rats.

Some animals and humans even lived a bit better because the Darks reversed their unhinged desires, or they were no longer required, or attainable. They grew complacent, broken in apparent quenched lust and instinct. Madness felt relaxed, but it was still insane because it couldn't be helped, and Darks should be the same.

They were.

Until they couldn't help themselves and began to aim at one another. It was a different kind of war and apocalypse. It was absurd and vicious. A time in history, observed from the darkness of shelters by glad and fearful people.

Some of them called it a universal effect of utmost slaughter because Darks were instinctively advanced, brutal, and complicated creatures. Some thought of it as internal strife in Darks that had always been there, until it evolved, resembling a vast and powerful society close to humans, beasts, wolves, or bees.

At least back then, the Dawn and time were different and crazy. And old for the current reality, for there were Walkers who were trying to go to the top soon after these strifes began to calm down.

Walkers might be the reason, some considered.

Darks gradually changed for worse or better, making nests, societies, hierarchies, and places akin to kingdoms and holiness. It was a strange clashing interest, but Walkers went against the apex predators decades after the Dawn. Catching breath wasn't fine. Everyone had to keep going.

Unfortunately, Walker's population was stagnant and there seemed to be a strange cycling force and balance where neither force was eradicating the other. That had been happening for many decades already, all over the world, and in many places devoid of humans.

It was a common belief that Darks were waiting for Walkers to grow and become better, so they would be more formidable opponents and turn and be like they used to be. It would be a Second Dawn, some people feared.

It never happened, however. Not even when Rank 8 Walkers appeared, unleashing a time when people regarded Darks were no longer a massive threat. They thought Walkers were powerful enough to eradicate them, or that Darks were lazy and weak.

Oh, that was a wrong error. A complete blunder that was very human.

They were playing. Waiting...