The Fallen World

Kronos - Part 3

     The others were in one of the rooms on the other side of the corridor; a rectangular room containing ten beds, each with a locker mounted on the wall above it. All the beds were bare, devoid of mattress or blankets, and the lockers were empty. The occupants, whoever they were, had taken everything with them when they left. It must have been an orderly departure then, thought the wizard. Something they’d had plenty of time to prepare for. Not a sudden, panicky evacuation. That meant that the whole place will probably be the same, with nothing interesting to find anywhere. Disappointing, to say the least.

     “So much steel!” said Matthew wonderingly, running his hand along the wall, feeling its cold, slippery smoothness. “Steel’s way too valuable to make houses out of. Why is it all steel?” He moved to a window. “And it’s thick! Look how thick it is! Just imagine what it must be worth.”

     Thomas was looking at the beds, though. “A dormitory,” he said wonderingly. “So people actually lived here.”

     “In shifts, probably,” added Lirenna. “They stayed here for a few weeks or months at a time, and then went home to be replaced by the next shift.”

     “Like a military garrison,” agreed Matthew. “These are mens beds.”

     “I don’t know,” said Shaun, though. “I don’t know why, but this place doesn’t...” He paused, searching for the right word. “It just doesn’t feel like a garrison. Somehow, it has the feel of a place a bit more, er...”

     “A bit more academic,” said Thomas. “Yes, I feel the same way. I don’t know why either, though.”

     “Is it just my imagination,” said Jerry suddenly, “or is the air a bit fresher than it was a moment ago?”

     They sniffed experimentally. “I think he’s right,” agreed Lirenna after a moment. “It’s definitely not as dead as it was. There’s a bit of life in it now.”

     “It’s just your imagination,” said Matthew. “If anything, it should be getting steadily deader with the six of us breathing it, unless...”

     “Unless there’s a door or window open somewhere!” exclaimed Lirenna excitedly. “Letting fresh air blow in, and giving us a way out. Come on, let’s find it!” She dashed out of the room, eager to find the exit, and the others hurried to keep up with her.

     There were four more dormitories next to the first, all identical, and the demi shae dashed inside each of them in turn to check the windows at their far end. They were all tightly sealed, though. Not only locked shut but with no apparent means to open them at all, as if they'd never been meant to open. They all held the same views as the first. An expanse of jagged, lifeless rocks stretching all the way to the terribly close horizon; brilliantly sunlit despite the stars shining in the sky. Lirenna gave them only a cursory glance, though, simply making sure they weren’t the source of the fresh air before leaving them behind and hurrying on.

     “Hey, wait a minute!” called out Shaun, however, grabbing the demi shae by the elbow and dragging her to a halt. “You don’t want to go tearing off like a hound after a hare like that. There’s no telling what danger you might blunder into. Let’s just take it easy, okay? If there’s a way out, we’ll find it, and hopefully without breaking our necks falling down a hole we didn’t see until it was too late, or something. Okay?”

     Slowly, the wild look in Lirenna’s eyes faded as sanity and reason returned, and she ran a hand through her silky dark hair, trembling slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said wearily. “It’s just having been underground for so long, and then all that time trapped in that steel prison when we thought we were going to die there. I thought I had it under control, but when I thought we were finally going to get out, see the suns and blue sky and breathe fresh air again, I sort of, just lost control, you know?”