Trident Trials: The Glimmer

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

I waited five minutes, just like Rose asked me to. When I opened the flap to the tent, and she was nowhere in sight, but I could see the footsteps that she left behind in the snow. I had almost forgotten that it was snowing with everything else that happened, and the chill was setting in. If this was a simulation, the weather dynamics were a big pain in the ass in the cold weather. I suppose that having it be blisteringly hot would've been worse. The snow just lit the entire landscape up and would make it much harder to sneak around. You always ran hot running these simulations because of the physical aspects of what they required you to do, but this was the first time that I ever felt cold.

I began walking towards the center mass of tents and not long after making my way to my destination; I discovered Rose wasn't lying. The screams that were emanating from the direction that I was heading were indeed horrifying. There were at least five distinct voices, and the agony and pain weren't hard to hear in their voices. The noises were worse than nails on a chalkboard. I heard nothing like this in my entire life. It was horrible. They didn't stop. They sound like the cry of a wounded animal. The anguish was unbearable. I needed to hurry; I couldn't bear to listen to it longer than I had to. I wasn't sure who the voices belonged to, and I was sure I didn't want to know.

I quickened my pace and checked my map to make sure that I would not run headfirst into the initial patrol on the far edge of the facility. Rose marked that they should be about fifty feet in front of me. I made my way to a tree and climbed up it to get some stability and have a bird's-eye view of the center tent. Calling it a tent now felt a little stupid. It looked like an entire facility. I did not know where in the facility the key would be and looking at it now; I wasn't sure how I was going to decide where to go first.

I spotted three different patrols, each patrolling the spots that I would have entered the primary area of the facility, each paired up. No matter which one I chose, I was going to have to go through at least two soldiers. Inside the border of the facility, there were even more soldiers, thankfully not paired off like the border. Hopefully Rose's distraction would draw a fair amount of them because there were a ton of them, not including all the additional soldiers that were likely walking the halls inside the facility.

While checking the back area of the tent, I noticed a group of five soldiers carrying a small box and constantly checking their surroundings. My gut told me it was probably the key, and they were moving it to some place they hoped was more secure than their initial hiding spot. I followed them for as long as I could and saw them go towards the back righthand corner of the facility. That is where I would start my search. I could hopefully go around the tent facility structure the whole way there and only enter at the back end to avoid any extra detection inside their facility.

Almost as soon as the soldiers disappeared, I heard a giant explosion and turned my head to watch a huge plume of smoke coming up from the northern entrance into the facility. Immediately following the explosion, gunshots started and alarms starting going off. I watched as about half of the soldiers inside the facility made their way towards the explosion. As soon as I made my way down the tree and begin my journey into the facility, a second explosion went off at the western entrance and another group of soldiers made their way towards that gate. The snow provides a glow that lets you see the world. Now the world was covered in smoke and ash. The debris from the explosion was raining down over the facility. More screams echoed from the facility, but this time, they were coming from soldiers.

It was just Rose that was working on the distraction, right? I didn't check any of her gear or ask her that many questions about who she might have with her. I suppose it could have been more than one, but if it was just her, it was extremely impressive. There was enough happening that hopefully they would think they are under attack from at least two different directions and dedicate much of their forces to dealing with that problem. It wouldn't take them long to figure out they were being attacked from only one direction truly and that it was just one person doing the attacking, though, so I needed to move.