"Anna, there's a wall," - Andro's legs stopped somewhere.
"Yeah, and here too," - she was about five meters from her boyfriend.
"How long have we been here?"
"About two hours?" she asked.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking!" Andro irritably replied.
They were in the lowest levels of the towers, at least in this wing. Right now, they were in a huge square room; they descended here about twenty minutes ago and still couldn't find a way further in.
"Anna, why don't your ancestors say where to go next?"
"I don't know!" she touched the bracelet on her wrist.
"Let's go back, or we'll die right here!" Andro quickly crawled toward the stairs.
"No, I'll stay!" she shouted.
"Anna, you're crazy! Come, apologize to the baron, and we'll live peacefully," he shouted.
"Where? What are you talking about? My ancestors blessed me, and I'll be the one who manages to get to the truth!" she continued to shout.
"This is idiocy. How could I fall for your body, knowing your stubbornness?" He tried to find a way out.
"Louder!" Anna listened to her shout.
"Do you want it louder? Do you want a scandal right here?!" He turned toward Anna's voice.
"No, idiot, I'm trying to find a way out of here!"
The girl listened to her surroundings. Before, they whispered, not speaking loudly, but now - yelling. The girl understood how to find a way out by evaluating which side the echo returned from more slowly. A principle of orientation for bats, which did not exist on this planet, neither in the records of these people.
"Ha, Anna, that's brilliant!" He also started to listen, and it worked much better for him.
Together they began to crawl and shout. Inside both of them, there was fear, but the guy followed the girl, and the girl went deep in search of ancient truth.
**
"Sir, Baron?" The soldiers saluted.
"At ease."
"Why are you in the middle of the quarry? I thought you never stray far from the northern lookout towers two kilometers from here?" The officer was surprised.
"My body has strengthened," the old man said with a smile.
His old eyes surveyed hundreds of people preparing to descend. They took flashlights and much more with them into the towers.
"Can you release the guys, let them all leave the quarry," the old man said affirmatively.
"But sir, your granddaughter is there!" the officer said indignantly.
"No..." The old man's eyebrows sharply fell; he caught sounds that were not audible to humans.
"He's close; hurry!"
Following this order, the old man's body swelled, and his entire lower part turned into a multitude of tentacles with sharp ends. It happened incredibly fast, so much so that not everyone turned to face this monster. Sharp and incredibly fast strikes beheaded absolutely everyone; their heads didn't even realize what happened.
When the lifeless bodies fell, the tentacles absorbed them, turning into jaws, leaving only traces of blood on the ground.
"Cough!" The old man ran to the entrance.
**
One platform after another, a huge space with columns illuminated by two white lines from above - that's what two young people saw when the light suddenly turned on in front of them.
"Anna, this is..."
"Yes, a treasure trove!"
"The columns were immense, each about twenty meters high, but the columns were marked not only by their height but also by a multitude of very noticeable battle scars. These cuts were everywhere. And as their eyes adjusted to the light, they began to notice how many skeletons were around.
"They seem to have..." the girl didn't finish.
"Fought someone," the guy surveyed the surroundings of the huge corridor, which seemed to have no end.
"These bodies, they're different! Just like in that room in my childhood," the girl descended to the skeletons down the stairs.
"In which room?" the guy asked, surprised.
"It doesn't matter, what matters is that the bodies are different, which means we're somewhere very deep!" Anna exclaimed.
"And I think my question is important, but okay. Let's think about how the light appeared here and why so unexpectedly. We were just shouting," the guy approached the girl closely, who was scrutinizing the scattered bones here and there.
"Is that all that concerns you? Didn't even notice there are no insects or anything similar here. This place is a stronghold of the past, their civilization reached the heights from the 'books of faith' that were read to us at night. These people lived in a world unknown to us!" she admired, running from place to place.
"Maybe there was a mechanism here that we triggered?" he ignored her words.
"That doesn't matter; the bracelet started resonating with something; it's trembling, guiding me! There," the girl pointed forward.
"That's what we need!" She ran.
Andro had no choice but to run after her, staying amidst corpses, darkness behind him, and light ahead. But something troubled the guy; his enthusiasm faded, and he began to think with his head, and the conclusions he made frightened him so much that he didn't even try to voice them.
"Anna, did you see?" While she constantly looked back, it started to seem to him that something was following them. Among the columns, it was there where he didn't look.
"Stop exaggerating; we're almost there; the bracelet is vibrating incredibly strongly!" She stared intently ahead, then at her wrist.
"And I'm telling you, there's something here!" He raised his tone, and his head started spinning faster in an attempt to keep track of all the columns.
The silence of this place, the echo that these two heard after each of their words. Piles of bodies, people who long lost their flesh and soul - now simple heaps of bones, so chaotically scattered throughout the wide corridor.
The white light from the ceiling was incredibly bright - like the sun. Not a single lamp of the Nork Republic could burn as brightly, not even in Oltria. These lamps illuminated the columns with a 'cold' light. Huge and unyielding, yet even they had succumbed to a strange passage of time, covered in numerous different cracks.
With a fleeting glance, Andro tried to find among all this what made him worry, but Anna's confident steps and her focus on the goal somehow distracted him.
"Stop, what?!" Anna raised her hand toward the light to examine the bracelet.
"What's wrong?" Andro couldn't contain his excitement, and it completely took over his speech. "What happened? Why did you scream?"
"The bracelet... It's not vibrating; it lost its power!" she exclaimed in fear, as she took a sudden step and bumped into "air."
"Are you okay?" He grabbed the girl by the waist when she took a step back after the impact.
"A wall?"
There was nothing in front of them; they saw the same white corridor, the same white lamps that endlessly extended into the distance. But when they touched it again, a wave went through the space, beginning to change the appearance of what was in front of them. In an instant, the corridor turned into enormous gates.
"Opening?!" Andro's eyes widened at this sight.
The girl didn't answer; her breathing became uneven, and tears of happiness filled her eyes. A smile appeared on her face.
"I was right, I knew those weren't hallucinations!" She hugged the guy and closed her eyes.
But Andro didn't respond; he looked ahead, at the place that appeared before him. A huge lake of azure water, and in the middle, a strange island with a round altar with a small recess for an object. Leading to the island was a bridge made of several unconnected circular plates, and all the walls shimmered with hundreds of inscriptions shining with white light. But in the distance, on the farthest wall, there were three strange stars in front of golden gates - three locks that secured these gates. They locked strange golden gates behind which one could see the endless stars, like in the night sky. Huge flags adorned the walls around the lake, and there was nothing depicted on the flags, just emptiness. At least, these two couldn't see anything on the flag.
"My God, where are we..." Andro seemed to be losing strength; this place was not just beautiful, it was enormous. The steps leading to the lake seemed incredibly huge.
"Are we really going there?" Andro asked.
"Yes!" the girl struggled to decide and took a step toward the stairs downward.
These inscriptions were written in the Alliance language - the language of their ancestors, which they had lost and only recently managed to translate a little. But they couldn't read or notice the inscription above the invisible gates they had already passed:
"Prison of the Firmament"