S a l e t é I I

XV - Côtes - Trois

With the door closed behind them, Cassia was set upon her current path.

The room that awaited immediately inside of the small entrance they'd used was evidently a space for personal storage - or rather, it had been. Lockers lined several walls and formed aisles of sorts, though the majority were in dire straits, either falling apart, missing sections of their interiors or missing their doors. Rust was common, and dust was a popular adornment.

The floor was relatively tidy, however, and an effort had been made to remove any obstructions.

The stone walls within carried that industrial feel, which only made things feel colder on top of the chill that Cassia could have sworn was looming. If this room had been used to keep things safe in the past, then it was now well beyond its prime, and couldn't serve its purpose anymore - or any other purpose that she could think of, for that matter.

Cassia walked between Monet and Uliana, meaning that she didn't have to walk near the boy who had allowed them in. She was sure that he was looking her up and down again, judging or evaluating her in some way. She could practically feel his gaze crawling up her back, a sensation that she did her best to ignore.

Would everyone here be as... Intense?

Monet obviously knew the way, and after leaving the room via a doorway - the door itself apparently long gone - they entered an empty hallway, devoid of any sort of decorations or functionality outside of how it served to connect various other areas. They passed by several other doors along the way, all of them quite bulky, metal in design. One was even sealed with a padlock of substantial size. The others - just two more in total - appeared to be usable, but they remained untouched for now.

Both the first room and the initial corridor had been gloomy, lit only by a sparse few candles. Thankfully, Cassia's vision had gotten far more used to low lighting over the past few days, something that was a little bit more than a small blessing.

There was one new element noticeable from the corridor that definitely caught Cassia's attention above all else, however - voices.

They sounded distant, as if they were only able to reach them because of echoes. She could hear two female voices in particular, both young, and their tones suggested that enjoyment was being had for one reason or another.

Such voices didn't fit the feel or look of the place in the slightest. The youthful presences that they possessed, their cheerful natures... It didn't feel correct at all. By now, she was sure that even seeing the other children wouldn't shift such notions, or the unbalanced air of the place.

Cassia said nothing, merely following in an obedient manner. The corridor didn't take long to open up, and it ended with a space that looked befitting of a set of double doors, only no such fixture was present. Instead, it merely gave way to the factory's main floor, and she drew to a steady halt as everything that wasn't shrouded in darkness came into view.

The main room was enormous.

The path they'd taken had meant that they'd emerged into this central chamber from the far-right side, down in one of the corners, the only way forward now out into the expanse.

The shadows and silhouettes of large, strange machines occupied parts of the open space at regular intervals, a fairly large conveyer belt running right through between all of them, linked to each one.

She could make out gears and wheels of various sizes in the low lighting, frozen where they'd been left what must have been years before, perhaps never to move again. Pistons and pipes were all present as well, in a wide range of conditions, some of them in one piece, others crooked or strained, some crumpled entirely out of shape.