"Oof"
I fell on my knees.
"Aether, are you okay?"
They asked through the team comms.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"What about you?"
"We're fine too."
"Good."
I got up and looked around.
The area was very green, almost like a park. It had a massive temple in the centre. It looked out of place. It gave off an aura that didn't blend in with the rest of the place.
It was like it didn't belong in this world.
"Oh, my."
I was stunned.
"This is... amazing."
I headed to the temple.
The door was massive. It had a sword pattern etched in it. A large black sword with a snake coiling around it.
"It's biting its own tail huh."
Infinite. That's what it meant. Probably. I pushed the door and stepped in.
"What?"
A woman was sitting cross legged on a pedestal. She was wearing a black robe. Her face was hidden behind a hood.
This was the first time I saw a woman in person. But it was nothing more than a program. I'd heard of her before, the woman who takes those who climb the temple to the Shade stone.
Strangely, her appearance did not fit the rumors.
"Who are you?", I asked.
"I am his."
"What?"
"I am his."
"Who's 'his'?"
"My master."
"Master?"
"Yes."
"Okay, listen. I don't have time for this. Where is the Shade stone? I'm here for the special objective."
"Ahh, you want the Shade stone, do you?"
"Yes, where is it?"
"Very well. Come here."
The pedestal moved towards me.
"Come."
I walked closer. Something felt off. My comms got severed.
I realized that something was wrong and I stepped back.
She disappeared.
"Where did she go?"
"You remind me of him."
I felt a strange smell tickle my nose. Slender white arms embraced me from behind. I started losing my consciousness.
"Don't worry, I won't harm you."
I fell into the embrace, her slender white arms holding me tight.
"But you will change."
Her voice echoed in my mind.
I saw her face before I lost consciousness.
Her captivating eyes, iridescent and luminous, held a profound wisdom.
They sparkled with a myriad of colors and emit a soothing light.
"Beautiful..."
As I faded into darkness, I saw her lips curl up..
"Where am I?"
The room was pitch black. The only light source was the glow from a small screen in front of me.
"What's going on?"
I looked at the screen. It was black. A keyboard popped up.
"Why am I writing this?"
The words kept flowing out of me as if they were my own.
"No."
I tried to stop myself but I couldn't.
"What's happening?"
My fingers typed away furiously.
I tried to stop them. I tried to pull them away. But I couldn't.
"What the hell is going on?"
The screen was covered with random words and letters.
The words continued to flow.
I tried to stay calm and analyse the situation, but it wasn't possible. There was barely any information to go on. I simply could not connect the dots.
No. There weren't any dots.
I was writing words in a language that I didn't know I knew. My head felt like it would explode.
I screamed in pain, but no sound came out.
"It is now complete."
The woman's voice echoed in my head.
"Go complete your destiny."
I blacked out.
***
[Later that day, at night, back at the room]
I explained what I saw to the rest of the teammates.
"I've never seen anything like that."
I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall.
"Hey guys…"
"Guess what?"
"What?"
"We received an email."
"Really? Who sent it?"
"An anonymous sender. We haven't opened it yet."
"Strange, we don't get mails unless it's from the HQ..."
"Does the administration know about this?"
"If they did, they would be here already."
"Maybe some hacker intercepted it."
"No, how would someone know the domain codes for our classroom?"
"Well if they didn't, we wouldn't be getting a mail."
"Do you think the message has something to do with what happened yesterday?"
"Maybe, let's find out."
I sat at Venti's desk and opened his laptop. Moving the cursor slowly, I clicked on the 'mails' section.
'MAIL FROM AN ANONYMOUS SENDER', the screen read.
"Ok, here goes..."
I clicked open the mail.
Hello. You may call me Trojan.
Your actions yesterday have brought you into my sights. Since I don't have much time let me get to the point.
If you wish to know the truth, complete these objectives.
1. Escape the Classrooms.
2. Go to the Narrow Straits within 5 months.
3. Follow the directions given to you by a woman named Erika. Support her if necessary.
4. When you reach the Narrow Straits, go to the location mentioned in the file attached. Enter the building and look for a man who looks like he is in his fifties. Tell him that you need to speak to someone.
5. Maintain distance from an individual named 'Viviane Lapis'.
6. Kill all the Shades in an year.
7. If you fail to comply with any of the above rules, you will be killed. Objective 5 is dependent on the situation encountered. Be flexible. Do not create familial bonds.
Good luck.
I closed the mail.
"Wow, what the hell?"
"How should we respond to this?", Nevera asked.
"Well, they are right about 1 thing."
"What?"
"We need to get out of here."
"Alright. But how?"
"We'll figure it out later. Right now we're stuck."
"Right. So what's next?"
"We get our force values determined and get our commissioned weapons."
"So wait till tomorrow?"
"Yes, without our force seals removed, it'll be hard participating in real combat."
"True, true."
"Any other ideas?"
"Why don't we talk to MadDoctor and ask for help?"
"They might refuse to cooperate though."
"Hmm…true."
MadDoctor was probably the most reliable unit in our classrooms.
"Wait," I stopped them. "There is one more thing."
"And what would that be?"
"Our objectives?"
"Most objectives were containing unknown variables."
"Then we can start by killing all the Shades?"
"Like that's gonna be easy..."
"Exactly. And why kill the Shades?"
"Because that's what the mail says."
"And hey, killing the Shades is no easy task. It'll take us months of tailing and practice to take a single Shade down."
"I agree."
After a few more exchanges.
"So, do we tell the others?"
"Tell them everything. Everything that happened since yesterday.", Venti suggested.
"Everything?"
"Yeah, because otherwise they will suspect something."
"What do you mean?"
"Let's say I told the whole story right now. Then they'd question us about what happened after."
"We don't even need to tell them.", I wondered why this was a topic of conversation.
Maybe it was because we were brought up this way.
Taught to obey orders no matter what. Report everything to the administrators. Follow all the rules and so on and so forth.
"Why not?"
"Because there isn't much left for us here."
"Huh?"
"Look. The higher ups want to recruit us based on the strength of our abilities and turn us into obedient dogs."
"Which means..."
"The weak will be culled out."
"They will be made into terminator units."
Terminator units. They were what Users who didn't have much going for them became.
Agents with black blindfolds and guns. They were the only units that used guns. They would rarely speak and had their own missions.
They made up most of the man power of the Empire. Obedient and precise war machines. Able to execute orders with perfection.
While the Empire benefitted with such individuals, the people themselves lost their sense of individuality and became a part of a greater whole.
The Hive, is how some cadets described it.
"But that won't affect us."
"Yeah, considering our ranking, we'll be placed in the intelligence units and the inter-continental killsquads."
"Earlier, that mail mentioned that we have to travel to the Narrow Straits in 5 months, how far do you think that place is?"
"I don't know..."
There were more problems than we could count while ways we could think of weren't numbered more than our fingers.