Interlude II: Kellan, in the Darkness

"Where-"

The question was interrupted in a coughing fit. Dust had seeped into my mouth and every breath cleared my throat. When I tried to stand up, my arms shook under my own weight. I was lying on a stone floor covered with rubble, between walls that were lost in the darkness.

A cave, I thought at first. Or an abandoned mine.

I shook the dust off my hair. A dull glow caught my eye: a black watch surrounded my forearm, with no clasp or button visible. I pulled on it, slipped a finger under the bracelet, then gave up, for lack of movement.

"What is that?"

The screen remained black. When I raised my head, the darkness seemed less thick. I could make out the cracks, the scattered stones, and the dust suspended in the air, and yet no light illuminated the gallery.

I blinked. The details have become more precise. It wasn't the gallery that lit up, but my way of perceiving it that changed.

My stomach was rumbling. I was hungry, my throat was dry, and nothing here looked like water or food. I thought of my sister. She must have wondered where I was, and so did my parents. This thought made me rise.

Small pebbles have come off the wall. I turned around.

A shape was several meters away.

"Is anyone there?"

No answer.

I approached cautiously. Each sound resonated in the galleries before coming back distorted. The mass took human form: a young man lying on his stomach, a bag on his shoulders, his fingers clenched on one of the straps.

I crouched down next to him and shook him.

"Can you hear me? Wake up, please. »

He finally moved and turned his face in my direction. Her eyelids were barely open.

"I have nothing on me... No money... nothing at all... »

"I'm not trying to steal from you."

He didn't seem convinced. Her hand reached for the shoulder strap of her bag and did not relax until she had found it.

"I think we landed in a strange place," I continued, looking at the walls. "A cave, perhaps. Or an underground mine. »

His eyes opened completely, shining in the darkness.

"A mine?"

He jumped up and looked around without distinguishing anything.

"Then we found the jackpot!" he exclaimed, his voice full of enthusiasm. "Are there diamonds? Gold? Unknown gemstones? »

"Calm down," I said to calm him down. "It's just a hypothesis, and we won't find anything like that here."

His enthusiasm has evaporated. He let himself slide on the dusty ground.

"In that case, good night."

"You can't leave me alone here."

"Of course I can."

"This place seems dangerous for you too," I insisted.

He lay there for a few seconds, checking to see if his back would allow him to sleep on the stone.

"It's night, isn't it?" he grumbled.

"I don't think so," I replied. "Well... I can see perfectly well. »

He turned his head towards me, but his gaze sought my face in the darkness.

"Are you kidding? It is pitch black. I can't even see your face. »

"Seriously?"

"Do you have cat eyes or what?"

He finally got up. His clothes were covered in dust and his pants were torn at the knee, but it was his bag that he checked first.

"Oh, look at this. I still have it. I don't remember picking it up. »

"We still have to figure out how to get out of here."

He stretched, then ran a hand over her lower back.

"I am devastated. And since I see nothing, I am counting on you. »

"Do you trust me that easily?" I asked, surprised. "We don't even know each other. I could set a trap for you. »

"I'll deal with it," he said philosophically. "Trust is priceless. That's not what will make me back down. »

I wasn't entirely sure what that sentence was meant to mean. Probably neither does he. He reached slightly to the side.

"My name is Silas. What about you? »

"Uh..."

My name should have come to me immediately. For a moment, my mind was empty. I knew I had one, but it seemed to be hidden behind something unattainable. Then, all of a sudden, it came back to me.

The hesitation had not lasted long. It was enough, however, to remember the man who appeared on the screen in the white room and what he claimed to have taken from us: crimes, memories. A part of ourselves that no one had accepted to lose.

Perhaps he had not lied.

"Kellan."

Silas nodded into space.

"Perfect, Kellan. Now, find us a way out. »

We walked for a long time. My eyesight was getting better and better. I could make out the rugged terrain, the passages between the rocks and the traces of old tools. Silas stayed so close to me that he almost walked on my heels, never admitting that he needed a guide.

"Do you think everyone in this room has landed here?" he asked.

"If so, this place must be huge," I replied as I studied the rock. "We are still a long way from finding a way out."

"Great."

His stomach rumbled in the silence of the tunnel. He put a hand on it.

"And how do we eat?"

"I'm going to try to find something flammable to enlighten you. Afterwards, we will explore the surroundings and hope to find something to eat. »

"I don't know how you see," he whispered, holding out his hand. "I swear to you that it is impossible."

"I have no idea. This had never happened to me before. »

"Very reassuring."

The gallery opened onto a vast cavity. The ceiling was so high that, even with my perception, I could barely make out its contours. Huge pillars of rock rose in the darkness, and several passages opened between them. I chose the least descending path. Without water, every unnecessary detour could be fatal to us.

We had been crossing this space for some time when a shrill voice rang out in the distance.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE, DAMN IT!"

The scream echoed throughout the cavity before coming back to us in the form of a rumble. I stopped. Silas bumped me in the back.

"Did you hear that?" I whispered.

"It's hard to do otherwise. It looks like me working overtime. »

We headed for the screams. A silhouette eventually appeared between the rocks. A man was running aimlessly, his arms outstretched in front of him to avoid hitting a wall. His glasses were askew on his nose, and one of his arms seemed ready to give way at any moment.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" he yelled, stumbling.

Silas stopped almost immediately beside me.

"Oh... What is it? »

"Someone," I replied.

"Oh yes, it's true. You can see it, of course. »

Our voices eventually reached the unknown. He stopped abruptly and stretched out his hands in front of him, unable to determine where they came from. Even at that distance, I could hear him catch his breath.

"WHO'S THERE?"

"Hello. We are lost too. My name is... »

"Stop messing around! Tell me where I am! »

His voice trembled with anger. With his shoulders shrugged, his fists clenched against his body, his breathing was panting, like that of someone struggling not to panic. He couldn't see us, or not well enough to distinguish us. In these conditions, I probably would have wanted to scream too.

Silas, for his part, did not seem to think this explanation sufficient.

"You're the one who behaves like a moron."

The stranger turned his head in his direction, unable to stare at him.

"What did you just say?"

I felt that the situation was starting to get out of hand.

"Stop. This is not the time to draw attention to ourselves. »

I turned to the foreigner, even though he couldn't see me.

"We are telling you the truth. We woke up in a gallery not understanding how we got there. We will be more effective with three of us. We don't know what lives in this place, so it's better to stay together. »

He remained motionless for a few seconds. His hands hadn't really fallen, but his fingers had stopped clenching in the void.

"My name is Kellan. He's Silas," I added, pointing to him.

Silas shrugged his shoulders slightly, as if this official presentation had restored his importance.

"What a magnificent man stands before me..." Wow! »

The stranger finally drops his arms.

"Asshole," he spat in my direction.

For a moment Silas seemed to hesitate between answering and reducing the distance between us. He took half a step forward, just enough for me to stand in front of him. The stranger, meanwhile, had brought his hands to his body, ready to react to the slightest movement. I kept my eyes fixed on his fists while Silas shifted slightly next to me.

It was better that none of them forgot that we were lost in the same place.

"No one is forcing you to follow us," I said.

The man did not answer at once. His gaze was lost in the darkness. He had to understand that he wouldn't go very far alone, even if he refused to believe our story.

"Very well... My name is Aaron. I will stay with you, but not long. »

"Thank you," I simply replied.

"Don't thank me. I just want to get out of here. »

The three of us resumed our exploration. Aaron almost always challenged my choices. Silas would sometimes walk away, only to return with a heavier bag. He would pick up whatever he could get his hands on and then decide if the item was worth keeping.

It was he who noticed an elongated shape abandoned against a wall.

"It's wood, isn't it?"

I approached. He picked up a dry board, covered in dust. The ends were rotten, but the middle still seemed dry enough to catch fire.

"Perfect. Now we need something to spark a spark. »

"Stones?" suggested Aaron.

"Yes. Some can work if they contain enough metal. »

Silas let out a sigh of exasperation before opening his bag. The canvas crumpled noisily, and several sharp pebbles rolled on the loose ground, mingled with twisted pieces of metal, a rusty buckle, and two shapeless objects whose purpose I could not even guess.

I stood in front of the pile for a moment. How long had he been picking up everything he could get his hands on?

"How long have you been collecting all this?"

"From the beginning," he replied without looking up, busy rummaging through his finds.

"I will refrain from asking you how you did it in the dark."

"With my hands. It is a very old system. »

Finally, he chose a stone, but held it in his palm for a few seconds, as if parting with it really cost him something.

"I make myself useful in spite of myself. You will owe me a guarantee for the use of other people's property. »

"These are pebbles found on the ground."

"They are in my bag. So they are mine. »

Silas went to get some wood. I tried to hit the stone against the plank. The first blow produced nothing. The second only raised dust. After several unsuccessful attempts, I gave up.

"I didn't think it would be so complicated. My sister would make it without any problem. »

The image of her bent over a task that I would have abandoned far too soon came back to me, without her face being fully outlined. I knew her exasperated look when she thought I was clumsy. And yet, the more I tried to remember this detail, the more blurry it became.

"Let me try," Aaron says.

He snatched the piece of wood from my hands. The anger that had animated her since our meeting had not disappeared, but she seemed to have found an easy target. He examined the plank, then the stone.

"You can bang on it until tomorrow, it still won't take," Aaron continued curtly. "First you have to dig the wood with a sharp stick. Otherwise, it's over. »

He paused, a hint of irony in his eyes, behind his distorted glasses.

"No pun intended."

"And where can we find that?" I asked.

Aaron tore off the battered end of the plank. The wood gave way with a dry crack.

"I'm going to sculpt it," he decreed. "Get me some bark, dry fiber, or grass."

I explored the cavity by inspecting each crack. The rock seemed barren, but I eventually found pieces of bark stuck under a piece of netting, as well as a few plant fibers that were still dry. When I returned, Aaron had turned a shard of a plank into a sharp rod.

"Does this suit you?" I asked, holding out my harvest.

He took the netting, tore off the driest parts and mixed them with the bark.

"Yep."

He gathered it all into a hollow in the wood, then spun the point between his palms. A smell of burning soon rose toward me, followed by a thin thread of smoke. Aaron blew gently on the fibers. An ember caught in them, then a small flame spread to the bark.

I had to revise part of the judgment I had formed of him. He remained aggressive and suspicious, but he had just succeeded where I had failed.

"You are gifted," I acknowledged sincerely. "It is fortunate that you are here, after all."

Aaron raised his head. The glow of the flame reflected on his still-crooked glasses.

"Can't even light a fire, for an organizer," he spat.

"Organizer of what?" I asked, caught off guard.

"Drop it. I'm not fooled."

I understood no more than the first time. Pressing him would only have set off his anger again, so I let it go.

Silas came back as soon as the light spread far enough through the cavity. He could finally make out our faces, and his first reaction was to check that nothing had disappeared from his bag.

"Lighting-wise, this is top tier. Free and organic."

"All that remains is to make a few torches and find something to eat."

I raised my wrist toward the flame. The screen stayed black. A pale reflection crossed the glass whenever my face entered the light, but it disappeared as soon as the shadows moved. I changed the angle with no more result.

"It doesn't even react to heat," Silas observed, bringing his own close to the fire.

"Perhaps it is not heat that it is looking for. The light flickers too much to illuminate a face properly."

Aaron tried in his turn, with no more success. We eventually gave up. We now had a fire, but still no idea what these bands were for.

"And the other guy? Is he coming with us?" Silas asked, talking about Aaron as if he were not right beside him.

"I already gave you my name," the latter answered. "A little respect."

"We must not leave anyone behind," I said. "The more of us there are to look for a way out and for supplies, the more chance we have of finding some."

"Fine, but the more of us there are, the harder it'll be to meet everybody's needs. Especially for food."

"We will share as much as possible."

"Keep dreaming. There's no room for altruism in a situation like this."

Aaron went on feeding the fire with small pieces of wood.

"I agree with him. Four is already going to get complicated."

"Oven?" I repeated.

Silas looked around us.

"Put your glasses back on. You can see perfectly well there are only three of us."

Aaron did not answer. He stayed facing the fire for a few seconds before slowly raising his hand and pointing behind Silas.

I had focused too much on the fire. Its light reduced my vision instead of helping it: beyond the halo, the black turned solid again. A figure was standing there, motionless, a few meters from us.

"Hello."

Silas let out a shrill cry and leapt backward, almost sprawling into the flames. I started, my hand flying to my belt, while Aaron stayed sitting, motionless, with the air of somebody who had simply been waiting for us to notice the obvious.

Silas, short of breath, clutched his bag against his chest.

"We've got nothing interesting!" he yelped toward the shadow. "No stones, no money!"

"What?"

The stranger answered in a drawling voice. In English. I straightened slowly, trying to pierce the darkness and guess at his features.

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes. You don't speak French like your colleague?"

I stayed a second with my mouth open, my brain fogged with tiredness, unable to answer.

"Uh... I do," I finally stammered.

"Ah, cool! I thought I'd landed on a group where every member spoke a different language."

His French was perfect. No hesitant accent, no difficulty finding his words, even though he had just been speaking English to us with the same ease.

"Apparently we all speak French here," Aaron observed.

"Perhaps only people from France are involved," I suggested.

"No. Everyone was mixed together in that room. I heard several different languages," the stranger answered, coming closer to the fire.

"It would be a considerable coincidence if we could all understand one another."

"I don't think it is a coincidence. I never learned French, and yet I speak it without even thinking about it."

In spite of myself I searched for something strange in the way he spoke. A bad pronunciation, a word chosen wrongly, anything. There was nothing. If he had not just admitted it to us, I would simply have believed him French.

For the first time since I had known him, Silas seemed to forget about guarding his bag.

"Oh yes? That's a weird thing you've got there."

Aaron stayed silent for a few seconds.

"He's right. I never learned French either. I'm German."

I turned toward him, surprised. Since we had met, I had heard in him neither an accent nor a hesitation that might have given it away. I had never even thought to ask him where he came from. Since waking up, we had spoken to each other as if sharing the same language were the most normal thing in the world.

"I never paid attention to it, since I am French."

"I'm Canadian," Silas specified. "I already spoke it before I got here, so I can't confirm anything."

The stranger finally stepped into the light of the fire. His features were drawn and his face was covered in dust, but his gaze stayed surprisingly sharp.

"Moving on. To whom do I have the honor?"

"You could start by introducing yourself," Aaron retorted.

"Yes, you're right. My name is Milo. I woke up about ten hours ago."

"Earlier than us. I am Kellan. And this is Aaron and Silas."

Silas looked him over.

"How did you get through all this in the dark?"

Milo raised his wrist. His screen was giving off a faint light.

"Thanks to my watch."

Aaron sprang up.

"YOU MANAGED TO TURN IT ON?"

"Yes," Milo confirmed.

"Ours refuse to work," I explained. "Even in front of the fire."

"I tried with a flame. It isn't enough. The first activation needs to see the face under a steady light. Fire changes too fast and moves the shadows. I found some fixed lanterns; under one of them, the screen opened."

He slid a finger across the glass.

"I woke up in an enclosed place. There were lanterns on the walls and botanical installations."

The word had an almost immediate effect on Silas. More than the watch, more than the screen or the conditions for activating it, it was plainly that last piece of information that had just captured his entire attention.

"Botanical? Is there something to eat?"

"Yes. I can take you there, but the place is small. I don't think it will feed four people for long."

In a few minutes, this stranger had solved two of the problems that had been blocking us since we woke. It was almost too convenient not to rouse my suspicion. And yet my empty stomach made that suspicion far less convincing.

"We are going to follow you," I decided. "We will be able to eat and to activate our watches."

Aaron did not protest. He still took us for the people behind a bad joke, but he was not prepared to refuse food.

On the way, Milo explained what he had discovered. His watch contained a map showing a territory named Argemira. A second marker indicated Point A with no further explanation.

Other tabs appeared locked and were presumably meant to unlock later, in particular the one devoted to quests.

"So somebody kidnaps us, straps on a watch that can't be removed and turns the whole thing into a game?" Aaron summed up.

"I didn't say it was a game," Milo answered.

"There are quests," Aaron insisted.

"That doesn't mean we win something fun at the end."

After a long walk, the natural walls gave way to a corridor of tarnished metal and wooden panels. At the end of it stretched the remains of an underground station. Gutted railcars, filled with earth, served as vegetable beds under fixed lanterns. The rails disappeared beneath the plantings.

"Here we are," Milo announced. "I have no idea what these vegetables are. They don't look like anything I know."

Aaron went over to a row of crops.

"At this point, we might as well take the risk rather than starve to death."

He looked at each of us in turn.

"In any case, you aren't going to let me die, are you, organizers."

Milo turned toward him, looking incredulous.

"Organizers?" he repeated.

"He said the same thing to me," I specified. "I did not understand it either."

"Stop playing the innocent," Aaron spat.

While the others examined the vegetable beds, I placed myself under a lantern. Its light was faint but steady, very different from the flames. I brought my wrist close, kept my face still and followed Milo's instructions.

The screen activated at once.

After all that waiting, the result almost disappointed me. Only a rough map and the symbol for Point A were accessible. Silas unlocked his watch in his turn, then Aaron, who pretended not to be impressed.

"Kellan, you should taste this."

Silas was holding out a piece of purple vegetable to me. His mouth was already full.

"It's a bit like an eggplant," he specified. "Sharper."

"Perhaps you should have waited before eating that much of it."

"If I die, you'll know not to touch it."

I took the piece and tasted it. The texture was firm, the taste strange but bearable. As nothing happened immediately, I took a second. Halfway through the last mouthful, the outlines around me began to fade.

"I can see less," I said, hit by a wave of dizziness.

Silas stopped chewing, a piece of food suspended between his fingers.

"What do you mean?"

The blackness I had almost forgotten was taking back possession of the railcars, the walls and the ceiling. I could still make out the lanterns, but everything beyond them disappeared.

"Has that vegetable done something to me?" I asked, suddenly far less reassured.

"It isn't doing anything to us," Silas answered, his mouth still full.

Milo turned his piece over between his palms to examine it under the lantern.

"I ate some earlier and I didn't feel anything. Maybe your vision stopped on its own."

I blinked several times. It changed nothing. The railcars, the rails and the walls were gradually disappearing behind the light of the lanterns, as if somebody were slowly drawing a curtain around me.

A few minutes earlier, seeing in that darkness had already struck me as abnormal. Now that I was losing the ability, what I mostly realized was how used to it I had become.

"It is strange..." I murmured. "Everything is going back to normal."

"Your power's abandoning you as fast as my savings," Silas concluded, with a nervous attempt at humor.

"A power?" Milo picked up. "Explain."

"Kellan can see in the dark," Silas explained.

"That sounds like one of the abilities the man on the screen—"

The word ability brought me straight back to the white room. 404 had spoken of Passives, of conditions to be met and of powers that would eventually reveal themselves. I had simply not imagined that mine might already have manifested without my even noticing.

Aaron exploded before he could finish his sentence.

"That's enough!"

His voice echoed between the railcars.

"Stop taking me for a fool! I want to go home!"

"Do not shout," I told him.

"I'll shout if I feel like it! I was willing to play along with your act, but this has gone on too long now. Where's the joke?"

"There isn't one," Milo answered coldly.

"We want to go home as much as you do," I added. "But you must stay calm."

Aaron clenched his fists. His gaze slid toward a metal bar propped against a railcar. Silas saw it too. He set down his piece of vegetable, stood up without a sound and placed himself at an angle, close enough to intervene.

"You'll see whether I calm down!" Aaron growled.

He charged at me. Deprived of the vision that had guided me until then, I only had time to shift aside. His fist split the air right beside my face. He pivoted to follow with his other arm, but his momentum broke off short before reaching me.

Silas had just caught his wrist in mid-air.

"Stop being an idiot," he let out in a low voice.

Aaron pulled at his arm. Silas did not move. Despite the difference in build, his grip seemed to have locked the joint. Aaron kicked him in the shin. Silas bent under the pain, then tried to throw an uppercut. Aaron stepped back, brought his foot up under the elbow to deflect the blow, then drove it into his stomach.

Aaron was thrown backward and struck several carts. One of them tipped over with a metallic crash.

"Oh no..." Milo breathed.

Aaron stayed doubled over for a few seconds, a hand against his abdomen. When he straightened up, his anger swept away any distress.

"So that's how you want to play it? Fine!" he spat. "I'm going to get out of here and call the police. You're all finished!"

Silas spread his arms, a provoking smile on his lips.

"yes, go on, off you go! We're not moving from here, don't worry."

Aaron got up in one movement and turned on his heel, striding off into the dark corridor.

"Damn..." I murmured, watching him disappear. "He is going to put himself in danger."

I took a step to follow him, then stopped. Milo did not know the galleries, Silas could barely see beyond the lanterns and my vision had just gone. Running after Aaron meant leaving the other two alone.

"Leave him," Milo said. "He'll find the fire again. If he's sensible, he'll take a burning piece of wood before setting off."

"You don't know him," Silas answered. "Don't bet too much on his sensible side."

We waited. I watched the corridor until my eyes hurt, as if his silhouette might reappear simply because I refused to look elsewhere.

Aaron did not come back.

I never knew whether I had just respected his decision or abandoned him.

We took away as many vegetables as we could carry, then resumed our exploration.

The days that followed blurred into one another. From sharing the same water, sleeping within earshot and checking on waking that the other two were still breathing, the formalities fell away.

One day, an immense crash echoed far off in the galleries. The sound reached us muffled by distance, powerful enough all the same to stop us where we stood. Something had just given way somewhere. Or opened. We waited a few seconds, but nothing else followed. There was no telling how far away it had happened, still less what had caused it.

Little by little, we discovered functions of our watches, we had not understood on the first day. We set up temporary camps, searched the galleries, then moved on before exhausting our water reserves.

Silas hid his heaviest objects in a crevice before every departure. When he found something better, he could spend several minutes comparing the two before resigning himself to abandoning whichever he liked less. He hoarded a great deal, but never entirely at random.

Milo carved signs near the junctions, noted the differences in height and counted our steps. Even so, some galleries seemed to move. We sometimes came back to a marking several hours too early. Milo would start his calculations over, his jaw tight.

I walked in front when my vision worked and counted their voices when it disappeared. I checked the supplies, using my own tiredness as a pretext when Silas dragged his feet or when Milo stopped asking questions. Neither of them had named me leader, but both turned toward me at every junction.

I knew no more than they did. The only difference was that they were looking at my back while I walked. That was enough to forbid me from slowing down for long.

My sister must be waiting for me. My parents too. I sometimes thought of a friend whose face stayed familiar to me without my managing to recover what went with it. I knew we had laughed together, walked side by side, spent time with each other. And yet, as soon as I tried to recall his voice or a specific memory, everything seemed to move a little further away.

That erosion frightened me more than the darkness. In the dark, I could hold out my hands and move forward. Against what my memory was losing, I had nothing to hold on to.

I thought about Aaron too. Every distant silhouette made me hope he was coming back. Once, we found a crushed ember, without knowing whether it had come from him. I kept that doubt to myself.

Milo was the first to put a number on the time that had passed.

"If my calculations are right, it'll soon be a month that we've been here. Maybe we've already passed it, if I add the hours I spent alone before meeting you."

He was lighting the way with his watch. Silas walked behind him, his arms loaded.

"Apart from hiking, drinking from springs, going in circles and putting up with unlivable stuff... I hope we get a fat paycheck at the end of the month."

"If we go on like this, we won't last long."

My vision had disappeared a few hours earlier before coming back for no reason. Milo noted fatigue, danger, rest, without discovering any link. The ability let me guide the others, but its instability forbade me from trusting it. Every time it came back, I ended up forgetting that it could abandon me at any moment.

"That's several times now that I see in the dark and then it all stops," I went on. "If I understood how to keep the effect going, it would be simpler."

"We'll work it out eventually," Milo answered. "For now, we're probably missing a condition."

"Or your eyes just enjoy watching us suffer," Silas added.

We set up our camp at the edge of a wide gallery. Near the remains of an old hearth, we left a half-open bag, a rolled blanket and part of our dried provisions. For the first time since our arrival, we could go off exploring without carrying all our things with us.

Silas kept only one pouch and the pickaxe found near a cart.

We had left the fire a few minutes earlier when he stopped abruptly.

"Speaking of vision... Do you see that thing over there?"

I followed the direction he indicated. Faint reflections shone on a wall, inconspicuous enough to blend into the rock at that distance.

"Where?" asked Milo.

"That's it. These are the same stones as the other time. »

Silas had already grabbed his pickaxe. Before I could even answer him, he started running towards the wall.

"Wait! You're going to..."

Too late.

"I'll go and see," Milo said as he left after him.

I stood behind them for a second, torn between the desire to call them back and the desire to check what had attracted Silas enough to make him forget all caution. With him, I began to understand that a shiny object had more or less the same effect as a direct order.

I followed them.

My sight had returned several hours ago. I could see the details of the wall better than they did. The wall looked wide, but something was wrong above it. Dust was constantly falling from the ceiling. Too much to come from simple cracks.

"Slow down! There's something strange here! »

I threw myself in pursuit.

With each step, a heavy object bumped against my jacket. In my pocket, my fingers met a flat, metallic, circular shape. I didn't remember putting it there. And yet, I was certain that I had not lost it.

At the same moment, a movement above us caught my attention.

A figure stood near the vault, hidden between the rocks. She was standing on two legs. I could make out a body covered in fur, clawed hands and an arm leaning against one of the pillars supporting the gallery.

"GET OUT OF THERE!" I screamed so loud that I almost tore my lungs out.

The creature's arm lowered.

Two blocks of stone came loose. The first fell on Silas, who was busy examining the wall. The second hit Milo and threw him to the ground among the rubble.

I kept running towards them not knowing what I was hoping to do.

Then, an incredible violence hit me in the back of the head.

The walls of the gallery collapsed. My legs gave way.

Then it became total darkness again. Everything disappeared.