The walls around them aren’t metal… they’re hand-carved, with strange engravings.
Symbols resembling human footprints… gradually morphing into twisted shapes.
Rumo:
“This doesn’t look like anything in the facility.”
Levan:
“Or anything from our training.”
Above them, Ena searches for an alternate way to reunite.
She discovers a passage not listed on the map.
Curiosity leads her in…
The silence feels nothing like before.
Levan and Rumo find red stains along a wall.
Old… unexplained.
Rumo (nervously):
“Is this… blood?”
Levan says nothing, staring at a stone door inscribed with:
“What lies beneath the Tendency… must not return.”
Inside: an empty room… except for a single chair at the center.
Broken mirrors cover the walls.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Engraved on the floor:
“The First Expedition began here… and ended here.”
Rumo steps back slowly.
Levan touches the ground…
A flash floods his mind:
People screaming.
An unstable energy field.
He recoils, gasping.
Rumo:
“What did you see?”
Levan:
“Something… that never ended.”
Ena hears footsteps behind her.
She turns—no one.
But on the wall, written in charcoal:
“Don’t repeat what we started.”
Handwritten… human.
The three regroup in a shadowy junction.
Ena shows them a small notebook she found in a side room.
Circular symbols… related to Tendency, but altered.
Rumo:
“These are beginnings… or endings.”
They try activating the tracker again… nothing.
Ena:
“We’re outside the network… or outside recognition.”
Rumo:
“I think we crossed a line.”
Levan:
“Then let’s go back… before we become like the ones before us.”
The return is rough… broken stairs, shifting corridors.
In one corner, they find a helmet engraved with:
“Expedition 1 – Unit 3”
Ena:
“There were more of them… but none made it out.”
They finally reach the entrance they came through.
The forest outside… still and unchanged.
Rumo exhales:
“Mission complete.”
Ena glances back for a moment:
“But we’ll never forget what we weren’t meant to remember.”
Levan (quietly):
“Nor write… a single word of it.”
End of Chapter 13.