I already knew the mission would fail.
I had heard it in the recording before being pulled into the ocean of my memories. Though I'd finally witness all of it. I wasn't sure if I was prepared for what I might see.
Caja, Ezra, And I all crawled into the vents. Ezra was in the front, I was in the middle and Caja was behind. We watched the keepers below us walking in pairs as they always did. We kept quiet, listening to the instructions given to us by 043.
It felt like hours of crawling but finally we had made it to the spot.
"Now we just wait.." Caja whispered.
"Mhm... how long-?" I asked but Ezra shushed us both.
Something was off with him. In the last few days he seemed a bit too quiet and for a bit too long, he always stuck to himself but I assumed he was just awkward and shy or something.
But maybe there's another reason.
I realized he wasn't in the audio recording I had heard from this mission.
Perhaps he was the reason that it was a failure.
I watched the rest play out...
Ezra was the first to jump down when it was safe. Once we were all down, we all looked around, we could see the hallway that lead to the elevator in view down the hall.
"Let's go." I said staring to jog ahead, Caja followed me but Ezra didn't.
"Ezra? Are you coming with?" Caja asked.
"What's going on?" 043 interrupted on the intercom.
Ezra looked at us in an almost guilty way, before his expression changed to a slight smile.
"You're surrounded."
"Get out of there." 043 said.
"GET OUT OF THERE!" 043 shouted again.
I cursed under my breath before grabbing Caja's hand.
"We have to go! Now!"
We ran, shoving out of the way of a guard.
"The elevator should be just around the corner!" Caja shouted.
Alarms began to echo through the halls.
"They know we're here! How much farther!" I shouted as we ran.
"Keep going!" 043 shouted through the intercom.
"We're almost there! Hurry!!" Caja yelled.
We sprinted as fast as we could. We heard the sounds of gunshots.
"Go go go! We have to g-AH!" Caja was hit, she screamed out in pain.
She was shot in the leg.
"I've been hit!" she told 043, then looked to me, "Keep going! Don't wait for me.." she had fear in her eyes.
"I'm not going to leave you!" I helped her up, half carrying, half dragging her along with me.
"We have to get out of here, 043, where should we go?" I asked him.
"To the left there should be a door, it's a stairwell, take it down and head to the second floor..." he explained.
I did as he said, I headed to the stairwell, carrying Caja at this point.
He instructed me through the back hallways that lead to the kitchen in which we went to the pantry and headed down.
043 tended to Caja's wounds, he then looked to me.
"Where's Ezra?" He asked.
"He betrayed us." I said simply.
043's eyes widened, he cursed under his breath, "We have to go now." He said simply.
He would then grab a bag, shoving as much things as he could into it, ripping the pages off the wall and stuffing them in the bag before slinging it over his shoulder.
"Leave me here... I'll only slow you down." Caja looked to us.
"No.. I'm not going to leave you..." My eyes got teary, no way I was leaving Caja.
I would help her up, 043 didn't really seem to care who stayed or who went.
We headed through what I would consider to be a secret path.
Apparently this room has always been here, it was just old parts of the bunker that had been built over. There were long hallways and whatnot, it was like our own smaller version of the city above us— except it was creepier.
The lights no longer worked, I could still hear the faint alarm sounds above us.
043 lead us through the halls, and eventually we made it to another room.
"It'll take them a long time to find this place." He said quietly.
The room looked like an old lab of sorts.
There were old dusted tables I could partially see in the light of our flashlights. On those tables there were vials, glasses and other equipment. Most of it was broken. On the other side of the room there were tattered curtains by beds of sort.
"What did they do down here?" I asked quietly, we set Caja down on a bed.
043 looked at me in a way that said that I didn't want to know.
"Are we going to go back to that elevator?" I asked randomly.
"No." 043 stated coldly.
"Why not? I thought that was our goal?" I questioned, I realized how stupid I was for asking that.
"Because it's crawling with keepers and they're aware of us now." 043 looked at me.
Caja was resting on the bed.
"What about Ezra?" I asked.
"What about him? He betrayed us."
I sighed, it was stupid to go back to get a guy who betrayed us.
I went to a corner of the room and sat down, grabbing my notebook that I had always carried with me.
This was the real notebook of mine, the one I wrote down everything in.
I wrote what had happened and whatnot before holding up the pen to my face like a microphone. I pressed the button on the side and spoke into it quietly.
"The mission was a failure, I'll be heading out on my own this time... wish me luck. This is Finlay Amery, signing off." I said quietly enough for 043 to not hear me.
I waited until night to sneak away from the group.
I said I'd take night watch for keepers and I used that as an opportunity to try to get to the elevator. We were so close right?
I was so stupid. I realize that now.
I snuck around going a slightly different way, after all I had memorized the map.
If it was one thing I was learning from this it was to never go alone.
I took the vents to the hallway, the same hall from before. It was much more guarded.
There wasn't enough time between guards to have a clear shot to the elevator.
I looked around the vents, and then I saw it.
Why hadn't we taken this way before?
I crawled forward. There was a razor sharp fan spinning at a hundred miles per hour but it was still another way. Ahead I could see that this vent lead straight to the elevator shaft.
Why hadn't we gone this way?
Probably because of the spinning metal death blades.
I had to make the fan stop somehow.
I saw a smaller panel on the wall near the fan so I crawled over to it, grabbing some random tools I had grabbed from the lab to pry it open.
Once I got it open I was faced with an abundance of different coloured wires and such.
Naturally I ripped all of them.
The good news is that the fan stopped, the bad news is that they won't have air conditioning for awhile which was fine by me. I didn't intend to stay here too long.
I still don't understand why I left 043 and Caja behind. Caja was my best friend, my first friend. But I guess I knew with her injury I couldn't bring her along. Something in me just said that I had to do this alone.
I guess I just wanted to see what the whole elevator deal was about. Seems I thought I could get back as well.
Once I crawled past the fan, I headed to the vent in the elevator shaft. I looked down, the vent lead directly on top of the elevator.
Perfect.
I crawled on top of the elevator and looked up.
I never thought about just how far underground we were.
The elevator shaft seemed to go up and up and up and up I couldn't see where the top was.
All I had to do now was wait for it to move.
It didn't take too long, I kept quiet as a pair of keepers entered the elevator.
I could barely hear their conversation, just faint murmurings.
The elevator ride felt like forever- it was about 5 minutes and we were going fast.
It halted at the top, the keepers exited and I entered the elevator through a roof panel.
I didn't see any keepers in sight after the two wandered off, so I continued on.
It was a long hallway.
There wasn't anyone in sight.
I walked for awhile, seeing a room on the left side of the hall, I entered cautiously.
My eyes widened.
There were these large pod things filled with some sort of liquid that didn't look like water.
There were people in them, they wore some sort of mask things with tubes that connected to them.
I recognized someone.
It was the old man.
He looked shrivelled up like a wilted flower, looking dead.
What were they doing here...?
I then looked over and my eyes widened.
Ezra was there, he had a wound to the chest. Somehow I could see he was still breathing.
I put my hand on the glass.
"Ezra?" I spoke quietly.
He didn't respond, his eyes were tightly shut.
"Ezra??!" I shouted.
I started to forget that I was supposed to stay quiet.
"Ezra!!! Wake up!!" I shouted, banging on the glass now.
Still nothing.
I don't know why I wanted to save someone who had betrayed us.
I then heard footsteps, someone grabbed my arm.
I was abruptly shoved to the ground.
A keeper held me down, saying things I couldn't quite comprehend.
I tried to squirm out of their grasp but I couldn't move.
They jabbed something into my neck.
The memory ended there.
I then heard something.
Beep...Beep...
Beep...Beep...
Beep...Beep...
My eyes opened slowly, I was blinded by white light.
"Huh?" I muttered, looking around.
My eyes adjusted somewhat, everything was still blurry. I saw two figures in front of me.
"You're awake! Finally!" The familiar voice of Caja filled my ears.
I blinked slowly, my head felt like I've been hit with a ton of bricks.
Where was I?
I saw 043 next to me as well.
" we have to get you out of here, we don't have much time." I heard 043 say.
I could barely comprehend what was happening.
"I can't believe it worked!" Caja spoke quietly.
"Mhm... going into someone else's mind was no easy task." 043 muttered.
I was mostly focusing on the major headache I had.
I felt someone pick me up.
I was so out of it I could barely think, I couldn't move all that much either.
"He's gonna be alright? Right?" I heard Caja say.
My vision faded again to black.
I woke up on a dusty couch, unsure of how much time had passed.
My headache wasn't as bad as before. I somehow sat up.
"Ah careful." Caja came up to me, putting her hands on my shoulders.
"How are you feeling?" She asked me, sitting beside me.
"What... happened?" I asked quietly.
"You were caught by keepers, they put you in that lab, made you live in a dream for awhile, and then we found you, 043 made this thing that lets you enter someone's mind so I did and we gave you a dose of something that helped get your memories back." She explained, though her explanation didn't fully make sense.
"How long was I in that... dream?" I asked slowly, my vision finally clearing up.
"Hmm... almost a month, it took awhile to find you. But I'm glad we did." She looked at me.
My chest tightened. "A month?!" My eyes widened.
"Yeah, shouldn't have gone alone.." 043 muttered, appearing from somewhere, "but at least we finally got you back, and now we're closer to getting out of here for good." He had a smile on his face for once.