16th Fragment: -TOMB-
"Bleargh!" Rupert coughed out the cloying black sand from his mouth. He thought he had it – he thought he could land perfectly on his feet, but his right leg somehow got caught on something, causing him to fall head-first into the hole. Fortunately for him, the drop was a short one, and there was no spiky deathtrap waiting at the bottom.
However, he still wondered how the sand got into his mouth since he still had his mask on. Shortly afterward, he could hear his sister groaning in agony which immediately stirred up his concern - until a few curse words flew out from the darkness.
"Great, starting off by nearly plunging to our death, " Lucy spouted while lying painfully on the ground, and to make matters worse, her night vision seemed to have stopped working. 'Someone out there must really hate me', she pouted. Later, the woman found out that she was not the only one with a similar technical malfunction - much to her relief. As her eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, she saw Sam quietly scrutinizing his mask with a frustrated look across his face.
“Any luck?” asked Lucy as she sat herself up.
"Sadly, no," Sam retorted half-heartedly before putting his mask back on, "The air filter is still functioning though. So at least, we won't suffocate to death from some kind of toxic gases or other airborne hazards."
"Well, that's...reassuring? I guess?" Lucy wasn't sure whether the man was being honest or sarcastic.
Even so, that still did not change the fact that they were trapped in a pit without a single, viable light source. Then, they heard a loud pop from behind them, followed by a sudden burst of red light that illuminated the entire crater. Both Sam and Lucy turned around and were surprised to see Rupertr holding a burning flare stick over his head.
"Hang on, where did you get that? I don't remember Marie ever giving us one of those,” Lucy inquired.
"Lizzy's cabin. There's a box of it down in the basement. So, I took…I mean, I borrowed some in case of...emergency? Like the one we are in right now," Rupert let out a suspicious laugh that made his sister facepalm herself.
"Borrowed, huh? Right, let's leave it at that," Lucy exhaled.
“Hey, Rupe. Come here for a sec,” said Sam with his hands resting against a wall in front of him that was icy cold to the touch. The elder Nightingale perked up after hearing his name being called - even with the mask on, Sam could already imagine the excitement on his friend's face.
"Soooo, what did you find? A treasure map? An entrance to a secret vault?" Rupert chirped, unable to contain his enthusiasm.
"I’m not sure yet. Could you hold it here?" Sam replied before pointing at the wall with his hand. As Rupert brought the flare closer, a familiar symbol could be seen on the dusty steel surface - a snake wrapping itself around a chalice.
"Hm, the mark of the Disciples. We are definitely in the right place. The only problem now is finding a way to get inside," Sam remarked but swiftly noticed a rectangular object affixed to the wall directly in front of his lower abdomen. Taking a closer look, he noticed a small round indentation at the bottom of the panel and it instantly hit him.
“Now, what are the chances?” Sam murmured as he reached inside his jacket to pull out a tiny black button he seized from Keith.
“Woah, woah. How do we know this is not a trap?” Lucy blurted out.
“Well…I guess there’s only one way to find out,” replied Sam before he inserted the button into the hole. “It fits. Now, what?”
CLICK!
The panel slid down, revealing what seemed to be a worn-out access card reader. “Hah, got that one too,” Sam proceeded to produce another item from his jacket: a grey keycard.
"Are you sure about this?" Lucy asked. "I mean, the moment you used that, the Disciples will surely be alerted to our presence."
Instead of Sam, it was Rupert that responded to his sister's concern, "So? We'll just beat them up, plain and simple. Compared to the Distorted, a group of mundane scientists will not be that much of a deal to us."
Lucy couldn't help but sigh at her brother's impetuousness. Therefore, she shifted her attention to Sam, the only person she knew would listen to reason. "I'm just saying that once we infiltrated the facility, we should avoid any unnecessary confrontation until we're certain that the Disciples didn't hold Lizzy captive."
"Wait, didn't that Keith dude tell us that the Disciples had nothing to do with Lizzy's disappearance?" Rupert interjected.
"Well yeah, but he was also oblivious about the proximity microbomb planted inside his blood vessels. As far as I know, it might be another lie made up by his superiors just to throw us off the track," Lucy defended her theory so adamantly that Sam could feel her gaze piercing through her mask.
"Alright, we're just going to sneak in, find clues about Lizzy and get out. How's that sound?" Lucy nodded quietly - seemingly agreeing to Sam's straightforward proposition. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said of Rupert as he clicked his tongue in disapproval. Even without asking the man, Sam knew what was eating him from inside.
"I know what you're thinking," Sam retorted. "You want to stop the Disciples of Vidia, don't you? However, that wasn't the order Markus gave us. Our main priority is to find Lizzy and bring her back home - no more, no less. Besides, you haven't forgotten what happened to those who upset him, do you?"
Rupert grabbed Sam by the collar without warning and shoved the latter against the wall, "Screw the order! We have the chance to end them once and for all, so it'll be foolish for us to let this opportunity slip through our fingers!"
"Listen to me, Rupe. We are not here to be heroes," Sam calmly remarked, "We're here because we have a job to do. So, are we just going to continue idling about, OR help each other by finishing the task at hand?"
Rupert growled, dropping the flare and curling his left hand into a fist. Thankfully, Lucy managed to pull her brother away before the situation escalated. "That's enough!" she exclaimed as she slipped her way between the two men. "What's wrong with you, Rupert? You are acting pretty weird right now."
"What’s wrong with me?! What’s…Uh…I…It's... it’s nothing," the elder Nightingale's voice started to trail off as if he had awoken from a deep slumber. "Just…just forget about it," he grunted, sounding more like his former, usual self.
Both Sam and Lucy were puzzled by the man's sudden change - it was as if he was possessed by something. "I’m sorry; I don’t know what just came to me,” Rupert apologized.
“What do you mean you don’t know? You just shoved Sam to the wall,” Lucy reminded her brother.
“Did I…? I…don’t seem to recall doing that.”
“Interesting,” said Sam as he stroked his chin, seemingly lost in his own thought.
"Uh, Earth to Sam? I repeat, Earth to Sam?" Lucy spouted, and the man fidgeted. "You are spacing out again, which means there's something that caught your attention. So, what is it?"
Sam tilted his head to the left, contemplating whether or not he should tell her. In the end, he dismissed the question with a shrug, telling the young Nightingale that it was 'nothing important.' It was, of course, a blatant lie, and he was fully aware that Lucy would see through it. Moments later, Sam heard the surly woman replied with a toneless 'I see', but he could tell she was upset based on her body language.
"So," Sam proceeded to clear his throat, "I think we've wasted enough time already. Shall we?" He gently placed the card on the reader, anticipating some kind of an audio prompt or, at the very least, a short chime.
But, there was nothing.
"Is...is that it?" Rupert exhaled, dropping his shoulders out of disappointment.
PSSSSST!
The trio shuddered as the wall in front of them slowly separated, releasing a rush of prickling wintry air into the pit. Together they stared into the black void, waiting anxiously for swords and spears to come flying out of the darkness.
"Something's off," breathed Lucy, with one hand resting on her dirk. She could feel it in her bones - the paralyzing sense of dread.
Even after nearly a minute since the door opened, the ominous atmosphere grew thicker with each passing moment. Sam instinctively picked up the flare near his feet before tossing it into the dark chamber. Even though the light source did little to brighten the entire room, it was enough to explain the fear in Lucy’s heart.
Within the desecrated hall, dozens of shriveled corpses, dressed in ragged lab coats and medical gowns, lay scattered on the flat ground shrouded in cobwebs. The walls were decorated with huge claw marks and black stains - the latter presumably belonged to the bodies on the floor.
"Woah," Rupert gawked at the eerie scene, feeling a slight chill running down his spine. "I've seen some awful shit, but this is just on a whole nother level."
Sam stepped into the vault while simultaneously snapping his head upward to make sure the ceiling did not suddenly come crashing down on him. "It's safe. Let's go," he told the siblings.
Accompanied by the shuffling of their feet and the rustling of their clothes, the trio ventured further into the old vault. Eventually, they split up into different parts of the room - hoping to figure out what kind of monsters could have caused such carnage.
Lucy, in particular, hunched over a disemboweled corpse with a twisted, horrified facial expression - as if the last thing he or she saw was the face of their killer. "Despite everything you and your comrades had done, I hope your death was swift," she whispered before taking a closer look at the torn attire. The insignia of the Disciples was sewn on the collar of the lab coat, alongside a strange-looking emblem - a bird with its wings spread out. Lucy frowned, trying to recall any organization that associated themselves with the sign but, alas, nothing popped into her head.
"Oi! You guys might want to see this," Rupert suddenly cried out from the middle of the chamber.
Feeling a sense of déjà vu all over again, Sam and Lucy came running to the elder Nightingale, who in turn, showed them a small book he recovered from one of the corpses. "I think this is your department, Lil sis," Rupert casually handed the item to his younger sibling.
As the old leather book touched her fingers, Lucy felt an unnatural coldness spreading all over her body - as if the old book was buried underneath the freezing mountain of Krio. She cautiously flipped through the brittle pages and was surprised that the writings inside were still readable. "Huh, it's...it’s a research journal," she remarked, "Whoever you took this from was probably a lead researcher or someone important."
"What does it say?" Sam asked.
"Well, um - I'm not pretty sure, but just by skimming through the pages, it seems the Disciples were trying to create a 'perfect life form',' Lucy explained.
"Perfect life form? Sounds like the rambling of a lunatic, if you ask me," Rupert commented.
"Now, there's an understatement. Listen to this - the orphaned children of the war will be taken in and individually screened for superior genes. Those who lack such genes will be immediately terminated, and their organic materials are recovered for...holy shit," Lucy instantly slammed the book shut and slipped it into her robe.
"Oookay, what was that about?" Rupert inquired, with his hands on his hips.
"O-ho, trust me. You don't want to know," Lucy sternly replied.
BANG!
The door slammed shut, inevitably trapping the trio inside the dimly lit vault. Guided by instinct, Rupert sped toward the entrance, repeatedly hurling himself against the sturdy door in vain. "Darn it!" he spat, "Welp, should have seen that coming."
"No need to panic. For a chamber this size, there is bound to be another entrance nearby," Sam reassured his restless friend.
"Wait, do you guys hear that?" Lucy told the two men. It was a faint rumbling sound - like distant thunder - but the noise slowly grew louder and louder until-
BOOM!
The wall in front of them smashed to pieces, creating a large gaping hole. The trio froze in their place, dumbfounded by the unexpected incident.
However, their astonishment was swept away by the sight of the glowing amber eyes gazing at them from within the dark tunnel.
A few moments later, a russet brown-skin woman emerged from the opening with a torch in hand. Garbed in a muddied brown cloak, she had a sullen expression on her chiseled face, and her espresso, layered bob hair was slightly unkempt. Moreover, her downturned eyes were brimming with fatigue - possibly due to the recent ordeal on the surface.
"You're late," said Elisabeth with her sonorous, breathless voice. “Follow me. Quietly.”
16th Fragment: -TOMB-
"Bleargh!" Rupert coughed out the cloying black sand from his mouth. He thought he had it – he thought he could land perfectly on his feet, but his right leg somehow got caught on something, causing him to fall head-first into the hole. Fortunately for him, the drop was a short one, and there was no spiky deathtrap waiting at the bottom.
However, he still wondered how the sand got into his mouth since he still had his mask on. Shortly afterward, he could hear his sister groaning in agony which immediately stirred up his concern - until a few curse words flew out from the darkness.
"Great, starting off by nearly plunging to our death, " Lucy spouted while lying painfully on the ground, and to make matters worse, her night vision seemed to have stopped working. 'Someone out there must really hate me', she pouted. Later, the woman found out that she was not the only one with a similar technical malfunction - much to her relief. As her eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, she saw Sam quietly scrutinizing his mask with a frustrated look across his face.
“Any luck?” asked Lucy as she sat herself up.
"Sadly, no," Sam retorted half-heartedly before putting his mask back on, "The air filter is still functioning though. So at least, we won't suffocate to death from some kind of toxic gases or other airborne hazards."
"Well, that's...reassuring? I guess?" Lucy wasn't sure whether the man was being honest or sarcastic.
Even so, that still did not change the fact that they were trapped in a pit without a single, viable light source. Then, they heard a loud pop from behind them, followed by a sudden burst of red light that illuminated the entire crater. Both Sam and Lucy turned around and were surprised to see Rupertr holding a burning flare stick over his head.
"Hang on, where did you get that? I don't remember Marie ever giving us one of those,” Lucy inquired.
"Lizzy's cabin. There's a box of it down in the basement. So, I took…I mean, I borrowed some in case of...emergency? Like the one we are in right now," Rupert let out a suspicious laugh that made his sister facepalm herself.
"Borrowed, huh? Right, let's leave it at that," Lucy exhaled.
“Hey, Rupe. Come here for a sec,” said Sam with his hands resting against a wall in front of him that was icy cold to the touch. The elder Nightingale perked up after hearing his name being called - even with the mask on, Sam could already imagine the excitement on his friend's face.
"Soooo, what did you find? A treasure map? An entrance to a secret vault?" Rupert chirped, unable to contain his enthusiasm.
"I’m not sure yet. Could you hold it here?" Sam replied before pointing at the wall with his hand. As Rupert brought the flare closer, a familiar symbol could be seen on the dusty steel surface - a snake wrapping itself around a chalice.
"Hm, the mark of the Disciples. We are definitely in the right place. The only problem now is finding a way to get inside," Sam remarked but swiftly noticed a rectangular object affixed to the wall directly in front of his lower abdomen. Taking a closer look, he noticed a small round indentation at the bottom of the panel and it instantly hit him.
“Now, what are the chances?” Sam murmured as he reached inside his jacket to pull out a tiny black button he seized from Keith.
“Woah, woah. How do we know this is not a trap?” Lucy blurted out.
“Well…I guess there’s only one way to find out,” replied Sam before he inserted the button into the hole. “It fits. Now, what?”
CLICK!
The panel slid down, revealing what seemed to be a worn-out access card reader. “Hah, got that one too,” Sam proceeded to produce another item from his jacket: a grey keycard.
"Are you sure about this?" Lucy asked. "I mean, the moment you used that, the Disciples will surely be alerted to our presence."
Instead of Sam, it was Rupert that responded to his sister's concern, "So? We'll just beat them up, plain and simple. Compared to the Distorted, a group of mundane scientists will not be that much of a deal to us."
Lucy couldn't help but sigh at her brother's impetuousness. Therefore, she shifted her attention to Sam, the only person she knew would listen to reason. "I'm just saying that once we infiltrated the facility, we should avoid any unnecessary confrontation until we're certain that the Disciples didn't hold Lizzy captive."
"Wait, didn't that Keith dude tell us that the Disciples had nothing to do with Lizzy's disappearance?" Rupert interjected.
"Well yeah, but he was also oblivious about the proximity microbomb planted inside his blood vessels. As far as I know, it might be another lie made up by his superiors just to throw us off the track," Lucy defended her theory so adamantly that Sam could feel her gaze piercing through her mask.
"Alright, we're just going to sneak in, find clues about Lizzy and get out. How's that sound?" Lucy nodded quietly - seemingly agreeing to Sam's straightforward proposition. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said of Rupert as he clicked his tongue in disapproval. Even without asking the man, Sam knew what was eating him from inside.
"I know what you're thinking," Sam retorted. "You want to stop the Disciples of Vidia, don't you? However, that wasn't the order Markus gave us. Our main priority is to find Lizzy and bring her back home - no more, no less. Besides, you haven't forgotten what happened to those who upset him, do you?"
Rupert grabbed Sam by the collar without warning and shoved the latter against the wall, "Screw the order! We have the chance to end them once and for all, so it'll be foolish for us to let this opportunity slip through our fingers!"
"Listen to me, Rupe. We are not here to be heroes," Sam calmly remarked, "We're here because we have a job to do. So, are we just going to continue idling about, OR help each other by finishing the task at hand?"
Rupert growled, dropping the flare and curling his left hand into a fist. Thankfully, Lucy managed to pull her brother away before the situation escalated. "That's enough!" she exclaimed as she slipped her way between the two men. "What's wrong with you, Rupert? You are acting pretty weird right now."
"What’s wrong with me?! What’s…Uh…I…It's... it’s nothing," the elder Nightingale's voice started to trail off as if he had awoken from a deep slumber. "Just…just forget about it," he grunted, sounding more like his former, usual self.
Both Sam and Lucy were puzzled by the man's sudden change - it was as if he was possessed by something. "I’m sorry; I don’t know what just came to me,” Rupert apologized.
“What do you mean you don’t know? You just shoved Sam to the wall,” Lucy reminded her brother.
“Did I…? I…don’t seem to recall doing that.”
“Interesting,” said Sam as he stroked his chin, seemingly lost in his own thought.
"Uh, Earth to Sam? I repeat, Earth to Sam?" Lucy spouted, and the man fidgeted. "You are spacing out again, which means there's something that caught your attention. So, what is it?"
Sam tilted his head to the left, contemplating whether or not he should tell her. In the end, he dismissed the question with a shrug, telling the young Nightingale that it was 'nothing important.' It was, of course, a blatant lie, and he was fully aware that Lucy would see through it. Moments later, Sam heard the surly woman replied with a toneless 'I see', but he could tell she was upset based on her body language.
"So," Sam proceeded to clear his throat, "I think we've wasted enough time already. Shall we?" He gently placed the card on the reader, anticipating some kind of an audio prompt or, at the very least, a short chime.
But, there was nothing.
"Is...is that it?" Rupert exhaled, dropping his shoulders out of disappointment.
PSSSSST!
The trio shuddered as the wall in front of them slowly separated, releasing a rush of prickling wintry air into the pit. Together they stared into the black void, waiting anxiously for swords and spears to come flying out of the darkness.
"Something's off," breathed Lucy, with one hand resting on her dirk. She could feel it in her bones - the paralyzing sense of dread.
Even after nearly a minute since the door opened, the ominous atmosphere grew thicker with each passing moment. Sam instinctively picked up the flare near his feet before tossing it into the dark chamber. Even though the light source did little to brighten the entire room, it was enough to explain the fear in Lucy’s heart.
Within the desecrated hall, dozens of shriveled corpses, dressed in ragged lab coats and medical gowns, lay scattered on the flat ground shrouded in cobwebs. The walls were decorated with huge claw marks and black stains - the latter presumably belonged to the bodies on the floor.
"Woah," Rupert gawked at the eerie scene, feeling a slight chill running down his spine. "I've seen some awful shit, but this is just on a whole nother level."
Sam stepped into the vault while simultaneously snapping his head upward to make sure the ceiling did not suddenly come crashing down on him. "It's safe. Let's go," he told the siblings.
Accompanied by the shuffling of their feet and the rustling of their clothes, the trio ventured further into the old vault. Eventually, they split up into different parts of the room - hoping to figure out what kind of monsters could have caused such carnage.
Lucy, in particular, hunched over a disemboweled corpse with a twisted, horrified facial expression - as if the last thing he or she saw was the face of their killer. "Despite everything you and your comrades had done, I hope your death was swift," she whispered before taking a closer look at the torn attire. The insignia of the Disciples was sewn on the collar of the lab coat, alongside a strange-looking emblem - a bird with its wings spread out. Lucy frowned, trying to recall any organization that associated themselves with the sign but, alas, nothing popped into her head.
"Oi! You guys might want to see this," Rupert suddenly cried out from the middle of the chamber.
Feeling a sense of déjà vu all over again, Sam and Lucy came running to the elder Nightingale, who in turn, showed them a small book he recovered from one of the corpses. "I think this is your department, Lil sis," Rupert casually handed the item to his younger sibling.
As the old leather book touched her fingers, Lucy felt an unnatural coldness spreading all over her body - as if the old book was buried underneath the freezing mountain of Krio. She cautiously flipped through the brittle pages and was surprised that the writings inside were still readable. "Huh, it's...it’s a research journal," she remarked, "Whoever you took this from was probably a lead researcher or someone important."
"What does it say?" Sam asked.
"Well, um - I'm not pretty sure, but just by skimming through the pages, it seems the Disciples were trying to create a 'perfect life form',' Lucy explained.
"Perfect life form? Sounds like the rambling of a lunatic, if you ask me," Rupert commented.
"Now, there's an understatement. Listen to this - the orphaned children of the war will be taken in and individually screened for superior genes. Those who lack such genes will be immediately terminated, and their organic materials are recovered for...holy shit," Lucy instantly slammed the book shut and slipped it into her robe.
"Oookay, what was that about?" Rupert inquired, with his hands on his hips.
"O-ho, trust me. You don't want to know," Lucy sternly replied.
BANG!
The door slammed shut, inevitably trapping the trio inside the dimly lit vault. Guided by instinct, Rupert sped toward the entrance, repeatedly hurling himself against the sturdy door in vain. "Darn it!" he spat, "Welp, should have seen that coming."
"No need to panic. For a chamber this size, there is bound to be another entrance nearby," Sam reassured his restless friend.
"Wait, do you guys hear that?" Lucy told the two men. It was a faint rumbling sound - like distant thunder - but the noise slowly grew louder and louder until-
BOOM!
The wall in front of them smashed to pieces, creating a large gaping hole. The trio froze in their place, dumbfounded by the unexpected incident.
However, their astonishment was swept away by the sight of the glowing amber eyes gazing at them from within the dark tunnel.
A few moments later, a russet brown-skin woman emerged from the opening with a torch in hand. Garbed in a muddied brown cloak, she had a sullen expression on her chiseled face, and her espresso, layered bob hair was slightly unkempt. Moreover, her downturned eyes were brimming with fatigue - possibly due to the recent ordeal on the surface.
"You're late," said Elisabeth with her sonorous, breathless voice. “Follow me. Quietly.”
