The Trials

The Underground Sanctuary

"What is this place?" Other Me had already beaten me to going down the hatch. There was a ladder that connected to just a few inches right below the panned, which didn't go too far down.

"You're asking me something I don't know the answer to," I replied, angling my body to start going down the ladder.

"It's.. silent. Don't speak." She instructed, adventuring ahead of me.

The ladder, unlike the majority of the station itself, wasn't rusted and unpainted or smudged with dirt that seemed to never come off if you even touched it with a feathered touch. The light here was strong and unwavering, the exact opposite of near the register. When I finished climbing down, I had finally turned around to get a good look at what the hell was down here.

The ground was the only properly paved area of what I saw so far. It was a small and narrow pathway that was poorly coated in red, grey, and green shades with a light green being the far more dominant color. Around the pavement was a tunnel of hollowed out rock to imitate the feeling of a cave. Albeit a poor job, it was at least something to look at that strayed away from the old abandoned city feeling.

The lights had remained on the ceiling of the tunnel, built into the stone that seemed to have been abused over the years. Not by moisture or water, but by having gotten hit by weapons, permanent shadows casted by objects that intercepted light's path to some sort of sudden explosion. There were scattered splats of blood, broken rock that had fallen onto the pathway to which someone had kept a poor job of keeping out of the way. Some of the rocks had looked like something was burned on them, although my best guess was something for cooking or experimentation.

"Are you sure you want to stay down here?"

I nodded my head, continuing forward with an exhausting amount of silence. I raised my hand up in the air and gestured forward. Other Me had sighed, giving a pissed off groan.

"Fine, I'll go."

Other Me had run ahead, giving me as much time as I needed to catch up. I didn't have a good feeling about this, not in the least.

Ten minutes later...

The tunnel was long and it only got wider. The closer you got, the more faint sounds you could hear that rang in inaudible echoes, carried by the small draft and advantage of open space for the sound to almost endlessly bounce off of. Other Me was nowhere to be seen, and I gave up on complete stealth a while ago. Although my footsteps weren't silent anymore, they were quiet and that was all I needed.

The inaudible echos got louder and louder, to my advantage I had started to hear small conversation followed by loud thuds and clashes. Each time, the clashes were almost drowned out by the sound of something buzzing, and then a bang.

"Heads up-!" A voice called out, covered by another buzzing sound and then a bang. Metal clashing on metal.

"Don't show 'em any mercy, Aeiro!" Another called out. Aeiro. The name I could never forget, and neither could Other Me but for a different reason than I. If this world had an Aeiro, it was- no, it is in trouble.

I sped up my adventuring through the tunnel, finally seeing an even stronger light than the ones installed here. An interrupted yelp, followed by the sound of something being slammed which was quickly covered up by gunfire. This wasn't good.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Other Me still hadn't returned, and the sounds I heard didn't make it any easier for me to just simply turn away. There were several sharp and narrow turns in the tunnel, and finally, I had reached the end. An open, metal vault door greeted me to the inside. The smell of rotten eggs had gotten wafted into my nose by a small breeze that came from the other side of the vault, causing me to back up and choke on my breath.