“Well, I mean he’s not wrong, sure your way is a solution, but it uses far more conduits that what’s needed,” explains a well built young man seeming to be in his latter teenage years, dressed in a sporty green jacket made of a polyester-esc material with lapels, stylized similarly to a blazer, with sleek white trims along the arms and sides as well as a small blue dot on the collar. He also has what appears similar to blue jeans.
Walking down a curved, seemingly circular hallway with well lit white walls, he has short black hair slickly above youthfully bright blue eyes, and approaches a closed white door on the left wall of the hallway. Above the white door is a dot of yellow light, flickering slowly which the man takes notice to. There also seems to be a white earbud with sleek blue streaks in his right ear, fit snugly.
Beside the teenager is another, taller yet slimmer, with longer black hair with the same shade of skin as the one he’s accompanying as well as the same color eyes. He wears a crimson hoodie over black pants, casual clothing as well. He follows the other man with shorter hair, standing beside him inside the hallway before begrudgingly contending with a voice also noticeably in his latter teenage years, “Well, I guess, but you don’t need to be a leg about it, Rohan.”
He then stops beside his companion, and looks up at the flickering yellow light, waiting patiently. He noticeably has an earbud in one ear, just like the man beside him.
After several quiet seconds of waiting, the yellow light flashes green and remains at a constant shine, and right below it the door dissolves, dematerializing to reveal a circular white pad behind with enough area for a large group to stand on. On the pad is also a white, smooth podium about three feet tall, and projecting off the podium is a blue three dimensional holographic screen displaying a model of a circular tower, and beside it is a flat holographic menu displaying a long array of buttons each labeled from one to fifty, also blue.
Around the pad is a metallic white wall curved circular, which is also well lit, to which the man in the green jacket, referred to as Rohan, steps in while delivering the repartee: “You did ask me for your opinion, Dexter, so that’s what I’m doing.”
An irritated sigh comes off of the skinnier teenager, referred to as Dexter, before he steps onto the white pad as well.
On the pad, Rohan steps up to the podium where he then studies the array of buttons speedily from top to bottom, to which he presses the bottom left button, which then ignites green instead before the opening behind them is shut by a materializing door that encloses them.
The pad the two are standing on then begins to descend with a quiet whoosh, carrying both of them as they seem to be on an elevator pad inside an enclosed shaft. They stand by the center together, waiting peacefully while staring at the white shaft.
While the two wait on the elevator, Rohan takes a short glance at Dexter beside him, and with his hands by his side he asks in a more genuine tone of voice, “So, are you talking to a lot of people?”
Summoned into a new conversation, Dexter keeps his gaze on the long white wall while answering, “Well, sort of. I mean, there are people from my labs that I try to talk to, and it goes somewhere.”
Rohan nods his head in acknowledgement, and after contemplating for a few moments, he advises earnestly, “I see, but remember not to restrain yourself to just classmates. You don’t even need friends only from your major, that’s closing yourself off to most of the people here. Sorry, but engineering isn’t the only career people come here to pursue.”
“Easy for a computer scientist to say,” snarks Dexter in a quick comeback before glimpsing at him with a smirk.
Rohan lets out a sigh and rolls his shoulders before he admits, “Fair. But anyways, you get my point, there’s so many places to meet people, maybe join a club or something. You could always try out for the air hockey team!” with a mischievous grin.
Dexter sighs back and shakes his head, to which he fiddles with his thumbs while querying, “And concuss myself in practice? No thanks, you can take all the brain damage you want but my head is staying clean.”
Rohan huffs, clapping his hands together and putting them beside his back before insisting, “Come on, you really should try. I’m telling you, there is no greater source of exhilaration than maneuvering in one of those suits, honestly I mean at first it is a bit scary but when you get the hang of it you’ll feel incredible! But fine, I guess my little brother is boring.”
“We’re twins!” snaps Dexter as his eye twitches, and the elevator pad comes to an abrupt halt.
Both Rohan and Dexter turn around as the door dematerializes, but in front of them stands a group of five other teenage boys, all conversing with each other in a hallway similar to the one the two were on before entering the elevator.
Two of the boys appear nearly identical, with one wearing a red half shirt with short groomed hair and the other wearing a yellow half shirt with more bushy hair, both skinnier than Dexter. Another boy is far shorter than the rest, looking comparably younger too given his more youthful face and shape, with short well groomed hair and a peace white windbreaker jacket.
Among the group is a tall man over six feet in height also with the most muscular build, dressed in a white and blue varsity jacket unbuttoned to reveal his black shirt under. On the jacket is the logo of a blue jay embroidered on the side, seeming to be custom. He easily has the shortest hair, only a smooth patch like a buzzcut.
The final man has a more average build with a height similar to Rohan’s, with the longest hair down the neck although a mess. He dons a purple sweater with black trims on the sleeves and sides, and stands in the center of the group next to the tall man.
All five of the boys glance at Rohan after noticing him, with peculiar expressions that at first feel slightly discomforting.
Suddenly, the man in the center throws both of his arms up before exclaiming, “Hey, Rohan, what’s good!”
A bright smile is worn on Rohan as he greets, “Hey Shuraj!” He then glances at each of the other four to greet them, facing the tall man in the varsity jacket, the short man in the windbreaker, the skinny twin in the yellow shirt, and the other twin in the red short while introducing, “Sriya, Vrey, Ara, Ari! Hey guys!”
He then steps back towards the back edge of the pad same as Dexter, allowing the large group to board the elevator pad together, shuffling to make space as the amount onboard skyrockets immediately.
As the group boards the elevator, the tall man in the varsity jacket, identified as Sriya, lightly nudges Rohan’s shoulder before speaking with a deep yet enthusiastic voice, “Hey, are you also going to the bottom floor?”
Rohan nods his head, following: “We are, it’s already set,” as the elevator door behind them closes after they all step inside.
Once again, the elevator pad continues to descend, now carrying all seven of the boys lower down the shaft.
On the pad, Rohan and Dexter remain next to each other, although Rohan converses with the man identified as Shuraj, who implores sheepishly, “So…Rohan…you know how we had this one homework due today…?”
Rohan lets out a soft, disapproving sigh, before immediately cutting to the chase, “Okay, you can copy it.”
Shuraj smiles joyously and brings both of his fists near his own face while murmuring, “Yes!” in relief, his reaction now all the sudden shameless.
Rohan sighs again, shaking his head while reprimanding, “Seriously, you’re never going to pass the exams if you don’t even know what the class is about.”
A nervous chuckle comes from Shuraj, who scratches the back of his head nervously while excusing, “I’ll catch up, I promise.”
“Mhm,” Rohan responds in a monotonous voice, clearly sarcastic in acceptance of the excuse, which causes Shuraj to chuckle again even more hesitantly.
Suddenly, the pad comes to another halt, and the door past Rohan dissolves again, to which Rohan peeks over Shuraj’s shoulder in anticipation of it being their destination.
Through the open elevator door stands a girl seemingly the same age as the rest of the group, with smooth brown hair and hazel eyes. She’s dressed in a pure white hoodie, standing beside another girl with a bright pink hoodie and a ponytail.
The girl in the white hoodie glances at Rohan, to which she smiles widely before sprinting into the elevator pad, followed by the girl with her. She charges up to Rohan, to which he instinctively steps back, unable to move much farther as he’s jumped by the girl who wraps her arms around him while exclaiming, “Roh!”
She then plants a short kiss on his lips before sliding off his body and standing beside him with a merry smile, which only causes Rohan to softly smile in return before greeting, “Erica, glad to see you!”
He then glances at the second girl in the ponytail before addressing out loud, “Maria!”
On the other side of the elevator pad, the girl in the ponytail raises her head to notice Rohan, to which she waves her hand with a soft smile. Behind her, the elevator door shuts, and the pad begins to descend once again, carrying all nine of them now. They were still not entirely cramped, however it was clear that there was far less space than from the beginning.
While the elevator pad continues to descend, Erica wraps her arm around Rohan’s, swinging back and forth as she charmingly asks, “So, where are you going?”
Still warmly smiling from the presence of the girl, Rohan faces Erica before elucidating, “I was going down to the lobby.”
Smiling back before tilting her head against Rohan’s shoulder, Erica soothingly mentions, “I was too. Hey, want to hang out later tonight? We can watch that one show you really like!”
A huff comes from Rohan before he pokes the girl on the forehead with his free hand before playfully rebuking, “You’re the one who wants to watch it, I just follow along.”
Erica pouts at the snarky response, and she tilts her head up before whining, “Fine, then you can stay alone in your dorm and do homework for fun or whatever it is that you do!”
Rohan sighs upon the girl’s complaint, and he lowers his head before shamefully surrendering, “Fine fine, I like it too, we can watch it.”
“Yay!” exclaims Erica as the elevator pad stops again, and once more the door vanishes to open up.
Once again there are also people standing on the other side, waiting patiently, although this time neither of them appear the same age as the rest of the kids, but rather far into adulthood, into their forties or further.
On the left stands a woman wearing a white apron over a green dress, and on the right stands a man dressed in a formal black business suit with a blazer, buttoned up shirt, and dress pants, who has short gray hair on the top of his wrinkled head. Both of them face Rohan, and the woman smiles before waving her hand and greeting, “Rohan!” before stepping inside the elevator along with the man, adding up to a total of eleven occupants.
Initially perplexed, Rohan tilts his head before apprehensively welcoming, “Mom? Dad?” while the two approach him, standing away from the door and allowing it to close again.
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Again the pad starts to descend, now with the two added occupants, seeming to be referred to as the parents of Rohan. He continues to stand with his arm being wrapped by Erica, facing the two adults while the rest of the group stand around, waiting patiently.
Still taken aback by the strange encounter, Rohan inquires curiously, “Wait, what are you two doing here?”
A bright smile comes from the mother while the father stands with a stoic, expressionless face. The mother is the only to speak, explaining: “Well, we were just heading to the lobby is all! How are you, sweetie?”
Still, the response only made Rohan even more confused, as his eyes peered more tightly while trying to understand what was going on.
However, his eyes widen back before he wears a calm smile, diverting from the questions to instead answer cheerfully, “I’m doing good, mom! We were just headed to the lobby too. I guess it’s good to see you!”
In response the mother shakes her head horizontally while agreeing, “It’s great to see you too, dear!”
She then raises her head up to face the father before noting to Rohan, “Your father is very proud of what you’ve become, dear! None of us would’ve ever anticipated you to become a superhero!”
A nervous chuckle comes from Rohan, who scratches the back of his head after receiving the compliment, to which he humbly clarifies, “Mom, I’m just a college student, I’m not a superhero. I still have a ways to go before I graduate anyways, so it’ll take time before I do anything of service.”
Still smiling just as gleefully, the mother returns her gaze to Rohan before shaking her head and praising, “You’re still a hero to both of us, and no matter what happens even when we’re gone, we’ll still be proud of you!”
Rohan gives a slightly discomforted smile after the thought before nodding his head, gulping before thanking, “Thank you mom,” having received the odd compliment that for some reason felt foreboding if anything.
Whooshes of the elevator quiets down as the pad comes to a stop again, bringing Rohan’s attention up past his mother towards the door as it dematerializes, anticipating the destination with a relieved smile.
Instead of an open space to step out of, once again there are people standing by the door, waiting patiently to step in. There are precisely four of them too, all standing together and lowering their heads after likely facing the green light, now staring at the elevator and the crowd inside including Rohan. Again, the group don’t appear to be the same age as Rohan, but rather also adults, about the same age as the parents although perhaps slightly younger.
One of the newcomers is a man dressed in heavy crimson armor with large gauntlets and chainmail over his shoulders. His face has a dark shade and he has long hair with bangs over his dark gray eyes, which he stares intently through while analyzing the elevator.
Next to him is a woman with long light brown hair and emerald eyes in a forest green sleeveless dress with individual white flags making up a skirt. She has a warm smile, content as she keeps close to the man as though intimate with him.
Beside the woman is a man dressed in a white race suit with black and sky blue pads, wearing a large emblem of his chest resembling the diagram of a tachyon. He has a pale face with sky blue eyes and short brain hair, also wearing a content smile as he glances around at the elevator.
Finally in the group stands another woman in a black tight suit with purple curvy streaks around her whole body in an interesting design, and on the suit is a dark purple hood which is down, revealing the Asian woman’s face to have long silky black hair and purple eyes.
In the group, the woman in the black suit waves her hand towards Rohan with a bright smile, calling: “Oh, hey!” before stepping into the elevator, followed by the other three of the group. The entire group enters the packed elevator, making room with the two parents, Erica, Dexter, and Rohan, filling the quantity to nine people.
The woman continues to approach Rohan as does the man in the race suit, and after boarding the pad the door behind them shuts, to which the pad begins to continue its descent further down, resuming its long journey.
Rohan stumbles backwards, his arm no longer gripped as Erica is no longer with him, giving him space for the two newcomers to reach Rohan, which they do with delighted smiles. He wears a concerned expression, seeming now uneasy about the occupation of the elevator, as the events preceding before him start losing sense.
He shakes his head, unable to understand what was happening, as at first he was able to stomach the interactions but now none of it was making any sense with the memories of the world he knows.
Visibly distraught, Rohan lowers his head to gaze at the white floor only before he quietly questions, “How are you here?”
Leaning forwards with a bright smile on a shining face, the woman in the black suit enchantingly explains, “We’re going to the lobby! What about you?”
Regardless of how friendly the woman is, all Rohan could respond with is quietly murmuring to himself in a desperate tone, “Calypso…what’s going on…?”
Tilting her head to the side with a curiously innocent expression, Calypso implores further: “‘What’s going on’? What do you mean? We’re all here for you! We’ll always be!”
“Yeah, you have nothing to worry about! Remember our promise? You’ll see us on the other side!” joins in the man in the race suit, equally delighted with Rohan’s presence as discernable by his light tone and optimistic words.
Instead of siphoning the sunny attitudes of his fellows, Rohan instead puts his hand over his forehead, ignoring their faces with an agonized expression, his eyebrows scrunched up as he seems to be amidst a mental breakdown.
“You’ll see us on the other side!” repeats the man, at first seeming to try reassuring Rohan, who keeps his head down.
“You’ll see us on the other side,” joins in the familiar voice of the other woman with a more mature tone, standing nearby.
“You’ll see us on the other side,” chants the voice of the leader with his deep voice, also nearby yet not visible to Rohan.
Fraught and losing himself, Rohan grips his forehead, pressing his nails into his forehead tightly as he looks like he’s on the verge of tears. His teeth are clenched, overwhelmed in stress as he maintains his gaze on the floor, avoiding eye contact with anyone around him. He was trapped in the elevator, still not seeming to be at the destination, and rather than being delighted with the company he had he instead was dreading every second of being stuck in the shaft, just waiting for the doors to open again.
Suddenly through his terrorized trance, a gentle hand in a black glove with a purple streak over the back is placed on Rohan’s shoulder, firmly gripping it assuringly, causing him to loosen the grip on his forehead and lower his arm.
He then gradually raises his head up with a desperately frightened face, his dulled blue eyes looking up at the one holding his shoulder, and for a moment his expression shifts to one of relieved tranquility.
Raising his head up, Rohan stares at Calypso as she caringly holds his shoulder, to which he notices a massive gaping hole in her torso so large that he could see streams of blood and strings of guts rain down, causing his eyes to shoot wide and his jaw to drop in horror.
He then instinctively faces beside him where the other man stood, hoping to receive help, only to see that upon first glance the man wasn’t there. After glancing past where the man should be, Rohan lowers his head down, to which he finds the man, laying on the floor with only the upper half of his body present, laying in a pool of blood with a wide gaping hole in his head, exposing gray matter all on the pad.
Roaring drums of a heartbeat begins to get louder as Rohan glances at the other woman while alerting, “Juno-,” only to find that where she had been standing instead was a pile of small bits of flesh diced up in a pool of blood of its own, with fragments of limbs and a torso with pieces of intestines hanging out of a few pieces. At the far end of the pile is a split head staring with wide emerald eyes up at the ceiling .
Rohan then turns to the man beside her, and just as he opens his mouth, he finds that the leader has a huge hole straight through the center of his body, clear by the wide aperture at the top of his head. He watches helplessly as the leader then collapses on the ground after being noticed, causing the heartbeat to become more rapid.
Shaking his head in denial, Rohan begins to gaze at the rest of the elevator pad, turning first to Erica, who lays on the ground with a gaping hole in her chest where her heart would be, facing above too as her head lays on her long brown hair spread over the floor, her amber eyes wide open.
Rohan then looks to his parents, finding them also collapsed, the mother’s body laying on the ground with her hand extended out with a gaping hole in her forehead exposing bits of brain and guts, and the father’s body nearly unrecognizable as it’s completely charred without any skin left, the eye sockets also facing upward.
While Rohan gazes over all the corpses on the elevator’s red floor, he feels the hand on his shoulder beginning to slip, to which he returns his eyes back to Calypso before him with a terrorized and despairing face.
Her knees giving out as her body starts to slide, Calypso softly mutters, “You’ll see us on the other side,” before collapsing on the ground too, leaving Rohan’s side and joining with the bodies on the floor.
Horrified, Rohan raises his head up, casting around the elevator once more, at first finding himself to be the only remaining body left standing over the pile of corpses.
However, he finds that across the elevator in front of him stands one last being, a strange boy appearing about fourteen in age with unkempt black hair, dressed in a plain black shirt and shorts sullied in splats of crimson blood which also covered his face. The boy glares with illuminated red irises, his head perked up as he stands over the parents’ bodies.
Both Rohan and the blood drenched boy stare off at one another in silence inside the descending elevator, but after a few seconds of exchanged glares, Rohan’s entire body suddenly bursts into azureus flames, and without even letting out an agonizing scream, his body simply is vaporized from the flames, being erased swiftly.
From the other corner of the pad, laying on the ground, His perspective stares ahead at the collapsed body of Erica across the pad, perplexed at first as he finds himself not only on a different side of the elevator but also a completely different position.
He instinctively grabs the floor and throws his body up, scrambling to his feet and staggering to reach balance. He stands up straight, immediately seeking the corpses with his head still low. His perspective becomes foggier, but he still manages to see clear enough to gaze at the halved corpse of his old friend on the other side of the platform, the corpse dressed in a brown overcoat with a black jumpsuit underneath, given a gaping hole in the middle of his bald head with petrified yellow eyes. The boy however is noticeably no longer present, leaving only death around.
Further disoriented and fearful, His heart races faster and louder as he continues to search around the floor, finding the body with the gaping wound in the torso, the body of the one who had tried to reassuringly hold him. Instead of the body being in a black suit however, it was dressed with an oversized white hoodie with a pink abdomen and pattern reminiscent of a cupcake, with long pink hair covering the ground instead of black. It still has the gaping hole however, spilling guts and blood out.
Mixed in with the heartbeat is loud repetitive panting, denoting that he was hyperventilating while his eyes are brought back down away from the opposite side, and face right next to him instead, where he finds the cut up corpse of the woman beside himself, although he notices that instead of there being remains of a green dress, instead there are remains of a black blazer. He then trails up the pile of diced flesh, only to find that at the front is the split head of none other than Dana, with wide green eyes, her amber hair laying on the ground below her head.
It becomes hard to tell what was louder, the heartbeat or the panting, as He noticeably feels agitated, placing his hands over his head to calm himself down, but upon doing so he feels his hands reaching deeper in his head than normal. He continues to reach down, initially curious, but that is until he hears squishy sounds of guts being touched, and an even more comfortable slime on his fingers.
He immediately pulls his hands up and brings them in front of himself, to which he finds that on his pale and wrinkly hands are scattered remains of a brain, for there was a hole in the exact same spot of the body as the leader.
His hands begin to start shaking violently as he starts to make incoherent moans, staring down at his disgusting hands while panting more heavily. His eyes start racing around the elevator, and during his breakdown, the elevator pad finally comes to a stop, for at last it seemed he reached his destination.
He turns towards the elevator door as it dissolves, relieved to finally escape. However, upon gazing at the opened door, he finds that beyond the door wasn’t the lobby room he was expecting, nor even any floor with more people, but rather in front of him was the colossal blazing cyan surface of the supersun, solar flares dancing off constantly right past him.
He starts hyperventilating harder after being faced with the supersun so close again, and he staggers backwards, no longer wanting to leave the elevator. However, he stops short after feeling a barrier against his back, which he faces around to glance at.
Behind him he sees none other than the man in the blue suit, with the blazing azureus pencil emblem and the parallelogram goggles on the white mask. He watches the man stare straight at him as his black cape waves behind like a flag, and he just stares in silence, lost for words and unable to understand the horrors befalling him.
That was then when the man in the blue suit shoves Him from the back, throwing his body forward through the open doorway, to which he faces forward while in sudden free fall straight down, able to see nothing but the expansive surface of the burning supersun before his eyes grow larger as he gets closer.
Screams of terror and despair fails to receive a response, and while flailing his arms sleeved in the aged leather jacket His body plummets straight into the scorching surface, about to incinerate him absolute.