Ragnarok

Chapter 72 - Space and Time

The tunnel of light seemed to extend endlessly, both in front of and behind Mia. Though narrow, it was a place of endless space, where time had no meaning. She may have been walking for a thousand years, or just a few minutes. She could still hear the pulsing rhythm of the drums behind her, though she should be far out of earshot by now. Perhaps the pulsing beat that she heard came from the tunnel itself, and the drumming at the ceremony was intended to synchronize with what was already there.

Some timeless amount of traveling later, images began to appear in the luminous walls as she continued her journey through the seemingly endless tunnel. The first ones to appear were images of war and deprivation, ones that she could remember seeing in news reports when she was younger. Then the images began to look older, showing outdated clothing styles. The people in those times were living in a less hostile environment, but unrest remained a constant. The images of violence and blood reminded her of the holograms she had encountered in Ragnarok's chambers, but these seemed to lack the malevolent judgement of the exoplanet. While some of the images that were appearing in the tunnel were disturbing, there were others as well, acts of devotion and kindness.

More importantly, the images were getting older and older as she went along. She recognized clothing styles from the 20th century, then the 19th, and from there the fashions became more difficult to tell apart. For the most part, the scenes she saw were of local Peruvians, though some events were apparently important enough that the powers behind the Gate had taken note. She saw little glimpses from hundreds of years of history, and whether they depicted tragedies or triumphs, she felt like she had a kind of connection to each person she saw in the tunnel. Some of the ghostly images seemed to know she was there, while others continued on with whatever they were doing, heedless of their audience. She thought that a few of them spoke to her, but when she tried to remember later on, she couldn't place what words had been said. Maybe they hadn't even been talking to her, and she had been mistaken.

After awhile, she began to notice that fewer and fewer white-skinned people were appearing in the visions she was encountering. She was exiting the time of the conquistadors, and entering a time where the natives were the only power in the region. She kept an eye out for Amaru Meru, and after a time, she did catch a glimpse of a powerful-looking man meeting in secret with a group of shamans, handing them a golden disk before stepping through the same blue portal that Mia had.

She continued on, the scenes coming more infrequently now. There were sacrifices made to the Gateway, both human and animal, and ceremonies meant to open up communication with the strange beings that had created the doorway. Some of the shamans entered through the gate, and while some returned to mountaintop, others did not. Eventually she hoped she would see the architects who had originally carved the structure out of the surrounding rock, to see if they were in truth extraterrestrials. After her experience, she had no trouble believing in aliens, but she had to admit that part of her wanted to set eyes upon one. Would they be hairless, grey humanoids with enlarged heads, as popular culture often represented them? Would they look like regular humans, but with vastly advanced technology? Or would they look like something else entirely, something too alien for her to predict?

Unfortunately for Mia, the tunnel reached its end before she could see the Gate's construction. There was no warning that she was drawing close to the threshold; one moment, she was continuing down the tunnel of light, watching negotiations in some kind of tribal dispute, and the next, she was standing in a pitch-black room, blinking her eyes as they tried to adjust to the utter lack of light. She could feel a rough-hewn floor underneath her sandals, and when she reached tentatively behind her, her fingertips could make out a doorway identical to the niche that she had gone through. A bit more probing revealed an identical disc-shaped depression in the center of this one, as well. Unfortunately, she was completely blind in this chamber.

"Joseph, are you still there?" Mia asked softly.

"Yes, Mia, I am," came Joseph's voice in her head, reassuring as ever. "I was running analyses on the images you saw in the tunnel. As you suspected, they ran backwards from our own century to the time when the Peruvians had not yet been conquered. Fascinating images, if I do say so."

"Yes, they were very interesting," Mia replied, somewhat testily. "However, I can't see a bloody thing now that I'm out of the tunnel. Please tell me the researchers included some kind of flashlight in this outfit."

"Check your belt, there should be a small cylinder by your left hip."

Mia did so, fumbling with it a bit and for a few terrifying moments almost dropping it on the rough floor. Eventually she was able to get it activated, and she found herself looking at a small antechamber that led into further tunnels. It looked harmless enough, but something about it reminded her of the dreams she'd had the past few nights, with a dark presence chasing her through tunnels just like these.

"Well, here goes nothing," she muttered to herself, and set out into the tunnels.