Simon tried to scrub some of the filth on his hands off on his pants, but they were already filthy too.
The grate had been loose, just leaned in place with nothing securing it, giving yet another terrifying jolt through Simon as this possibility became more and more real.
A way to the surface, the truth of what the world was like, and the reality outside of this strange dream.
He was covered in grime and dust, and nearly jumped as the light shone on some metal barrels.
'There's metal? Down here?!'
Metal has been stripped from the passages it was getting so needed. Why the hell was spare metal just lying about in some strange passages off the map?
Simon walked over to the barrels, and looked at the faded paper on them, lifting it up to take a closer look.
'The paper didn't move after all this time... so the air is still here, not circulated except by its connections to the rest of the level?'
The paper read as thus:
"By signed order of the board, all oil will be left in storage, for use in degreasing and maintaining gears.
It will be too valuable decades from now to use for the planned energy factories, and as such you are reminded to properly seal all oil drums and maintain silence on your knowledge of any oil.
Work hard, employs, and we shall survive what is coming.
Sincerely,
HSU."
"OIL?!" Simon yelled in shock, totally forgetting where he was as he stared at the metal barrels/oil drums.
After a moment of internal screaming, his mind clicked back into gear. 'Did the board forget, or is this a secret stash independent of the storage levels?
Oil was only used when absolutely necessary to maintain mechanical parts! Most of the oil used was an inferior vegetable oil-based mixture to keep crude oil as long as possible!
Simon stood there for a minute in thought before finally speaking to himself. "Fuck me."
He looked back at the paper, as if any other explanations would suddenly appear in the signed order.
While no new things appeared, there was a strange symbol next to the signature he had neglected in his shock. A strange oval... face?
It had triangle eyes with the points up, and its mouth was a curve with triangles cut out to show teeth, even though the teeth themselves weren't drawn.
Simon tilted his head in confusion. "That... I know this." He thought hard. He'd seen this somewhere, for sure! Where was it? At school, on the walls in the Hive?
A vid of the old world?
Something was tickling at him, a feather brushing his memories away even as he tried to grab them, and the feather was so slight he could surely reach them faster than it could brush them!
But his memories were dust motes, blown away by the feather, and scattered beyond his reach.
He gingerly put the paper back into its spot, the rectangle cut out of the dust on the oil drum an easy guide.
He almost turned away before he stopped, looking again.
It was like he was fighting himself, fighting some sort of wall in his mind that didn't want him to see.
He could tell it had been there awhile, it was becoming more and more obvious now, little things not stacking together quite right.
His memories felt like a mess, a haze where things flickered in and out, almost revealing what was really there.
"The surface." A voice seemed to whisper to him.
"Everything will become clear when you reach the surface."
But he wasn't waiting until then.
Sweat began to bead on his forehead as his eyes kept darting away from a spot. Yet he kept forcing his eyes to it only for them to escape his control and dart away again, over and over!
Finally his eyes glazed slightly, as though he'd given up, the mental tug of war eased as he suddenly let go of the pressure he'd been giving...
And he suddenly threw himself against the wall again!
It wasn't a wall, it was an intruder in his mind, a command he would resist!
"Your dream lasted a long time, but I! AM! WAKING! UP!" Simon screamed in resistance, and something snapped, not the whole wall, but a brick of it cracked-
Simon focused long enough to see it, to know what it was that the barrier was trying to hide.
The barrier surged like waves, graying out his thoughts and dazing his mind, ripping through his memories trying to hastily uncover what he saw and erase it!
But it was too late.
Simon stayed still, his eyes glazed, before they lit up with an inner spark.
'So that's how it is.'
He calmly took a step back, the barrier trying to make it hard to think still, but his thoughts were not a rampage. They were not something the barrier could resist.
Because they were calm, placid, still.
And the barrier's efforts simply washed over such passive thoughts, a waste of energy.
Simon turned away from the oil drum, flashlight in hand, lighting up the cavernous darkness before him.
He stepped under yet more wires, past more dust, but now he could see.
He saw tracks in the dust ahead of him, behind him.
He saw fingerprints left in the gray dust covering everything, making his own hands turn black from grime as he added his fingerprints to the ones before him.
Some were recent, he could tell. Clear and pristine almost in comparison to the rest of these strange service corridors long forgotten by those who built them.
Some were older, already covered with new layers of dust, a light gray in comparison to the thick charcoal-dark gray layers of dust covering all that had not been touched.
Fingerprints left on that oil drum by other hands, other imprints on the paper as though it had been moved and touched many time, wrinkled from it even.
The pieces began to fit together now, in his mind.
Simon felt himself getting close to the truth, so close it was shocking and horrifying if even a tenth of what he believed was true.
Not because the truth was horrible.
But simply because if it were true... it meant he'd been living a lie, perhaps for entire months now.
To have your freedom stolen, your very mind and memories changed to suit a neat narrative and story for some inane purpose?!
It terrified him. It left him shaking slightly as he walked and pushed wires away.
The truth was not hell because it was awful, it was hell because it meant you were living a lie.
Finally the area opened up, and a steel tube could be seen in the center of a room, almost comical in how opulent it seemed.
"Who the hell puts an elevator in the center of a room? Is this meant to be an altar or some shit?" Simon grumbled to himself sarcastically at the sight, trying to cover the rising tension as the dust on the gears of his mind grew clearer every second.