"Face us!"
"Turn to glory!"
"Praise is helpless."
"The only hope is the Queen, you Fool!"
Aether frowned, covering his ears, and yet he could still hear the voices. The voice of a shadow isn't that easy to get rid of, as they don't talk with their mouth, but with their soul.
They used their mouth as if trying to pretend their one of us, to gain trust.
And since his soul hadn't been healed like the rest of his body, it was weakened, making the shadows' life a lot easier.
But he tried not to pay attention to them; he had grown used to their blabber.
This wasn't the first time he had to endure this kind of torture; it wasn't so harsh as the one for his trial. And plus, at that time, he didn't have anything to strive for, to want.
This time, it was different; he was determined not to let them get into his head.
But it was strange; he had never had this happen to this degree.
Maybe it was a side effect of losing his affinity, or just because their God was alive.
But they weren't making walking this suspicious hallway any better.
It was long, made of metal grating and steel plates, with reinforced glass panels, looking out into the underside of the bridge.
Through the glass, you saw the frozen river suspended in motion, with ice mid-splashing and snowflakes hanging motionless.
Overhead, the half-functioning light strips flickered, cycling between their dim red emergency color and utter darkness.
Though only because of them could he see, so he was grateful they worked. But how?
When it came to questions like this, he had no idea.
He didn't know why the world was frozen, and how sometimes it was working. Why was it only specific to some objects, or how do they even do it?
If he had to guess, he would just go back to his theory, that in this time of age, every object had essence, and threads, they just needed to somehow let the essence out.
He had no idea how, but he knew someone who maybe could explain it to him.
"Avrie."
But where even were they? When he left them, they were heading lower and lower in the monster's stomach. But after he killed it, what happened?
Did they also find themselves somewhere around the facility like him? Or did an ending to the spiral finally appear? Did they even get down all the stairs?
...Were they even alive anymore?
He shook his head, slapping his cheeks to concentrate.
Avrie was with Elpis; that guy was strong enough to protect her and himself. There was no way his pride would ever let him die.
The black sun was getting bigger as he got closer to it. He didn't know why, but it seemed like it, too, was staring at him. But when in this world, when did you not feel watched?
The shrill sound from the metal door sliding on the hard ground almost damaged his ears, but it didn't last long. letting Aether into another room.
As the door closed behind him, he turned to look at it, and on this side, there wasn't a black sun; instead, there was a black club.
He didn't pay it much attention; he had to find the update log left by that bastard.
He found himself in this bunker research deck.
There were rows of abandoned decks, covered in papers yellowed by age.
Aether picked on up, he spat on it, and it absorbed it, the paper becoming soft and soggy.
This confirmed that the researchers had managed to make time move somehow.
But while he had an idea of what to do to a specific object, this was a hole bunker they had managed to unfreeze time for.
The only other time he saw something like this was with the forest. But that was because it had developed a Core from devouring people.
So did that mean that this place, too, had a core?
Some of the desks had burnt coffee mugs, fused with frost, untouched for centuries, if he had to guess.
There was also another mural, painted in bright, hopeful yellows, that now looks sickly under the emergency lighting.
"First Light for All Mankind...?"
This was the only piece of information he had gotten from the deck, since the papers were too yellow, and the ink to smudged and decayed to read. And he didn't even know what it meant.
Downspirel wasn't very different from Ashen Wing, but it did have one thing that he had not seen in the other bunker.
"A dormatary?"
He waited for the doors to open, and when they did. He saw a hallway with six doors on each side, and one standing at the very end.
The doors were heavy, made out of a stunning black steel that was matte and cold to touch, but one that had patches of rust corrupting it, alongside ice crystals creeping along the edges.
Each door was split vertically down the middle by a thin engraved seam. It seemed like these doors were meant to open both ways, but now it only opened inward, and stiffly so, like something resisted from the other side.
There was a handle; instead, there was a horizontal slot, where, if he had to say, they had to input some sort of card to enter.
The rooms were also enumerated, but he couldn't understand how.
The first room had an A, the second a 2, and so on until 10. But then it started with letters again, J, Q, and finally, on the one at the end of the hallway, a K.
Why did it start with letters and then continue with numbers, only to come back to them?
Why was J, the second letter, when A was the first? Shouldn't it have been B?
Why did the numbers start from 2, and not 1?
But he did have one hint. That being the J, the same letter that the researchers had written as himself on the note.
But did that mean it was his room?
"Only one way to see."
He took a deep breath. And tried pushing the heavy door with all his remaining force.
It made a groaning sound as it slowly opened.
Revealing a room that seemed quite normal at first.
There was a bed, made out of a metal frame and a thin and stiff mattress.
An open wardrobe with a uniform and a coat, which.
They still looked wearable, so Aether stole the white coat.
The last thing inside the room was a desk.
It was cluttered with notes, tools, and... a dagger? But they were all too frozen to use or read.
Well, except one.
Aether picked it up and examined it.
It didn't look new, but it wasn't as old as the others either. Meaning it had to be written after the others.
It was also readable.
"You found another bunker. I knew you would. Alright… maybe I doubted you once or twice. But still, look at you now."
Aether frowned, unamused. But at the same time, he couldn't blame him; he didn't think he would be able to find another either.
"You're probably wondering how I managed to write this. Truth is, I'm not sure either. I can fight the Queen's control… a little. Not enough to walk away, but enough to leave these scraps behind. My hands don't always listen, so excuse the mess."
Aether kept his frown, getting irritated by how the note kept talking about things that didn't matter that much at the moment.
And while the fact that he was able to withstand her control was interesting, it didn't help him.
"And about that last note I cut short, yes, I know. You were probably cursing my name. I didn't think I'd have another chance to talk to you. But somehow… I knew you'd find this one. You have a way of bending the impossible until it works in your favor."
So here's the deal. There's one last note out there. Maybe you'll find it. Maybe it will find you. And somewhere near the observation well, there's a log you're going to need. Don't lose it.
"I don't know when we'll see each other again. Years? Centuries? A thousand lifetimes? But we will. I'm sure of it."
Goodbye, my favourite Fool.
— J.
...
Aether stared at the note, his hands shaking from shock. He was struggling to speak, to the point that only one word was able to come out of his mouth.
"What..."