Chapter 47: [XLVI] - Stars Unreconciled
This time, there was no drifting away in a shapeless space. My eyes opened so fast as if the time between me unconsciously falling asleep and now, hasn't ever existed.
The doctor kept his promise. My body was lying down on the bed in the same room that was told to be mine. I just wonder if all of the rooms look like this? This could be anywhere.
I dazed off with my eyes to the shelf where my photo was hanging before. But as my heart started to beat faster at a sight of an empty wall, I calmed myself. The photo is in the drawer, silly. No need to worry. Except from that, everything around looked the usual.
"So, we're getting out today, huh?" — I told myself, while attempting to stand up from the soft bed. The mark around my waist, it stung less than before.
I hesitantly went up to the mirror that was hanging on the wardrobe in my room.
My image in it was less or more still messy. My curly hair seemed not to be washed in ages, gathered in unaesthetic clumps. The bags under my eyes were the color of setting sky, purple, yet with still some warm orange. My crossed eyebrows twitched, as I pulled up the loose shirt from my waist, to see the presence of the wound in its full.
Entangling my stomach like a loop, the mark was pinkish red. Its tiny branches stretching off like lighting on my skin, it divided my body in two halves. The upper one and the bottom. The disgusting sight of it made me hesitant to move in any way. What if my torso splits apart?
I pulled down the shirt nonchalantly and looked for some normal black-colored clothes in the wardrobe.
My brown coat was there like the last time. A weird sense of déjà vu occurred once more… Recently, I feel like if some things are repeating themselves. So strange.
Yet, it was my favorite coat, the one I brought from home. I will take it with me for sure.
…
After putting on some basic dark clothes I found inside, I threw on my coat, and stretched my arms up. My dirty hair hanging before my eyes, it wasn't as disgusting as it looked, but just to ease my pickiness, I tied it with a band I found inside of the drawer. After putting my feet in the urban shoes I found lying in the most bottom shelf of the wardrobe, I was finally complete. Let's fucking leave this place.
I don't need no facility like this. Strangers. Visions. Powers. What the hell is this.
I'm the master of my own. If not the situation back there at the secret room of my home, I wouldn't leave at all. I bet now the place is all safe and set. Gotten rid of all the things in my flat, no one would come there again, I guess. Is this being naive?
Maybe, but it will be better I think, If I go outside to the true cruel world, rather than being caged in the den of the strangers, where all of them tell me it's my origins. Bullshit. If I was truly some gifted, chosen one…
Then why just now?
Why did they appear exactly at the moment where my life was turning upside-down shit? I don't understand. That's why I need to go.
Opening the drawer where I left my photo, I found it there, safe at the darkest end of the space.
Hiding it deep in the pocket I found it, I could make sure that no one except me could lay its hands on it.
Now, it's just a matter of solving the puzzle which is completing the maze of endless corridors, which honestly I have no idea how can such a net be undetected by the governors. A vast space like this would surely come out in some space scanners, right?
I hope everyone is resting right now. There isn't even a clock in here. Everything is so distorted, one can lose the sense of time, space, and himself.
…
But as I opened the door of my room, to finally venture outside, something blocked my way. So excited to for once leave this place, the obstacle appeared before I even escaped my short-term room.
I bumped with an impact to a soft body, which fell back from the push.
Being slammed against the wall of the corridor that was just right the opposite of the doorway, was a small figure of a girl. Her pale, short hair swayed from the impact, and her chubby cheeks got red from facing my coat.
I gazed at her unbelievingly, with her pitiful violet eyes meeting mine from below. Before me was no one else other than Stella, the same mute girl that Mr. Vanus once left me with.
Oh god, why? Why, every time I want to do something, someone has to appear and ruin it all. Running from the room like that… If I just leave her like that and flee, she will surely think I am running away… Just why can't I be left alone? Ughhh…
Reaching out my hand towards her hesitantly, I just hoped she would go away quickly. Why was she even here, before my room?
"Um… Sorry. Are you alright?" — My face surely was making a disdained expression at that moment.
Even stupider it was that Stella couldn't respond to me, as she couldn't speak.
But as I touched her hand, unexpectedly to the girl, to help lift her up, she jolted back, as if she touched a power current.
Weirdly enough, it just felt like that. A strange electric spark went up my arm, just like if I put a fork in the outlet.
I jumped back with a delay, wondering what the hell was this all about. Is she an electricity user?
Her hurtful glare landed on me.
"Aghhh… That hurts…" — A soft and girly voice unexpectedly arose in my mind out of nowhere
But her lips were closed, as she massaged her shaking hand. What… Is she the one speaking right now?
"What the hell?! Why are you talking with your mouth closed?!" — I was shouting surprised, staring right at her violet eyes.
After I asked her that question, they opened up with terrifying fear and shock.
"Wha…" — The same voice appeared in my mind, sounding as if on the verge of disbelief. Her gaze turned into a shocked one. — "How can…?"
Her purged lips opened slightly, her gaze changing its meaning. Disbelief, confusion, fear, all of the feelings were mixed in a pair of two, button like, shiny eyes of a short girl. This sight was kind of… magnetizing. The glare of this girl was beautiful in its own way, but… since I've been staring at her, the background noise of the corridor changes.
The ringing was louder, pinching sounds of falling needles, the noise that grows in power when nothing else is existent. Where no words, no breaths lie, there it is, the ever being background silence. And right now, as I was glaring into her eyes, it got suffocating. But just as I thought that this sound was getting annoying, her hand came in between her and my stares. And it all vanished.
"Huh…?" — A quiet question left my lungs.
Why is that when she put her hand forward, it all disappeared?
Unexpectedly, she went up closer to me, with her small hand still covering her eyes.
"Follow me." — The words coming out of her mouth were almost inaudible. I could know their meaning based on her lips' movement.
I hesitantly nodded my head. Hers moved around, and the hand dropped down. The only thing I could see now was her thick, lush white hair, bouncing as she walked forwards.
Her figure going into the darkness… I am not sure if I should follow it… but not listening to the girl after I got to know she can actually speak, despite being known as a mute, wouldn't result in anything good, right? Isn't every one of these weirdos messed up in the head? I can't trust someone I don't know. Learning secrets shortens lives — that's what my aunt always told me.
So, I followed behind her, and we walked in silence throughout the darkness of the corridors. We often took strange turns in our long journey, she chose only the darkest of the routes. A couple of stairs up, we were going on the higher levels I didn't even know existed. But I didn't dare to ask where were we going, as if some weird calamity was hanging above my head.
But suddenly, the route became somehow familiar. We passed the last door on the right side, and then before us was left nothing apart from a straight corridor with no doors whatsoever.
Her pace suddenly fastened, so did mine. I didn't feel like loosing her sight in the darkness. I followed her slender figure, and after a short while, we finished at the sole end of the maze.
A big metal door appeared, with a faintly lightened letters: "TVNG". I could feel the chilly air coming from the crevices. The only thing keeping me away from the freedom was a small device with numbers on the side of the metal, the code lock.
Stella stopped in the middle of the hallway, not entering the light side of it. She turned her head towards me, and I could finally see her violet, doubtful eyes again.
"Once you open this door, the old man will be alarmed. There is no alarm, just an announcement at his office. I took the darkest and most unattended route to not bring the attention of the cameras. Bellus can control them, so I believe he won't come against if he has seen us. The problem were the thermovision ones. I only can hope he will deal with them." — Her confident words echoed in my mind, despite her not speaking with her mouth at all.
The look in her eyes, it was honest and brave, different from the poor girl's I've got to see before. Like a different person.
"Why. Why can I understand you?" — I've asked quietly, as if afraid anyone can hear me. — "And why… Have you brought me here…?"
To the exit I've longed for.
"I'm not sure myself… This has never happened to me before…" — Her eyes shifted from mine for a second, and the ringing noise quietened.
But just after she looked at me again, it came back.
"I've brought you here because you wanted to, right? You wanted to escape."
"But… How did you… know…" — My words were getting more and more quiet, like if I didn't want anyone to hear them.
"I just… know."
She gazed longingly at the door, and then asked me:
"I heard you have lived in this district… But I don't know the code…" — Her voice turned into a sighing and doubtful one.
I've passed them previously… The code… What was it? I remember it was something… Very simple.
Walking up to the lock, I've analyzed the numbers engraved on the metal buttons. The ones with "0" and "4" were the ones used up the most.
This was one of the most known things when venturing through the metropolis as an outcast. Icto has taught me this, and maybe that's why most of the people use fingerprint identification or just have check cards with them. Codes can be efficient only if you use it to places where barely anyone goes to. And to me surprise, this door was opened quite often, seeing the state of the lock.
I… The doctor… He has told me the code before…
Was it… "4404?" or… "0004?"
"I don't remember it…" — I've exclaimed quietly.
But behind me… there was only silence. She didn't know it as well.
My fingers landed on the cold metal pad.
I've closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Trying to remember the first time I got out of here, how strange, but exciting it felt, my muscles moved on their own.
Two sounds in a repeating pattern.
"0 4 0 4"
And the clicking noise of the lock. The seal let go of the door, and the faint light got into the dark corridor through a narrow crevice. Yet, it was strong enough for me to clearly see the face of Stella.
Her pale skin strangely white like a sheet of paper, messy white hair shining like metal, red irritations under her squinted, violet eyes. Stella looked like a mystical creature, celestial. She reached out her hand and blocked her eyes from the light coming from the outside, yet I could still see them.
Looking then at me, I could hear her tell me:
"Go fast, before he gets alerted."
But something in her words got me attentive.
"Why are you so fearful of him? What can this old man do anyway? Isn't he just a representative form of a boss?"
Her eyes immediately shifted down. I could see her eyebrows frown, and the lower lip shiver.
Somehow, this sight made me heavy. My guts were telling me right… Were they?
That something is indeed wrong.
"…No. Nothing's wrong. You should really go. Otherwise he will send someone to catch up to you. He really doesn't want to lose y-…" — I didn't even know where did her words get from.
It kicked me in the face out of nowhere, the realization.
I could only realize by then, that I heard her whenever I looked her straight into the eyes. Why… Why didn't I notice it earlier…
Whenever my eyes were in a bond with hers, I always hear her spoke. And at that time when she blocked our sights from meeting with her hand… She knew it since then… How it works…
It was as if she could read my doubts from my stare. Immediately after our eyes met again, she answered me.
"It works like telepathy… Kind of… It depends on the angle someone is looking." — Her words magically appeared in my mind
"You can read my thoughts too?" — I asked in my mind.
Yet, I could only hear them echo in the ringing silence.
No answer. Her eyes stared at me, strangely empty then. I could only hear her gulp in the silence. It seems her ability had boundaries.
"Why did you help me, and lead me here? I… Doesn't everyone want me to stay here? So, why…"
"…It's the best for you, to find your way on your own. The answers you seek, no one will tell them for you. So go now."
It was quite a while since I've opened the door. With every single second, I could feel her getting more and more nervous, as if waiting for a storm to happen.
I've pushed the heavy metal door towards the outside, and the pinkish light of the outside was let in the corridor.
The color of the sky was cherry like. Its bloody color made chills go down my spine. No clouds, no stars, no nothing. Just a plain gradient of unnatural colors. I've read the sky is blue. In our metropolis was never. The color of the barrier changed it, to a usually dirty lilac one. At night, it would change to black.
The fresh breeze greeted my skin, the smell changed entirely. It reeked of concrete and moist.
I gazed around the surroundings. The same beautiful sight of the city from above greeted me once again. Breathtaking.
For such sights, it is worth living. I wonder is Stella has even seen it.
Standing at the doorway, I glared at her pitiful face one final time.
"Why don't you want to go with me?" — I asked straightly.
But there was no one there anymore.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone