Project Nova

Up and Down - Down and Up?

"Those yellow eyes won't stop watching me... They're propably going to make me crazy... If I'm not crazy already..."

-Mr.X's notes.

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19th of December, 2076.

I awoke in the same dark hallway. Thankfully, Yami was still here but she had already got up. She was staring into the darkness extending at our right.

"This hallway doesn't seem to ever end..." She said, still staring into the darkness.

-"The best way to know is to go explore, no?" I replied as I quickly stood up.

She grabbed my hand as we started to walk into the darkness before us. It seemed like she grew sort of addicted to holding my hand, maybe it made her feel safe, who am I to know? We seemed to be roaming in the hallways of an empty prison since I could see empty cells if I looked at the right wall. Sometimes we'd come accross a skeleton hanging from the ceiling by an heavy metal chain or a pile of bones standing there on a stool, but nothing too bad asides from that.

Eventually, the hallway stopped and we ended up in a large rectangular room. Two lanterns were standing on two tables on each side of the room and metal chains were randomly hanging from the ceiling. Near the back wall, on a small wooden chair, a shadow was sitting. The shadow lift its right hand up and snapped its finger. Behind the chair, a fireplace lit up, revealing the shadow's true appearance.

On the chair was sitting a young girl. She had dark brown hair and seemed to have an height and body structure similar to Yami's. She looked up at us, revealing her face. Her left eye was missing and the skin around it was burned and patched-up. The flesh at the left side of her mouth was slit, giving her a permanent half-smile. She also had multiple scars over her face. Her remaining eye was of a dark red.

"Well, look who it is..." She laughed with a distorted, almost demonic voice.

-"...You are...?" Yami asked.

-"Yes, it's me. Just another of your Sisters."

-"Nice to meet you, Kyouki." Yami said, sarcastic.

-"I thought passing through your domain would be hard but we haven't ran in any trouble..."

-"I never said reaching me would be hard." Kyouki laughed. "And yes, you haven't ran in any trouble, not yet."

She snapped her fingers and the two tables with the lanterns slid sideways, both in opposite directions, as the walls behind their original position slid open to reveal two doors.

"Right or Left? It's a life-changing choice." Kyouki sneered.

-"Can't we have any precisions on what's behind the doors?" I grumbled.

-"No. That's the essence of it. You never know what's going to happen."

-"...All right then..."

I looked at the doors then at Yami, she seemed as undecided as me. I decided to go left, for some reason. I slowly opened the door to find yet another hallway, simply extending indefinitly. Before I could even do anything, I was pushed inside with Yami and the door disappeared behind us along with the sound of a distant laugh.

The hallway seemed to be leading to a row of stairs, it was also much more narrow and dark than the previous one. I put my foot on the stairs, scared they might crumble under us. ...Nothing. I put my other foot. ..Still nothing. Yami joined me... The stairs creaked even though they were made out of stone... But asides from that, nothing happened. We continued down the stairs that seemed to be endless. Eventually, the stone started to be covered in cracks and blood with bars of metals sticking out of the ground. After several minutes of walking down these stairs, I wanted to lean against the wall to recover a bit. I tried to lean against the wall and nearly fell into nothing, I turned around, the wall was gone. I shook my head and blinked, unbelieving. When I reopened, my eyes, the wall was back.