As the weathered Mikkel and Lars stood there in awe of how these two young men had just stood them up, they thought to themselves that Bjorn and Arne were ungrateful and bad fruits, rotten to the core. Arne and Bjorn walked away without turning back, their steps echoing with defiance. Then Mikkel spoke, his voice a final plea, "You two, this is your last warning. Don't go down."
Arne and Bjorn didn't care to listen. They only listened to each other, bound not by blood but by their shared experiences and hardships, like two trees intertwined by the same storm. "We have no other choice but to explore Altera. This time, we've run out of luck. The hunts have become bad, no food can be found. Either the animals have become smarter, or we've caught most of them," Bjorn thought to himself, his mind a labyrinth of worry.
"I won't let you just walk into your deaths alone," Lars said, making his last desperate attempt to stop them.
Arne and Bjorn looked at each other, their eyes speaking volumes. "Would you like to go with us, Lars?" Arne asked sarcastically, his voice dripping with irony.
"Yeah, he would like to go with you," Mikkel answered for Lars, his tone resigned.
"Great," Bjorn said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "Not only are we going alone into the unknown, but we have to carry an old man with us too."
"I am the only one who knows those corridors. You would get lost before finding anything useful." Lars added. While in his mind, Lars only wanted to stop these two from venturing too deep into the ship. "Let me guide you."
Bjorn exhaled, a sigh that carried the weight of his resolve. "Okay, fine. But the moment you can't go on, I'm leaving you behind."
"That is fine by me," Lars responded, his voice steady.
Bjorn turned around and asked Arne and Lars to meet him by the storage room in 20 minutes and to get all the necessary stuff.
As they prepared for the journey, Arne turned to Bjorn. "Should we see our wives first? They might worry." Bjorn shook his head. "No, it's better they don't know. We don't want to alarm them. Besides, we don't know what we'll find down there."
He also ordered them not to talk to anyone about their plan, and if they don't make it back from this mission he wanted Mikkel to be the new leader, just like when he was a young hunter like Bjorn and Arne.
Bjorn was waiting by the door of the storage room, his spear and machete hanging from his belt like silent sentinels. The cold metal of other mechanical weapons clung to his arms, a testament to the harsh reality they faced. Arne arrived first, his eyes sharp and determined, his weapons and items clinking softly with each step. Then Lars came, carrying just one bag adorned with a symbol that tugged at the edges of Bjorn and Arne's memories. It was a symbol of two rectangles with a star between them, accompanied by words and letters neither of them could decipher.
"What is that?" Arne asked, suspicion lacing his voice. "More mysteries and secrets you have hidden from us?"
Lars just looked at them, his expression unreadable. "Perhaps. Don't worry, these are just some tools and equipment we will need to enter and traverse other parts of Altera."
"Let's go, we can't waste any time," Bjorn said, his voice a mix of urgency and resolve.
Some time passed before they entered a narrow corridor shrouded in darkness. The air grew colder, and the walls seemed to close in on them, the silence only broken by the distant hum of the ship's ancient systems. The corridor felt like a tunnel into the unknown, each step echoing with the weight of their mission. At the end of the corridor stood a gigantic steel door, an imposing barrier that seemed to guard the secrets of the ship.
Bjorn went to grab tools he had brought to open the door, but Lars stopped him. "I'll do it with tools from my bag," he said, his voice steady.
Lars knelt beside the door, his hands deftly managing wires and other strange components that were foreign to Bjorn and Arne. Then, out of nowhere, he pulled a small, shining object, and connected it to one of the wires, and everything shook as the door started to slowly open. It was a surreal sight, different parts of metal shining and blinking with various colors, casting an eerie glow in the dim corridor.
"It is called electricity," said Lars. "It is what we used in the past."
Bjorn's eyes widened slightly, but he quickly masked his surprise. "I don't care," he said. "Now let's go."