"So how long you been out here? Month or two? You look too clean—practically scream 'newbies'—but your fighting sure doesn't."
Lyra hesitated. Then, against better judgment, she answered.
"Less than a day."
"And you were already attacked?" Cenyx burst out laughing.
"Okay, Cen," Lyra muttered, "it was not that funny."
"Oh, it was. Also—'Cen'?" The girl raised an eyebrow. "Most people call me Nyx."
"Why? That's stupid. It's literally just the end of your name."
A smirk tugged at her mouth.
"I'm kind of a legend around here. Nyx of the Night."
Lyra snorted.
"Why would some random homeless kid be a legend? What, do you skulk around alleyways like a raccoon?"
"I do not!" Nyx snapped, cheeks flushing.
"False information—she sure does," the man called out from the front.
"Shut up, Jude! No one asked you!" Nyx replied defensively.
They kept walking until they reached a large steel door. The door had no handle, or keyhole, only a big faded sign across the front saying: "NO UNAUTHORISED ENTRY ALLOWED" and a keypad on the wall beside it.
"Woah… this is so cool!" Ryan exclaimed with gleaming eyes, stepping in front of Jude to look at the keypad.
"It seems the place is closed… we should just g-NO!" Jude swatted Ryan's hand away right before it touched the dust-covered buttons of the keypad. "We don't know what's in there. You touch the wrong thing, you're dead."
"Sorry, I was just curious…" Ryan rubbed his hand.
"What do you guys think is in there?" Nyx chimed in, knocking on the door's cold surface.
"I don't know, such a weird place to have a door… maybe it's some secret base? Bunker? It seems abandoned like everything else, though…" said Lyra introspectively, analysing the keypad.
"Guys, let's just leave…" Jude tried once more, scratching his neck while speaking, but Lyra noticed the slight tremble of his hand, and the way he avoided their gazes. His fingers twitching at the edge of his coat pocket.
"Come on, let's at least try a few combos. This is the most interesting thing I've seen in months." Nyx now stood next to Ryan, preparing to enter random digits on the keypad.
Jude let out a big sigh and reached into his pocket, pulling out a shiny card.
"Wait—what's that?" Lyra asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Nothing you need to worry about," Jude muttered, sliding the card through a hidden slot just beneath the keypad.
A mechanical click echoed. Lights flickered faintly above the door, and then with a low groan, it began to slide open.
Ryan took a step forward, but Lyra held him back.
"I thought you said you didn't know what was in here," she said.
"I don't," Jude replied. "But I… I found this access card a long time ago. Figured it might come in handy."
Nyx raised a brow. "Found it, huh?"
He didn't answer.
Lyra crossed her arms. She definitely didn't buy it.
The door finished opening, revealing a dark corridor beyond. The walls were lined with old wiring, rusted control panels, and a faint chemical scent — sterile, but decaying. Somewhere in the distance, a low hum pulsed like a heartbeat.
"This doesn't feel right," Lyra murmured.
"Don't worry," Jude said, stepping in. "Whatever this place was, it's been dead for years. At least it seems like it."
They stepped inside.
The lights flickered on one by one — dim, yellowish things embedded in the ceiling like tired eyes. Dust hung in the air. The corridor stretched long and narrow, lined with old wiring and metal panels covered in grime. Everything buzzed faintly, like the walls were breathing.
"Woah," Ryan whispered. "This looks like… I don't even know."
Jude stayed quiet, walking ahead like he'd seen this before.
"What is this place?" Nyx asked, her voice hushed.
Lyra frowned, brushing a hand across a panel. It lit up faintly under her fingers.
"It's… old. But not old like the ruins outside. It's like someone froze it in time."
"More like someone buried it," Jude muttered.
They moved deeper inside. The hallway opened into a small control room, lined with glass panels and consoles. A thick layer of dust coated everything, but the equipment didn't look ruined—just forgotten. Screens sat cracked but intact, wires dangled like vines from the ceiling, and a few strange, box-like machines lined the wall, humming softly in standby mode.
Ryan leaned in close to one of them. "Is this… tech?"
Nyx scoffed. "Tech? Is that what they call these creepy glass boxes? I've never seen stuff like this… It doesn't feel real."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "Maybe they used to."
Next to a large monitor, Ryan picked up a piece of paper. His eyes twitched at the drawing on it—it was a badly drawn family, wearing weird clothes and holding weird devices, colored in with what seemed like crayon.
In the corner stood a locked drawer. Lyra, curious, yanked open the top one—papers and documents. She pulled it out completely, revealing the bottom drawer beneath. It was filled with more documents. Lyra sighed in disappointment, but grabbed a few of them and stuffed them into her backpack. She knew they might come in handy, but she decided not to tell anyone else about them.
She looked more closely at one of the papers, frowning.
The letters were sharp. Familiar.
English.
Her mother had taught her in secret, tracing the words by candlelight. Knowledge that shouldn't exist. Language that could get them killed.
She quickly folded the page and slipped it into her backpack. Nobody had to know.
On a dusty desk sat a box, its sticker faded but still legible:
ARCHIVE — DO NOT OPEN.
Nyx, naturally, ignored it.
A cassette player sat inside, still intact. She squinted, trying to figure out how it worked, and pressed the only button that wasn't stuck.
A low click. Then a voice — warbled, tired, weirdly static.
"If anybody's found this tape, it means we've failed humanity. We're sor—…sor—ry…if th—tape—reaches…"
The recording cut out.
Then a sharp beep.
One of the screens blinked to life. Red.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. SAFETY PROTOCOLS INITIATED.
A shrill alarm ripped through the room.
"Oh, great," Jude muttered. "Tripwire system's still online." Jude said under his breath, more to himself than anyone else.
"Trip…what?" Nyx shouted. "You knew this could happen?!"
"I didn't know this would happen! Let's move—NOW!"
He grabbed a half-deciphered map he'd been eyeing from the desk as the lights flashed red and the floor beneath them shuddered. Dust rained from the ceiling. Something deep below groaned like metal ribs cracking, and the sound of a burst water pipe echoed throughout the room.
For a second, Lyra swore she could hear her mother's voice beneath the static. Not the real voice—just the memory of one. Reading together while the others were asleep, whispering in English, soft and secret like lullabies from a world long gone. She shook the thought out of her head. Right now, she had to focus on survival.
They ran, alarms blaring behind them, warning them away from a past they weren't meant to see. Lyra's eyes shot up as she looked around for Ryan. She found him. He was still behind her, Jude guiding him away from a loose cable stuck to his leg. Jude glanced over at her as they all began running again and he quickly outpaced the younger kids. Ryan tripped. Lyra didn't hesitate—she hauled him up and ran, lungs burning, feet pounding. Behind them, the corridor wailed like a dying machine. The lights flashed violently now, and for one dizzying second, she thought they'd be swallowed by the collapsing world behind them. They ran through the hallway and hurried up the stairs, escaping the world beneath the manhole.
Outside, they collapsed onto the concrete, breathless.
For a moment, no one spoke—just the sound of heavy breathing and the distant echo of the alarm fading beneath them. Lyra leaned over Ryan, brushing the hair from his face, searching for injuries. Finding none, she exhaled in relief and dropped her backpack beside her. The warm air of the spring afternoon greeted them, as the overgrown plants swished gently, unfazed and in total ignorance of the world they live in. Lyra wished she could be reborn as a plant. Maybe then she could enjoy a peaceful existence.
The silence didn't last.
A soft breeze rustled the grass. Somewhere in the distance, a crow called out — sharp, metallic, almost mechanical. Lyra's gaze flicked to the horizon, then to the others. Ryan was now poking at a beetle on the ground, as if nothing had happened. Nyx sat cross-legged, muttering to herself while fiddling with a piece of scrap metal. Jude was still staring at the map, but Lyra could tell his mind was elsewhere.
They were all pretending to move on.
But something had shifted in that room. Not just in the air, or the alarms, or the blinking screen—but in them. Something had been set in motion.
Lyra didn't know what scared her more: that they might find out what she knew… or that she didn't know enough to stop what was coming.
"What the hell was that," Nyx muttered finally, voice hoarse. "Jude, you knew that would happen?"
"The place looked dead," Jude replied, still catching his breath. "I didn't know the tripwire system would still be active."
"Tripwire? You keep saying words I don't know! Can someone explain in normal people language?" she snapped.
Jude dragged a hand through his tangled hair. "It's like… a trigger. An alarm that sets off when someone enters. And that one—" he gestured vaguely behind them—"was probably part of a self-destruct protocol. Whoever ran that place clearly didn't want anyone poking around."
"Well, that was traumatising. Who wants to do it again?" She chuckled.
Ryan raised his hand.
"Me!"
"Idiot, you could've died," Lyra mumbled, leaning her head back to try and ignore them. They were all too calm.
"Come on, we're just joking, relax for once in a while." Nyx put her hand on Lyra's shoulder. Lyra could feel the way it subtly trembled. Her grip was light—too light for Nyx. It was like if she held on any tighter, she'd break. Lyra had only known her for a few hours, but even she could tell this wasn't normal. Maybe she was more shaken by it than she let on.
Jude reached into his coat and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothing it out on the cracked ground, and clearing his throat.
"But I found this. Could be useful."
The map was marked in faded ink—some places crossed out violently, others circled with care.
Lyra leaned in. She couldn't make out the place names, but the ink… purple, smudged, bleeding into the paper. Her chest tightened.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the old note her mother had left her—the one she'd memorized before their escape. She unfolded it next to the map, listening to the way it shook in her hand, she tried to steady it. Studying both papers.
Not the same handwriting.
But the ink. The paper. The way it bled at the edges.
It was too close.
She shoved the note back into her pocket, gritting her teeth. Just when she thought she'd found a clue. She knew she had to move on, that's what her parents had always told her. But she couldn't just sit there and pretend her parents didn't exist in the first place. She had to find them somehow… to help them. She didn't dare fathom the option that they couldn't be saved.
No one seemed to notice her deep thought. The others were too busy arguing over what the circled spots might mean.
"Rose Abandoned Library" Ryan was sounding out the words. Slowly, but clearly. Lyra flinched.
Jude stared at the little boy, an unfamiliar look on his face.
"You can read Archive Script?" He whispered. His face and tone completely unreadable to Lyra. It scared her.
"Eh, what? It's just English—" Lyra grabbed Ryan and covered his mouth, her heartbeat too loud, too strong. As if it was causing her whole body to shake to its drum-like rhythm. She could barely breathe.
"Don't say that out loud." She hissed at Ryan, eyes darting between Nyx and Jude. Ryan blinked up at her, confused, but didn't speak. There was a flicker in his eyes—not fear, exactly, but the kind of quiet understanding that only comes from having grown up in the shadows of secrets. Lyra hated that he knew how to read her so well. Hated even more that she couldn't protect him from the weight of what they both knew.
Nyx was watching them. Not with suspicion—just curiosity, like she'd caught the edge of something important but hadn't heard the full conversation.
Jude opened his mouth, it hung open for a moment before he closed it again. For once—he stayed quiet.
And the silence lingered.
Lyra stared at the map, then at the others. She knew one thing now: she couldn't trust Jude. And the next stop—wherever it was—would give her answers. Or get them killed.