In the dimly lit street, the roads were practically empty, devoid of any movement. The space was wide enough for two vehicles to pass side by side without colliding.
Raphael walked casually, swaying slightly, accompanied by a young woman who seemed to take great pleasure in ruffling his hair. He resembled a child being playfully teased.
Despite this, his expression remained neutral.
The young woman was almost a head taller than him. She had long hair, a slender face with prominent cheekbones, and a constant smile that revealed immaculate white teeth. Her bright brown pupils sparkled, and a faint mustache contrasted with the meticulous contours of her face.
Otherwise, she resembled an ordinary woman by the standards of the time—neither exceptionally slim nor curvaceous.
Amanise amused herself by teasing her younger brother, occasionally making snide remarks and tugging at his hair when she thought he might escape. However, unlike in the past, Raphael was far less reactive, which quickly bored her. She soon stopped.
"You reappear after the meeting ends—do you find that amusing?" Raphael remarked, continuing to walk with his hands clasped behind his back.
"Oh… was there something like that scheduled today?" she replied, feigning sudden recollection.
Raphael glanced at her out of the corner of his eye before sighing.
"Anyway, what would those old relics have to discuss?" She leaned close to his ear to whisper but was promptly pushed back.
"I'm sure you were already home before it even started. If you were interested, you could have attended..." He grinned widely before adding, "Don't confuse me with your lackeys down there."
"Huh."
"But I can tell you the old man is waiting for your report."
He stopped and turned to look at her intently as she walked past him nonchalantly.
"I think he suspects something," he added.
She stopped momentarily, hesitated, and then resumed walking, now followed by Raphael, who was trying to fix his disheveled hair.
"How's your reactor coming along? Did the meeting help you get more support?" she asked.
"..."
"I see.
"Things are taking an odd turn. We might need it sooner than we anticipated, so don't slack off."
At that moment, the tone of their conversation shifted. Her expression grew serious, tinged with coldness and uncertainty. Raphael, walking behind her, seemed to notice the change. In response, he shook his head and asked in turn:
"How did your exploration go this time? You took much longer than last time…"
She remained silent for a moment, then turned to face him while still walking backward.
"My dear little brother, I think our time is running out.
"The outside has undergone a transformation beyond even your predictions. We couldn't explore beyond that forest.
"The animals outside or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them beasts—have something peculiar about them. Most of those we observed are barely recognizable. Even their natural patterns differ significantly from what we know.
"Additionally, the number of cavities on the surface has noticeably increased again. The most recent ones we found are much deeper than the previous ones, yet we couldn't determine what's causing them."
Raphael listened intently, as if piecing things together in his mind.
The siblings were working on a particular project aimed at enabling some level of return to the surface.
To that end, they had found a workaround to ascend and conducted occasional explorations.
"This is only an approximate assessment so far, but I don't think it's too far-fetched to say the mutation is constantly evolving.
"After three years, I believe it's reached a rather frightening level. What you've encountered are merely advanced—or perhaps regressed—forms of what we once knew.
"The key point remains that this forest is far from the epicenter, so I'd like to think we've been relatively lucky so far. However, there's cause for concern when it comes to our return to the surface..."
After a while, they reached their home, a reflective silence having settled between them at some point.
"By the way, I haven't seen your 'test subject.' Did you abandon him somewhere?" Raphael asked as he headed toward one of the rooms.
"I've already asked you not to call him that. Are you still holding a grudge? I didn't know you could be so petty…" she replied with a playful smile.
"Huh…"
"Anyway, he's sleeping inside. He's been working hard once again."
A deep scream echoed from the adjacent room.
Startled, Raphael hurried toward the source of the noise. His sister, trailing behind, seemed relatively unconcerned.
"Oh, Adonis…" she murmured in a barely audible whisper.
...
In a dreamlike landscape, the world seemed struck by confusion. Sky and earth occupied positions that defied all logic, while the dense mist seemed to engulf everything.
From his peculiar vantage point, the ground teemed with animal life. Vegetation thrived, blending with the already strange habitat to create a scene steeped in chaos.
The sky was shrouded in shadows that resembled the projections of towering trees, their tentacle-like branches obscuring the horizon.
This world was far from ordinary. The vegetation had atypical forms, and the animals bore appearances that would provoke shock if observed from the outside. The wind blew inward rather than outward, and rain—resembling small clouds of pearls—'fell' from the ground toward the sky.
Despite everything, a sense of harmony peculiar to this space seemed to emanate from it.
Yet, this harmony was disrupted by a clear and tangible structure standing at the center of this singular environment.
A building made of bricks stood there, much more distinct than the rest. In this dreamlike world, it radiated a palpable clarity, making it the most vividly represented structure. Moreover, this complex clashed with the rest of the space.
It floated in the middle, touching neither sky nor earth. Both vegetation and animals kept their distance, as though it were a horrific presence.
Where the world was broadly colorful, the complex remained dull and cold. It inspired nothing and seemed to repel everything.
In one of the wings of the structure, which strongly resembled a hospital, an individual was running at full speed. He shouted and struggled as each of his steps echoed through the space like a sledgehammer's blow.
His long hair, despite his physical effort, clung to his body as though suspended in air. His emerald-green pupils shone brightly in the gray expanse. He seemed simultaneously pursued and in pursuit of something.
Behind him, a towering wave several meters high surged, engulfing everything in its path. Riding atop the wave, an individual clad in a tattered lab coat appeared to surf. He held surgical tools in his hands and a tiny object pressed against his chest.
However, his form remained blurry and elusive.
Adonis, who had been running for some time, couldn't escape his pursuers, whether living or not.
Ahead of him, the form he seemed to be chasing was even more elusive. It was barely discernible and, rather than moving, it floated through the space, never leaving the building but always remaining distant from Adonis.
He cried out, "Wait for me! Please, tell me who you are! Don't leave me! I'm sorry, who are you?" Tears streamed from his eyes, dissolving into the gray space.
If it was impossible for him to catch what he was chasing, what pursued him had better success.
Several times, he was overtaken and engulfed by the wave, savaged by the man in the tattered lab coat. He fought with all his might to regain control. "Let me go, professor! They're waiting for me. Let me go! I have to go!"
Anger and hatred burned in his gaze each time. He alternated between languages when addressing the elusive shadow ahead of him and the tide behind.
Adonis seemed locked in a futile struggle, tears and sweat coursing down his body.
"Let go of me, bastard!" a voice infiltrated his world, pulling him out of it abruptly.
He was there, drenched in sweat, gripping Raphael's neck as the latter landed punches on him.
"Oh, sorry," Adonis said, releasing him immediately.
Raphael's pale face had turned a reddish-green hue as he coughed and stumbled backward.
His expression mixed pain and fury, as though reliving an unpleasant experience, much to the amusement of his sister, who had stayed back, observing the scene with unabashed glee.
Adonis awoke, his body aching and drenched in sweat.
His expression was far from his best. This experience was not new to him, although the memories he retained were always varied and fragmented.
He tried to stand but collapsed back onto the bed, his legs giving out beneath him.
His bracelet clinked against the edge of the bed.
"Stay put. You still need rest," Amanise said after taking his temperature with her hand. "You're still burning with fever."
Adonis listened without protest, his pallor reflecting his weakened state.
On the other side of the bed, Raphael was slowly regaining his composure, the anger in his eyes unyielding. In response, his sister offered him a sheepish smile, an endearing habit he always found somewhat condescending.
By and large, Raphael knew there wasn't much he could do about Adonis, and he was aware of it. While he had ways to defend himself—a true fight between them would ultimately favor him, especially where intellect was concerned—physically, Adonis outclassed him by several levels.
Yet, Adonis's physical condition was far from ideal.
Since being found and brought back by Amanise during one of her outings, Adonis had been physically diminished.
Strange marks covered his body, scattered all over. His muscle mass appeared incongruous with his physique, resembling someone who had endured prolonged starvation. Initially, he had barely been able to move on his own.
After multiple covert interventions by Amanise and several sessions in a nanoparticle tank, he gradually regained an agility that seemed etched into his very body and flesh.
From that point onward, he became Amanise's companion in her secret escapades.
Adonis knew nothing of his current environment. He wasn't even registered among the inhabitants of the station. His presence, if made public, could cause a commotion—after all, no one had been able to enter or leave the station since the last great catastrophe that had driven everyone to seek refuge there.
As a result, he became a sort of shadow assistant to the head of the Care department, albeit reluctantly.
In truth, he wasn't particularly affected by this role, seeing it as an opportunity to learn more about the general situation of the world around him.
In that respect, aligning himself with this sibling duo proved to be a blessing. He was able to uncover a wealth of information about the station's overall situation, its origins, and the state of the outside world at the time of the cataclysm—at least as much as Amanise and her brother Raphael knew.
Regarding the outside world, since he came from there, he was more familiar with the current state of the ecosystem. Thus, while they taught him about the past, he shared with them what he knew of the present.
Even as he listened to their stories and absorbed them, they could only strike him as peculiar.
On one hand, they felt familiar, as if he were a part of them; on the other hand, he felt like an outsider, as though witnessing the unfolding of another's life with whom he had no connection. Without understanding why, he felt alien to the grand narrative they recounted. It triggered no alarms in his mind—at most, a few jolts at certain key words.
Adonis tried, but nothing came back to him. His mind was like a blank slate, devoid of any memories predating the last few weeks. He had no recollection of his life or any memory of his existence.
Amanise found this fascinating, but for Adonis, it was utterly terrifying. Despite his questioning and the inquiries he posed to the only two people he had contact with so far, their answers bore no resemblance to any experience he might have had in the past.
Our past shapes who we are as individuals, what we aspire to, what we fight for, and what brings us happiness and joy. Adonis had none of this. He was like an empty shell.
This was also one of the reasons Raphael couldn't stand him, imagining all sorts of things about him, whereas Amanise saw him as a valuable subject of study.
Sensations.
That was all Adonis retained from his past life—mechanical responses of his flesh to certain stimuli.
And his dreams, ambiguous as they were, gave him the impression of having a history, a past, and a purpose. These dreams weren't particularly varied; they usually featured the same elements: a laboratory, a submerging wave, and a blurry figure he could never reach.
Though they reminded him that he had lived a life he couldn't remember, these dreams also filled him with deep anxiety. They made him feel as if he were forgetting something of immense importance, something so traumatic that it repeatedly surfaced as a nightmarish horror.
The only concrete information he ever gleaned from these involuntary journeys into his dream world was his name.
Adonis!
It echoed through that peculiar space, carried by voices that often varied in tone and even in linguistic form. For him, there could be no doubt—it had to be his name. Moreover, his entire body responded to it instantly.
He often found himself thinking, "Adonis, that's a pretty good name," and at that thought, a slight smile would appear on his face, only to vanish just as quickly when the question of who might have given him that name arose in his mind.
He must have had a mother, a father, siblings—a family, in short. Surely there must have been someone who cared about him in this world.
But nothing guaranteed it. Nothing was certain. His origins, like his affiliations, were shrouded in darkness in his mind.
He needed answers.
He had to understand.
He had to uncover his origins and find his people, if there were any in this world who counted him among their own.
His name was all he had left—the only clue at his disposal.
Despite everything, the answers he sought couldn't be found in this place. He felt it clearly; the answers to his questions lay out there, in the winter fog, the sandstorms, and the wild nature.
The outside world was his destination—or rather, his starting point.
But he also realized it wasn't yet time to return. The little time he had spent there had made him understand this much.
Deadly!
The outside world was dangerous—a peril he couldn't ignore or handle alone, especially since he clearly sensed he wasn't yet at his best.
He was like a wounded, isolated beast—a fierce creature that needed to rebuild its strength. He lacked the necessary resources to face the challenges of the outside world.
More importantly, he had no idea where to begin.
He had no real awareness of the world's expanse, but from what he had learned from Amanise and her brother, the lands outside stretched over vast and immeasurable distances.
To rediscover himself, find his people, and regain his memories, he would need to be exceptionally well-prepared—physically, mentally, and technically.
The time had come for strengthening.
"A few months—I'll need to prepare during this period," he told himself as Amanise's voice broke into his thoughts.
"How cute, my little Raph. He reminds me exactly of you during your tantrums after nightmares!"
"You can't blame him when you're so similar."
"And about being startled awake, you really should stop ending up hovering over him in his sleep during those moments. Hehh."
Raphael cleared his throat and shot a dark look at his sister. She pretended not to notice and continued,
"Anyway, get ready. Meet me in the lounge; we need to talk."
Adonis twitched slightly at the mention of the word "talk." It struck him as odd, though he couldn't understand why. He nodded and headed for the shower.
The shower was brief. He donned one of Amanise's robes and joined the others, already gathered.
"We really need to get you more appropriate clothes. This is...awkward," Amanise remarked, her gaze mocking.
"You think so?" he replied incredulously. "I find these quite comfortable. Of course, they're far less appealing than the clothes I had before, but they suffice."
Amanise was momentarily at a loss for words. Raphael, on the other hand, had regained his usual seriousness. His mind wandered so far he didn't even notice the light banter between his sister and Adonis.
The room was spacious, designed in a contemporary style reminiscent of the era of digital device invention. Most of the nearby devices operated mechanically, contrasting with the typical systems that ensured everything was digitized. The only truly modern piece was the table around which they were gathered.
Made of a unique alloy, it would have been categorized as "metamorphic" due to its ability to reshape itself according to its owner's needs. However, Raphael had long since modified it to enhance its capabilities, transforming it into a "projection" table.
Apart from its legs, the entire structure consisted of a three-dimensional holographic projection with an additional dimension for the physical interaction of the projections—a type of haptic hologram.
At one time, such equipment would have been considered a supercomputer.
Raphael was engrossed in one of these projections, holding and occasionally modifying it in line with his thoughts.
Adonis observed everything but was neither impressed nor awed. It wasn't the first time he had attended one of their meetings or seen this particular piece of equipment in use. Even deep within himself, he felt as though he was already familiar with such tools; his body expressed no surprise.
"Well, let's begin!"
"Raph, I've already given you an outline of what we've discovered outside. What do you think our next steps should be?"
As though snapping out of a trance, Raphael released the model in his hands. After a few moments of reflection, he spoke.
*"I can only estimate based on the data we currently have, but I can say with certainty once again that the station's situation is more than critical.
I estimate the station has approximately six months of autonomy left before the situation becomes irreversible.
That's in the best-case scenario. I'm more concerned about the caverns you discovered near the station—I fear we must prepare for the worst.
Our most pressing problems are:
The lack of communication with other stations or any external sources of assistance.
The depletion of food resources and the current inability to replenish them.
The unknown threat that seems to be drawing dangerously close to us.
The resurgence of the Depths Flu, which has seen an increase in cases in recent weeks, particularly in Solis.
And most critically, the issue of returning to the surface."
Both of the others listened intently to Raphael's explanations, though each understood them on a different level.
Amanise, as the head of the Care department, was deeply involved in all aspects of the station's operation—far more than her role officially demanded.
Adonis, on the other hand, was a newcomer. He wasn't yet fully aware of the events unfolding in the station. Naturally, he'd had some discussions with his recent companions, especially Amanise, but it wasn't enough for him to feel entirely invested. What he did understand most clearly was the external threat, having explored it himself.
Conversely, he couldn't grasp the current inability of the station's people to return to the surface. After all, he and Amanise had already made a few trips back and forth without major issues.
He remained silent, listening to the unfolding discussion as the siblings debated the next steps to take.
After some thought, Amanise straightened up.
"First of all, I'll be returning to the surface in the coming weeks. We'll see what can be done about communications. I think the broadcasting antenna is a feasible target now that I have Adonis to back me up."
"How a woman can immediately feel safer with a brave young man by her side," she added with a smile, glancing at her brother.
The latter pretended not to notice.
"Anyway, I'll try to reinforce your uniform by then," he said flatly.
"Our uniforms, dear brother…" she corrected, "Also, I need to return to Triax. I think my other second-in-command won't be thrilled with all the work I've left behind."
Adonis, who had been listening attentively, decided to join the conversation as a new question nagged at him.
"What exactly is a relay antenna?"
"And why would it be useful for what we need to do?"
Raphael looked at the new speaker incredulously. He knew Adonis had lost his memory, but he still found himself surprised when the latter asked such "general knowledge" questions, which happened quite often.
"A relay antenna is an essential tool to help us receive external assistance and communicate with other stations," he finally said after a moment of silence.
Adonis listened to the answer and gave a look of disbelief, shaking his head toward the only woman at the table. Raphael's response wasn't particularly enlightening—it seemed as though he'd made an effort to be even more cryptic. The relationship between the two men didn't seem likely to improve anytime soon.
Amanise intervened at that moment. She pulled an object out of her pocket, one Adonis had seen her with before but whose nature he completely ignored.
It was a rectangular object, small enough to fit in Amanise's hand though it slightly exceeded its width. The object's thickness was no greater than the tip of her finger.
Both of its surfaces were almost identical. One side resembled a mirror, reflecting the surrounding light faintly.
At one point, Amanise pressed one of the four protrusions on the object. The device began to glow, its surface shimmering like glass. It started to emit flickers of light, and images appeared on its screen. Then, as she tapped the space in front of Adonis, a light projection materialized before them.
Adonis was awestruck by this unique spectacle. He couldn't say whether his pre-memory-loss self had experienced anything like this or understood its mechanics, but his current self was utterly captivated.
Even so, it wasn't the first time he'd witnessed such marvels. Since arriving at this station, many things had amazed him: the elevator that allowed him and Amanise to access their secret exit, the illusion of a sky existing underground, and the devices that regenerated his wounds when he was first brought here.
Many things eluded his understanding, and he had a deep feeling that even with his memory intact, there would still be aspects of this reality that would remain beyond his comprehension.
His eyes stayed fixed on the projected images, which unfolded like the representation of someone's vision.
"I doubt you don't recognize this—or rather, it would be very concerning under normal circumstances—but since your memory loss is already established, it's acceptable.
"This is what we call a phone, smartphone, mobile… It has a plethora of names depending on the person. It was the most popular and widely used object humanity ever knew… at least before the first great catastrophe."
She paused, cleared her throat, and continued.
"It is primarily a communication device, among other things. It allows contact with others who have the same type of device, whether they are at short, medium, or long distances from the transmitter.
"However, due to historical events and the evolution of nature, the range of this device has been significantly reduced.
"Where it once covered the entire planet, now it is limited to just a few kilometers, provided the conditions are right. The fact that humanity has predominantly chosen to live underground has further hampered its reach, drastically reducing its usage.
"Nowadays, its transmission function is mainly used to interconnect different bases or stations.
"In our case, an incident occurred a few years ago that severely damaged the tool enabling this transmission—the relay antenna.
"It was already a concerning issue back then, but for various beliefs and reasons, its repair was postponed until now.
"But now, as you've understood, the situation is critical.
"It is therefore vital to repair it if we are to seek help from other stations."*
Adonis listened attentively to the explanation of the current situation and its historical context. He was ignorant of many things, and all this new knowledge would be useful for his future plans.
For now, he reflected for a few seconds as Amanise put away her device. A concern came to mind, and he voiced it.
"I roughly understand the stakes, and of course, I'll accompany you on your next expedition. But there's one thing I don't get… Once we've repaired the device and can contact another station, are we certain they'll help us?
"Moreover, in what way could that help even be provided?"
Amanise, who had been listening up to that point, fell silent.