A few days have passed since the whole fight, and I have healed up to a decent degree. I wasn't critical anymore, but still had to be careful. It was just the three of us down here, which allowed us to last longer than it would have if it were just a row.
When I asked what happened to the officer, Amiel told me he killed him. Supposedly, he was ordered to kill us all before we started to kill each other. But he wanted to have fun, so he instigated the fighting. Things began to fall into place; he was the one who framed me. He tried to scare people into war.
'Sicko.' I thought.
It was still hard to move around with my wound, but I could manage. A lot of the healing was done with stitches, and the heat from the amber stones put out. They had to burn some of my flesh just for it to mend together. I still remember the pain of it. It was close to Burr, beating the living shit out of me.
'Damn, did both hurt like hell.'
As our food supply was running low and we did not know what was happening on the surface, we would have to head out soon. It was that, or eating the flesh of the people down here. I was not up for that. Either way, their flesh would rot soon.
We were packing any leftover food, clothes, amber stones we could use, medical equipment, knives, etc. We even made a heavy cloak with the clothes around here since it should be winter by now. The ground will be filled with snow.
"Amiel, did you have more moriline?" I asked as he was packing.
He came over and walked toward me, handing me some.
Amiel and I weren't friends like Ael, and I have become, but we were companions by the situation of it all. I helped him regain his honor; he helped me survive. That companionship we had would soon be over when we got out of here.
I take some moriline trying to numb the pain I had left over from the wounds. I used a needle, poking my arm.
I let out a small groan as it poked me.
As I continue to pack, I end up in the officer's bed area. Searching for anything we could use, I found the book he was reading.
"What the—"
I can still remember him spending the first few days reading it.
'What's so interesting about it?'
Opening the book, I make my way through the pages to find one page folded in the top right corner. It was marked.
The title was "Drill 151." Below, most of the words were blacked out. The officer must have done it.
Trying to read between the lines of the words that were blacked out, but one word pops out to me. "Miasma"
Nowhere on this page did it mention missiles. Well, not that I knew of. There was still a chance of it being blacked out, but these words show otherwise. It was a whole different context.
"Was this drill not a missile drill? Was this why the officer was spending so much time 'reading' this book?"
I looked around for any more clues, that is, until I lifted his bed. There was another book tucked under it. The book was leather-bound, with the weird star shape in the center. The same tattoo he had. Upon opening it, I found strange text—text I cannot read.
I paused to think for a moment, and when I did, I realized something. I never felt a shaking of the world when we were down here. When missiles dropped, even if we were this far down, we would have felt something, but we never did.
This thought had me thinking we were lied to. What was happening out there? We already knew very little information about the surface, and now we knew even less.
"Ael!" I shouted as I tried to get his attention from across the bunker.
He turned toward me, asked, "What happened?"
Replying, I said, "Come look."
Amiel, wanting to know what was happening as well, started to make his way over.
"This was supposed to be a missile drill, right?"
Ael, replying, nods his head, "Yeah?"
"Okay, so I'm not going insane. Now let me ask you this: Did you ever feel an aftershock when being down here?"
"No, no, I didn't."
"I thought so." Turning towards him, I handed over the book containing all the drills, "Look at this, this is a book with all the drills. This one is the only one marked."
Amiel, being curious, scanned the page over Ael's shoulder, seeing and trying to understand what I was telling them. Amiel's face turned from its usual stone-cold face to confusion. Ael, on the other hand, didn't react.
"Not only that, look what else I found."
I handed over the weird leather-bound book.
"And what's this?" He questioned.
"It's something I found under his bed."
He scanned it for a moment, trying to read it. "Yeah, I can't read that."
"Thought so," I replied.
"Let me try." Amiel took the book, but gave up even quicker than Ael.
"What language is that?"
Ael, not caring, started to make his way over to the beds. "Doesn't matter, let's keep packing."
Amiel and I, being caught off guard, turned.
"What?!" I yelled.
"It doesn't change anything. We still need to head up to the surface. We have no food down here, no way to survive, plus you need medical attention." He pointed at my wounds. "I was able to do the bare minimum, but you still need extra attention to your wounds."
He was right. No matter how much we worry about this now, we would still have to head up to the surface. Even with Ael being surprisingly good with medical treatment, he could not do much with what we had down here. We had to head up.
The plan was to head out tomorrow. Today, we were preparing for it. All I can do is make sure I am ready for what is to come.
As I looked at the two books, I packed the leather-bound book.
***
The next day came, and we were as prepared as we could be. I was still having second thoughts about this, but I couldn't let that get in the way. As the doors opened to the platform, Ael stepped on it a few seconds later and messed with the controls at its center.
The doors started to close behind us. I could hear the ember stones hum, and the gears started to turn. We began ascending to the surface.
It took a few minutes to reach the top, but once we did, the vault-like door that guarded the bunker turned. Bright light starts to meet our eyes.
It felt like a flashbang at first. I turned, covering my eyes with my elbows as I squinted. Letting my eyes adjust, I see the snow-white floor. The ground was covered in it. Looking up, I can see the building was as well. The academy was different from the last time we were up here.
Plants started to grow on the buildings, buildings fell apart, and I could see birds fly from above, birds I had never seen before. This was the same academy we were attending, but now it was overrun by nature.
Stepping out of the platform, I could feel my feet sink into the floor from all the snow. Mist comes out of my mouth. It was cold, but it felt comforting.
Off in the distance, I heard a bell ring. It was the clock tower at the center of campus, marking that it was noon.
"What happened?"