Vestige Chapter 6 - Elusive Memories

With the memory of Mother behind us, we moved forward through the floors of the inner wall. The halls were empty and dull. Empty rooms and broken technology were scattered haphazardly. We climbed several flights of stairs until we reached an illuminated hallway. A steel door stood at the end of the corridor. Jax slid the key card into the slot located on the handle of the door.

"Level two access granted." A robotic voice said as the door swung open.

Inside we found a large stairwell reaching higher than imaginable. The walls and floors were in great contrast to those previously. They were white and kept clean. The lights shone brightly and arrows guided the way up the stairs.

We trekked through innumerable counts of flights. Every turn of the staircase led to more stairs. Several hours must have passed as we worked our way upwards.

"God, my legs are going to fall off anytime now." Gray panted.

"I can't walk up another stair." Aurelia slid down the wall and into a sitting position.

"Whew." Jax caught his breath. "Come on guys. You saw how the tall the wall is from the outside, you should have expected this."

"Let's just turn back already, I'm tired." Aurelia complained.

"Quit it. We don't have time to lay around." Jax began to climb again.

"Yeah. There's no way you're tired already!" I yelled from a story above.

Honestly, I felt like they were holding me back. We must have climbed several hundred stairs, and yet my legs never felt better. I didn't stop once to break, and yet I'm not out of breath. My arm had completely recovered too. I felt as I could keep going for hours on end.

"I think I reached the top!" I climbed the final flight.

"Yo, let's get up there already!" Jax yelled from below. I could hear Aurelia and gray grunt and complain.

Jax finally met me at the top. At the apex was a three-way intersection. The door to our left was labeled "Management Divisions. To our right "Training and Quartering". Finally in front of us "Cadet Affairs Divison." All three of the doors looked similar to the previous one, yet they lacked a slot for a keycard.

"So, which way should we go?" I asked Jax.

"I only move one direction and that's forward." He pushed open the door titled "Cadet Affairs Divison" and walked through.

I followed him in and began to inspect my surroundings. We were in something of an office type environment. Cubicles and meeting rooms filled the layout. The place seemed empty say for thrown about papers and a surplus of coffee mugs. I walked into one of the meeting rooms. It seemed soundproof, but there wasn't much noise to test that out on.

Through the glass, I could see the entirety of the room. I watched Jax search the cubicles. He rummaged through papers and flyers. He went through most of the room, before stopping at something.

"Hey, Lulu. Come check this out." I hardly heard him through the room.

I walked over to the cubicle he was in and he showed me a paper he found. It was extremely faded but unrefutably held a picture of Kata in a wedding dress on it. In large bold letters at the top, it said "Second Q-". The second word was indistinguishable.

"I can't imagine what Kata must be going through right now." Jax said with a hint of defeat in his tone. "What do you make of this, Lulu?"

"I don't know. I've never met Kata and I don't know really know anything about her" I replied.

"Oh yeah, that's right." Downhearted, Jax placed the paper on the desk. "We should keep moving."

He stood up and began walking towards the exit. A door at the far side of the space that led to the next wing contained an exit sign above it. We had spent long enough in there, so I joined him. Just at that moment the door, we entered through creaked open. Both of us turned to meet the light seeping into the dark room.

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"Finally the stairs are over!" Aurelia cried as she entered. She quickly sagged into one of the desk chairs.

"Didn't we pack anything to eat?" Gray stumbled into the room and onto the floor.

Did they really spend all this time making their way up those stairs? They really hold us back. Maybe they should have stayed back at the orphanage. Jax and I could probably do this on our own, not that I would ever tell them that.

"Took you long enough." I greeted them.

"You have your rations to eat, man. Just don't scarf them all down at once, we need to conserve." Jax said to Gray.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Gray grumbled back.

"The heck is this place?" Aurelia wondered. She rolled her chair into a nearby cubicle. "Oh wow, they even have computers like the one in the library here."

Aurelia inspected the terminal. "How do you turn this on?"

"Stop messing around. We need to keep going." I said.

"Just let me rest for a second." Aurelia responded. She searched the PC until she found the power button on its side. She pressed down on the button and the monitor lit up in response. The serenity and quietness of the room were quickly decimated by that of a deafening start-up sound.

"Ya hear that?" The exit door creaked open and a raspy male voice called out.

"Quickly hide!" Jax ordered as he ducked into a cubicle. I charged into a meeting room and locked the door behind me. I crouched down, where I couldn't be seen.

"It's probably just your hallucinations again, man." A second voice responded.

"No. I swear I heard a computer boot up." The raspy voice walked through the room. "Which one of you was it, now?" The voice snarked.

"Are you going to help me with these reports or not?" The second voice asked.

"Just put them through the system or whatever."

"These are reports from the capital Dreddian, we can't just let the computer handle them."

"Whatever." Dreddian audibly perked up. "There you are! Now don't tell me you computers are starting on your own now."

"Just turn it off and get back here already."

"Yeah, yeah, don't rush me." The computer shut off. "Seymor you really need to lighten up one of these days." Dreddian began to walk towards the door.

He stopped in his tracks.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice you hiding under the desk there?" He yelled.

"Get off me!" Aurelia screamed.

"Hey. Ya got some great tits for a kid lemme tell you."

Aurelia must have been caught! I've got to do something about this. I readied my rifle and charged out from the room. A tall old man held Aurelia up by the neck. Precisely I fired three bullets into his left side. He dropped Aurelia and turned towards me. Blood flowed out of his side, yet he barely flinched through his smile.

"Are you kids doin a breakout? This is going to be fun!" Dreddian pulled out a saber from a sheath on his hilt and ran towards me. He was incredibly fast, but I managed to dodge his first attack. Horizontally he swung his sword again. I ducked down and swept his feet with mine. He came crashing into the desk behind him.

"Let's get out of here!" I yelled.

"This way!" Jax helped up Aurelia and ran through the exit door. I followed behind Gray and went into the next room.

Inside was a smaller room with a large table in the center. A young man, with white hair, greeted us inside.

"This really brings back memories!" Seymor drew a semi-automatic pistol and fired at Jax.

Jax jumped forward, just barely missing the bullets, and shoved Aurelia through the next door and into a hallway. "Run!" He yelled as he equipped his gun. He then ducked under the table, as a spray of bullets filled the room.

I ran in and pushed Gray through the door. "Make sure Aurelia stays out of trouble!" I shouted as I charged towards Seymor. I leaped onto the table and kicked the pistol out of his hands before he could shoot.

Surprised, he jumped up and tackled me off the table. With one hand he held my rifle down and with the other he strangled me. I pushed and shoved to get him off, but his weight far outmatched mine.

Dreddian entered the room and Jax turned to deal with him. Jax swerved and ducked past each of Dreddian's slashes. Dreddian stumbled back as Jax's fist landed into his gut. He then punctured several bullets into Dreddian's chest. He failed to recover quickly and Jax had his opportunity to run.

I finally managed to shove off Seymor. I weakly threw him aside and pushed him away with my foot. He rolled under the table and searched around for his pistol. I spewed shots into him, yet he failed to react.

"We gotta book it, Lulu!" Jax sprinted through the door past me.

With what little opportunity I had, I followed him out. We darted through a long hallway with doors lining each side. Shouting and footsteps sounded behind us and we ran with all our might to avoid them.

Bullets clanked on the wall as we charged through the sharp left turn the passage took. We rushed to meet Aurelia and Gray at the end of the hallway. They stood at a large steel door.

"The door's locked! We need that key card." Aurelia shouted. Jax and I finally reached them and he pulled out his pack to find the card.

"Hey, they're coming this way, guys!" Gray pointed this out. Armed, Seymor, and Dreddian were charging our way. Where they currently were, they could easily nail us with fire. Knowing this, I made the decision to jump in front of the way. I stretched my body out as large as I could and stood in front of the others to protect them. There wasn't enough time to get through the door and I had to do something. I would do anything to protect my family even take bullets for them.

Blood splattered on my chest, as bullets pierced my skin. I must have been shot eight or so times, yet I felt little to no pain.

"Got the door open!" Jax yelled. We all sprinted outside.

"Lock it behind us!" Gray offered. Jax swiped the electronic screen under the keycard slot and selected the lock icon. Seymor and Dreddian banged on the door, yet they could not get it open.

Out of breath and filled with adrenaline, the sights around me took a moment to register. We were no longer inside the wall. We were outside. We stood atop a large stone staircase that led from the top of the wall to the ground. The air was warm and humid. The morning sun shined down on us. Below us, stood a large sprawling city.

We had finally reached the outside world.