FORTRESS 'kailisa'

o32

It took a few hours for me to wake up after my 'proper sleep', Wendy gave me back my clothes and I took notice of how much cleaner they were from before. She walked me out of the building and the sky was still the same shade of grey of how I last remembered.

"Did something happen while I was gone?" I asked Wendy who walked beside me. "The sky has never been like this before..." She nods in agreement with me.

"You're right, not after that meteor shower years ago, no." She states. A quiet huff left from her. "This may be a sign that those Rifes are up to something."

            "... How can you be sure?"

             She shrugs her shoulders with a unbothered look. "Not really, but it's just a guess." She turn to look at me. "But they have enough technology nowadays to do anything."

           Right, I added to myself mentally before looking away from her. She continued to talk about how people were happy that it rained more often, how some bases decided to collaborate with the new project that had been going on whilst I was in my coma and how the leaders of our base were back from Pure Seoul.

            At some point, I didn't want to hear anything. All I cared about had been everybody who I had been around when I blacked-out.

           Especially Kai.

            I wondered where they were, nobody came to get me get so, something must've been going on.

            "Where is everybody?" I asked quietly, not sure if I should be asking that. But Wendy came to a halt and stared at me for a while.

            "Do you want me to take you to where they are?" She asked and I stopped on my tracks. Lips slightly parted since I hadn't been expecting for her to make that offer to me.

I hesitated for a bit, not really knowing why. "... Can you really?" She nods her head and smiles.

"Of course! I know my way with rovers, it's not really hard to get to the beach, too."

"Beach?"

"Oh — that's where I'm taking you."

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My eyes followed the motion of waves that the hover created as it specks of dust and sand flew everywhere when we drove over them. Despite it not being a clear day, at some point I was amazed to see such a vastness of what I once believed was the sea.

           It looked all so calm and it had a deep rich colour of blue to it. I still remembered seeing the painting of the ocean when I was only 18 in one of the exhibitions in Pure Seoul, and it was named 'the rippling tides of the groaning ocean', but I never saw the painter ever again after that exhibition.

             Nonetheless, seeing it actually in person, as I've never even imagined it to be true and it was only a part of that painter's imagination, it left me in awe.

             My hands reached for the glass and felt how cold it was, it formed fog around my fingers and I heard Wendy call out to me.

           "We're about to settle the rover down so hold on because it can get messy." I sensed the small hesitance in her voice as she spoke. I was quick to sit back down on my seat and hold onto the arms of it.