A relic of the past, to which she had the privilege of being inside of. Though, her mind was completely enveloped by another idea as she sprinted across with not a single thought on such a matter. She sprinted past the remains of ancient men in uniform, following the droplets of blood Rye had inflicted on her. Her gaze went to the machine pistol Rye had gifted her.

Don’t worry Mr. Rye, I’ll finish this.

She found the hallway to the right of the podium which the woman had used to escape. The blood continued down the hallway to stairs descending downwards, which she followed to find it leading to a single door that was cracked open with an inch view. As she neared the door, she noticed an increase of blood on the floor than the hallway.

She’s bleeding...exceptionally. She might even be dead before I get to her!

A sudden, unknown feeling surged through her. Something like a hopeful happiness filled her up.

This was the first time she felt euphoria based upon a hope. She just needed clarity by finding a corpse, then everything would be fine. Just beyond a door, she needed to finish what Rye started.

A simple push was all she needed to fully open the door. Her hand hovered before it, wavering. She couldn’t help but stare at her hand shaking. A white, metallic ancient door. Traz didn’t know much about Mr. Rye, but she did know he was sent to investigate this place. And a feeling deep down suggested that beyond this door holds everything he was sent for.

Traz calmed herself by breathing slowly, wiping away any negative thoughts.

“Forgive me Miss, but Mr. Rye is hurt because of you!”

She pushed the door open, revealing a room full of strange rectangle devices that were lit up, though much bigger than the ones she had seen before. These monitors were able to cover walls, and were placed uniquely like on the wall or roofs. She was barely even tall enough to notice one lit up on a large oval surface near the center of the room.

As she walked towards the oval desk, she turned at the sound of shuffling, which led her eyes to look at a pistol being shifted towards her direction.

Without a thought, Traz jumped behind the oval desk. A bullet flew right above, reminding her of how hope can be so cruel in the end. Crawling behind the desk as cover, she moved her little legs as fast as she could.

With the machine pistol in hand, Traz swiftly peaked above and spotted the woman behind monitors at the back, aiming right back at her. Traz ducked down, and as she did, a few more rounds flew above her. She held her breath as a window of opportunity opened up, and readied her pistols.

Mentally prepared, she used her body to propel herself forward into a slide away from the desk more to the right of the woman. In motion, she held Rye's machine pistol at the woman, firing off a couple rounds. The first few could be considered close for her first time firing an automatic gun, though the last bullets trailed upward in a zig-zag pattern.

As she finished with shooting, she sprinted towards the monitors closest to her while pocketing Rye’s pistol. Once in cover, she pulled out her compact pistol and took aim on the right side, firing a few rounds off. One hit, but it was the dead arm, though Traz was still happy to inflict bleeding.

The shots caused the woman to stagger, but she felt no pain. She quickly covered up the bleeding while looking for another route.

“You’re quite a dandy little bitch.”

Traz could hear the grit in her teeth.

“Old man must’a raised you to be a fine young lady.”

Traz took cover to reload her weapons, taking a moment to prepare before cutting the distance between them, and finally getting a better shot.

“Shame he ain’t taught to only shoot a gun if you’re sure you can kill your prey.”

As Traz began moving to the next monitors, she heard what sounded like metal screeching. Taking a peak, she saw the woman holding what seemed to be a small red ball that glistened more with each passing second. The woman didn’t seem to care that Traz was closing in, as she merely held the small ball with a sinister smile spread throughout her face. Yet, Traz could only make that smile out to be a satisfied one.

Traz took aim at the head from what she thought to be a safe distance behind the nearest monitor. Her finger itched towards the trigger, but smoke from the ball captured her sight.

A smooth red ball, small enough to hold in just a palm of a hand, had smoke fuming out from tiny holes that were seemingly random throughout the ball. She wondered for a second what it was, and why the woman clutched it with ferocious intent, until…

“Traz!!” she heard Rye shout with little energy. “Get the hell away from her…” .

Both turned toward his direction. Rye's body rested along the round table, which was barely enough to support himself up. His teeth clenched as his brow furrowed towards the woman.

“Why kill everyone here and destroy one of the last ancient technological buildings still standing?! We’re so close to finally finding out the truth to why this world died so many hundreds of years ago. So why…”

“Why? Why?! What’s the point of finding out why the Mist happened if we’re already standing here now?! At this point, humans are merely grasping on remnants of the past to survive. Why not just let it all end and let the next dominant species take rise?”

She shouted in retort, now clenching the red ball with extreme force.

“First was Venisi, but there’s so much more after that. The Mist is the key!” Her shouts grew more and more cynical each time. “It’s the key to ending us, and I’m positive the ancients, or the humans before the Mist came, were the very ones that created such a thing.”

Her attention turned from Rye to the table he rested on.

“What a vile thing.” Her tone grew to that of hatred. “If I were to guess, this had to be the ancient's final project to stop the Mist. At least...for them.”

“Traz!” Rye ignored what the woman said and focused on what he thought was most important. “You need to start heading back out.”

The woman clearly showed her annoyed expression towards being interrupted, but continued nevertheless.

“What they wanted was to stop the Mist entirely. But all they got was the ability to merely steer it.”

“Traz, now!!”

His scream echoed throughout her core, yet she stood frozen. What the woman before her was saying, the nonsense she spewed…

“I bet they felt so distraught, ending up like failures! Controlling it was enough to keep it at bay, at least for a while. So why lie down and die?! Why?! WHY THE FUCK IS OUR WORLD LIKE THIS IF THERE WAS STILL HOPE IN THE END?!?!”

...Traz couldn’t move. The woman had every bit of her attention. What she said was more than likely the history of the world. Or rather, the history of why the world drowned under the Mist.

As Traz thought of the world's previous demise, the clicking of metal dragged her back to reality.

“TRAZ!!” Rye’s shout was more filled with desperation in getting Traz “PLEASE JUST LISTEN!”

Rye’s words finally broke through to her. Her eyes jumped to his, and she saw the desperation within them.

“I left my bag back in the other room, along with my mask. Make sure to swap out your mask with it, but keep your filters, understand?”

“Do you really think a little girl could survive out on her own?” The woman cynically grinned as she butted in.

But Rye, finally mustering enough willpower to move again, charged and pinned her against a table.

He knew the threat of what she held, to which he prioritized it above all, and with his body’s strength, he moved the woman into a glass wall into another room, or what seemed like some sort of observer room.

“TRAZ!” He shouted while struggling with the woman. “Once you grab my bag, put the gas mask on immediately and leave this place…I’m sure you’ll figure the rest out. We’ll meet again, I promise.”

Traz glanced towards the shattered glass Rye had broken through. She wanted to help, but his tone told her well enough this was important.

Gritting her teeth, she bolted out back up the stairs and to the room Rye had been shot in. She left Rye based on his instructions, and to that, he merely smiled.

Rye fell over one of the two chairs in the room as all his strength that remained died.

Shit…

Eliza peered over him with hardly any more energy than he, and seamlessly smiled.

“Do you ever wonder why we fight so hard to live, when the world wanted us out long ago?”

He felt all his anger relinquished.

—Yet, he felt his ambitions crumble.

His previous regrets soon held no meaning to him.

But new ones caused his heart to tremble.

“You say the world forsook us the moment the Mist was born?”

Though Eliza stood over him, Rye’s focus was not on her, but the ceiling above.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Who are we to know what an object wants, and who are we to give meaning to something that never actually had any meaning at all?”

As he spoke, his thoughts drifted his mind not towards his own life, but to Traz.

A red mist flushed out from the ball the woman held, and a light grin appeared throughout her face as she knew it was moments away from erupting.

“Just let the human dream die! This is one of few remaining facilities by the humans before us…”

As the ball began to illuminate red, she stuck a single pin inside, causing it to completely die down.

“...and I’ll be damned to let a brat escape with the knowledge of such a building.”

Stuffing the ball in her back pocket, the woman started in the direction of the exit. She hardly had enough energy to move her feet, but she pushed on one step at a time, until she reached the circular table.

“Think you’ll survive?” Rye asked her while his main focus was still the ceiling.

“Against a girl? Of course.” She replied.

“No.” Rye calmly shifted his head towards her direction. His sight shifted past her towards the door, all while reaching into his pocket digging around.. “Not against Traz, but the Mist.”

I pray you got to my bag in time… His thoughts began to fly back in memories from the start of his journey—no, back to the very start of his life. Every bit of work, every bit of effort that he put in, would be put to an abrupt stop from this one moment.

Oh well, at least you made it all worth it.

He felt his cheeks form a smile as he pulled his hand out from his pocket, revealing a prominent device he often used while diving: The incendiary. His finger slowly crept towards the pin, prepping for the moment to pull the pin.

These last few months growing up with you made living this long life worth it, Traz.

Flashes of his past crossed his mind as he heard the fuse begin. Each second brought him to think about his Kelli, Jay, and Traz. But a particular moment stuck with him, as if he was in the room with Kelly at that moment. Rye closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before muttering to himself:

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I think I did it, Kelli. Guess you were right after all…”

...and without taking another look at the world before him, Rye let his mind wander in memories as he took out an incendiary grenade and pressed the pin down with his thumb, which would cause a flame to erupt leading to a combined combustion of every other explosive Rye stuffed in his pockets.

In the end, Rye figured dying was infinitely better than becoming one of those monsters created by the Mist. All he’d hoped for now was for Traz to go beyond the explosion radius with his gas mask, along with the rest of his gear, and escape into the world.

—For the girl he found all that time back, his hopes were for her to find her own path in this cruel world.

For her to live up to her potential, it was all he could dream for Traz, even to the moment he died.

Traz’s first notion was to grab Rye’s pack of weird items, which was much heavier than she thought. On the right side of his pack, there was a gas mask Rye had instructed for her to wear, to which she lifted the strap over her ears. She managed to fix the mask nicely over her face, as well as adjusting the oxygen filter from the directions Rye had given her. Once she was set with her equipment, she sprinted for the box that had brought them down to this level of the bunker.

But the moment she was inside, a burst of pressure shook the moving box, while also knocking her down against her side. She felt a rush of air hit against her skin. The air, or ‘Mist’ felt like nothing more than a gentle breeze soothing across her skin. Her hairs rose as a chill ran throughout her body. She fastened her mask, knowing air was being filtered before, but double checked for her mind's sake.

Then, Mist slowly fumed its way into the conference room, then slowly filled the room where Rye and the lady were. After the loud bang and flash of fiery light, there were no more gunshots or loud noises.

Traz felt a well of anxiety come over her as she peered back out into the conference room. There, she saw the other room in a blaze of fire and smoke. She wondered if Mr. Rye had some kind of handy trick to get him out of the situation, but as her mind wandered with improbabilities, she saw a silhouette limping from out room with a round device tightly gripped.

She shook her head and picked herself back up. In the elevator, she went to the right side where the control panel lay and glanced up at all the options. But the moment she lifted herself on her toes and pushed the first button, an electronic voice burst through the elevator speakers identical to that of when they first arrived:

WARNING. UNKNOWN AIRBURST OBSTRUCTION. AIR CONTAMINATION, ALONG WITH ELECTROMAGNETIC PARTIC—

The female voice instantly cut out along with the lights. Traz felt the box shake as it immediately stopped moving up. She took grip onto nearby handles, and kept hold so as to not fall. After a moment, the elevator returned to moving. Then followed the lights, though much dimmer than before. Finally, the voice of the box returned, though in a scattering tone.

W-WWWWARNING, EME-EEEEEEERGENCY POWER ONLI-IIIIIIINE. PRIMARY FUNCTIONS SHA-AAAAAAALL BE LIMITED.

Traz, hardly knowing what was even going on, calmed herself with a deep breath, and reached for the elevator buttons once more.

GO-OOOOOOOOOOING UP.

She moved back until she hit the back end of the moving box, and watched as the doors slowly creaked as they closed. Soon, the box shifted upwards in a low acceleration, to which Traz let out a sigh as she dropped her bag to use a seat. Her eyes were glued to the dim numbers as they increased after each floor they passed.

Eventually the lights hit floor one, and the doors creaked open in the same manner. She picked herself up along with his bag, and stepped out of the moving box, finding herself back in the main lobby area.

—But the moment she was out, a large rumble shook the ground beneath her, killing the lights once more. A sound of wires scraping one another came from above the elevator, until they became more of a screeching sound. Traz backed away from the moving box as she could feel the rumble shake in her bones. Then, she watched as the entire metal room collapsed and fell back to the bottom floor. The bashing of the moving box grew more distant the further it fell until she heard the loud bang of it smacking the floor.

It took a second for her to come out of her trance, but eventually, the lights returned along with the automated voice, she picked herself up and wiped off any dirt along her skirt.

Traz walked over to what was now an empty socket with wires dangling from above. As her glance focused down, she tightened her grip along the entrance knowing this was it. That this would be the resting place for Mr. Rye.

“Thank you, Mr. Rye,” her voice whimpered unlike ever before, and her sight grew fuzzy as she gazed at what seemed like a misty bottomless hallway. “for teaching me about the many curious things this broken world has to offer.”

If it weren’t for him, she wondered, where would I be right now? It was a hard concept to even picture, but she ultimately discarded it, and instead gave a soft-hearted smile.

She smiled for him, just as he would have wanted. In doing so allowed her to remember a term she learned before meeting Mr. Rye, in which she learned during her time within the wooden box.

“Mr. Rye...I learned this one! They call it crying, don’t they?” She said with streaks of tears streaming down her cheeks and onto the visor of her mask. “I can do this Mr. Rye, I just need to stay strong and remember everything you taught me!”

Gaining a boost of motivation, she took a step back and blinked to clear her eyes from tears. “Huh, I don’t think I ever cried with you.”

Traz cleared her throat, before heading towards the hallway which led up to the staircase towards the exit. She traced with her fingers along the decayed wooden support railing with thoughts of curiosity.

“What purpose did the ancients need for these?” She idly said, under the breath of her mask.

Before she knew it, she bumped into the twin push doors up top of the hallway. Without Mr. Rye, she had to raise her arms to eye level inorder to push the doors open.

But something inside her urged her to not fully open the door. She couldn’t help but listen to her instincts, and she cracked the door open to where she could partially peek, to which, her gaze laid upon what seemed like a person slouched in a corner scratching away. She couldn’t quite make out the letters without a brighter light, but she could definitely hear them putting in the effort to create something.

There’s more of them…!? Her mind raced as she watched the person for any sudden movements..

Then, she thought of a way to deal with the problem. She slowly moved her foot to keep the door open as she aimed her pistol at the person.

Sorry, but Mr. Rye would be furious if I let myself die here. She thought, before aiming the sights on the head.

—Without much contemplation, her fingers pulled on the cold trigger, and though it was difficult, with enough strength she felt the weapon recoil as it fired. A loud bang echoed throughout the halls, and the person before her fell face-forward.

“Sorry.”

It was all she could mutter as her hands shook. .

“I hate the indoors.”

She placed her hand over the door handle. From the split between the doors, she felt a cool gust of Mist envelope her arm as she pushed the door open.

As the door opened, she saw the final flight of stairs leading back up, though the lights were much dimmer than they were before. And as she crossed the threshold—

“Hoooooooome…”

She could hear a guttering moan, which sounded as if it said something close to ‘home’, though whoever or whatever it was gave Traz shivers.

Her mind held no thought to what it could be, and instead, she immediately formed into a sprint up the flight of stairs. She paid no mind to the intensity her legs began to feel after climbing, as she reached halfway to the surface when she heard a soapy, yet splattering type of wetness quickly approach from behind her.

How… What is that fast?!

Her curiosity caused her to look behind, which caused her to gaze at the creature that was now chasing her. She could hardly make out a deformed face of a human molded by that of the Mist that had also caused a unique effect of the person to move on all fours effectively.

Traz knew there was no out running that thing. So, she adroitly twisted her body towards it with her pistol raised, and fired multiple times towards the head.

She counted and watched as each shot hit their mark, rippling away the flesh of which it hit. But no matter how many times she hit, the creature's speed hardly faltered.

5...6...7…

Then, the creature reached a point in which it stopped to a position which allowed it to wind its legs, followed by it leaping towards her. Traz’s eyes widened as she shot her eighth shot in its jaw, causing a portion to tear off.

The creature groaned as its jaw ripped off, causing it to miss Traz and crash above her.

In response, she aimed her pistol while ascending the stairs at a slow pace.

Should I run? I only have one more bullet left for it? Would it be enough?

With her mind sprawling to think of what to do, the abomination began twitching in every limb. Traz wondered if it would go for her again, but before she could decide on an answer, the creature sprang upwards. It’s torn face stared directly into Traz’s eyes with its remaining upper teeth in motion of gritting as if there were still a lower portion remaining. She immediately recognized the creator as the woman who Mr. Rye tackled, and recalled her last being enveloped by the mist.

As Traz prepared her finger over the trigger, the creature narrowed its dead eyes. It opened its mouth, as if it were to say something, but nothing came out. With its right hand, the creature covered its throat and caressed it before sticking a puncturing finger through it. In shock, Traz stopped her movement, and merely watched it.

It took a few moments before she heard the creature yank on his throat, causing blood to drip from its mouth. And from there, it was able to speak, though poorly:

“Wh-aat…? Wwhhyy…? Thisssss worr-ldd…?”

Astonished, Traz lowered her weapon. “H-how are you…alive?” She asked as curiosity filled her mind.

The creature’s head twitched as it shook up and down. Then it continued its response:

“Wee alll sshould haa-vee dieeed loong agooo. If yoou lee-av-ee nooow, theen thaa-t miight no-oo-t haappeen...”

As it finished speaking, what used to be their eyelids closed. It turned its head back down in the direction of the bunker, it spoke a final time to Traz.

“Eeeeeveeeen wiithoout th-eeeee Miiiiiiist, soomethii-ng e-else wi-ill co-ome…”

Then, surprising Traz once more, the creature began limping down back into the bunker. She lowered her weapon, watching the remnant of a human limp downwards. She watched as it became a distant sight, till it eventually fell over dead.

“Sorry.” Traz muttered, continuing her way out the bunker.

Traz stepped over rubble as she exited the building and found herself back outside. The Mist still hovered over and swept the area, and had left the ancient city in an aura of white mist. There were no more bird chirps or calls. The wolves that stalked this area had left long ago.

All that remained before Traz was some rubble and the Mist.

Her hands tightened around the straps of Rye's backpack, she looked down at what used to be the stairs of the building which lead to the surface level. She found one stair somewhat intact, and rested herself comfortably. She looked up, only to see the blue slowly turn to dark. Almost all but one of thoughts had left her mind as she watched this phenomenon:

What do I do now?

She could sit there, pondering with every bit of her mind on what her next move would be. But it all ended in being blank. She thought and thought and thought, yet it brought her back to the same question. It continued, until she felt her mind drift off into a slumbering darkness.

***

“Hey?! What is...is that somebody up there.”

A muffled voice called out.

“Stay on guard! We don’t know what that might be, and with the Mist being here, it probably isn’t anything good.”

The group looked amongst themselves. They did so for a minute, until one finally grew the courage to check it out. “Let me check it out, the rest of you stay back.”

“Be cautious about this, got it Renitski?”

“Ma’am!”

He slowly paced himself towards the lump with a makeshift rifle aimed at the rubble.

“Well, is it something or is it nothing?” A member of his group called out.

“If you have the slightest clue it’s dangerous, shoot it!” Another replied, anxious for any sort of danger to them within the Mist.

With every step, the anxious question of Am I going to die repeated within his mind. There were even some thoughts he held of just shooting it and calling it there.

—But his gut told him otherwise, that if he did shoot, he would later regret it worse than dying to an actual monster of the Mist. And as he came to hover over the lump in the rubble, he found it to not be an Inhaled, but rather, a little girl with a gas mask tightly holding onto a diver issued backpack. He lowered his gun as he blinked the sweat from his eyes repeatedly in disbelief.

“Well,” a call echoed from below the steps. “What is it?”

“I…we found someone. A survivor!” He shouted back.

And as he did, he saw her head lift up, and her soggy eyes met his. Though they had found a rare survivor within the above, he could tell she was distraught as she reached out for his hand, to which he timidly returned by taking hold of hers.

Traz took the hand of a stranger, and was greeted by a rising sun and a much larger group. Her initial thoughts were that they looked similar to Rye, but she couldn't quite place it.

The group had a hard time watching a little girl lightly slide down from rubble. As she reached their level, she swiped the dust off her skirt and looked up at them with a curious look on her face.

“Excuse me young lady, but where are all the adults?” One had asked her.

Traz almost couldn’t hold back her laugh as she watched them astray in thought.

“Sorry!” Traz reminisced on everything that occurred when she first met Rye, and everyone else throughout her journey. “No, I’m the only one left.”

The group of survivors awkwardly glanced at each other, before one of them finally broke the silence.

“Fuck!”

“Well, what now?”

Traz idly watched as they bickered, until one of them shut them all up.

“Listen! From what this girl is telling us, the mission is lost. We’re way behind schedule, and when we finally arrive, everyones already dead.”

Her tongue clicked in dissatisfaction. It took her a moment, but she admitted what everyone was thinking.

“Well fuck. Let’s head back to Kelli and report the news; everyone’s dead.”

The group groaned about the annoyances of having to come all the way out here for nothing. A mission that failed from the start.

“Ma’am!” One of the group members with a much larger backpack than the others spoke. “What about the girl?”

The one who gave the directions looked at Traz, still seemingly confused about why she was there. In the end, she decided to give up on coming up with a reason and just accept it as is.

“Hey girl, what’s your name?” She asked.

“It’s Traz.”

“And is that it?”

“Yep.”

And that was the end of that. The leader took a moment to think about what to do, before calling out to her once more.

“Traz, would you like to come back with us?”

“Sure!” She instantly replied.

The leader nodded, motioning her hands in a signal to move out. “Well now, let's head back to Kelli for now.”

“Ma’am!” The group responded in unison.

As the leader worked everybody else in moving, she couldn’t help from taking glimpses at the backpack Traz was wearing, and how it reminded her so much of a certain Diver with how he would patch his own equipment up, seeing how there were etches as that of his own work on Traz’s.

“Hmmm.” The leader pondered.

But what captured her attention the most was the Mist, and how it had yet to move from where they stood. Since they arrived nearly a day ago, the Mist seemed to have hardly moved from it’s spot at all, and contradicted every theory known of its movement.

Her mind pondered these questions for the very duration of their route back to home.