Today, I was on my way down to the Pyramid underground when I found Marianna standing in one of the large corridors leading to the outside. She was standing stock still, gazing out towards the light shining in from the exit, from just inside the safe boundary. I walked up beside her, behind the last of many lines etched deeply across the corridor as warnings.

“Awfully dangerous spot you’re standing on,” I said. She must have been lost in thought, because she all but jumped.

“Oh, God- Richard!” Her wide-eyed expression of shock quickly turned into a glare. “Don’t be jumping at people when they’re standing at the boundary!”

I couldn’t help but smirk. “By ‘people’, you mean just you, yes? Because nobody goes within twenty steps of where we are, which is also why nobody else has told you to step away from the light.”

She put on a sour expression. “Well, I’m not dying anytime soon.”

“I’m not saying you will, but coming this close to the sunlight certainly won’t do you any favours,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go down.”

While many signs have been set up over the past months to make navigating the paths within the Pyramids easier, it is no exaggeration to call the interior of this glorified tomb a maze. I suppose this would not be the case if one were able to read the Jermasem on the walls; but as far as I know, none of the few archaeologists who can are in this Pyramid, so we’ve had to deal with our ignorance on our own. Thankfully, I’ve been able to memorise the turns without much difficulty. About half of us – including Marianna, who was following me without a word – still resorted to calling for help no less than once a month.

‘Why not just set up signs?’, you ask? Well, we did, at first. They kept disappearing. Don’t ask me how or why – even the ones put in charge of finding out where they went couldn’t give us an answer after the fifth incident under their watch. Whoever’s responsible is a sly one, that’s for sure.

After stepping through the decontamination zone set up just for our pyramid, Marianna and I were greeted by a rather odd sight: in the distance, where the great halls under each pyramid met, was what seemed to be a small castle surrounded by a crowd. I glanced at Marianna; her jaw was hanging, a sight made more amusing by the lashing of her hair against her face thanks to the massive industrial fans behind us.

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After she become functional again, we approached the structure to find that Lucien was in the middle of a rather heated discussion. I recognised his partner – one of the administrators of Ralethet. The young politician was mostly nodding and speaking without much movement, unlike Lucien and his animated gestures.

“Having a good morning, Lucien?” I said.

Lucien glanced over. “We’ll continue later,” he said to the other man, who smiled and walked off. “Cheers, Rich. Some morning this is… Those bureaucrats just do whatever they want.” He looked at Marianna. “I see you managed to bring her down from ground level.”

Marianna had returned to staring at the castle. Up close, I realised it was actually an inflatable castle – a bouncy castle, as they were called. But something else had caught my attention. “You knew she was at the entrance?” I asked.

“Sure did. She stayed behind the line, didn’t she?”

“She did.” I made sure Marianna was still preoccupied with the castle before leaning in and saying in a lowered voice, “It sure seemed like she was thinking about crossing it, however.”

Lucien looked over at his wife then, and I could tell from his distant gaze that he knew why. He caught me staring at him. “I’ll fill you in later. Seven, at your room?”

“Seven.” I nodded.

We went over to Marianna, and she finally took her eyes off the castle to talk to us. “What is this, Lucien? I mean… How?” she asked.

“Beats me, honestly,” Lucien said with a short frown. “That man just kept deflecting every question I asked. It’s ridiculous.”

As for why the castle’s presence is odd: when the invaders came and the whole country went to hell, they disabled our vehicles, too. We had about an hour to evacuate into the Pyramids before the worst happened, so anyone that couldn’t make the trip in an hour by foot was left outside. It was luck that gave us our current equipment – an unrelated project had a logistical delay after the completion of their study here. So we have an explanation for ours… but what about the bouncy castle? That’s not the kind of thing people bring along on a whim.

All that’s to say, something smells.

Suspicions aside, the children were already climbing into the structure and laughing all around it, so we left it. More importantly, we started bringing down all the refrigerators, and I think I injured my back. I was forced to return to my quarters by the wrinkled market-owners from Ralethet, where I am right now.

It's seven soon. Lucien will be here to talk about Marianna.