The Tunnel of Ages
"Smell of blood…" Arlok sniffed around.
Before him stood two protruding cylindrical structures. They barely surfaced from the ground, but everything around one of these structures was covered in blood. As was everything around.
"This is far below Alliance standards; the local development is centuries behind… How many people died here?" He surveyed the area.
"I can't figure that out; not a single body was detected by the terrain analysis - Eden can't pick up corpses, and vice versa," Carnage looked at the surrounding quarry relief. His face was increasingly fatigued from the cacophony in his head, but the most unpleasant thing for him was that the path to his Core was closed. He couldn't access his "Spirit Realm" through the usual means.
"I suspect it's the same creature we encountered before," he felt, somewhere in the depths of the towers, something he held in incredible disgust and deemed a danger to the species.
"We've encountered enough specimens to consider them a race…"
"Be it a race or just nature's small mistakes, I will exterminate them all!" After a brief pause, he continued, "But I sense, this time, there's something 'greater' there than in the past…" He looked down.
He couldn't see what was happening underground, but his senses could detect something "huge" or a specimen towards which he felt even greater revulsion than towards the insects and animals that had passed through him when he flew here.
"Sir, the Crystal signal has been lost," Aria said, making Arlok look towards the opening in the wall.
"I sense no changes; could it be that the creature down there is also hunting for our Crystal?"
"It's not impossible," Aria answered rhetorically.
Arlok stepped into darkness, but suddenly, certain parts of his nanomachine-formed fabric began to glow. The white light gave him a chance to see hundreds of steps and frighteningly familiar engravings all along the descent.
"Analysis complete - structure number unknown - note: tower structure doesn't match Alliance Sector standards; some corporations built them, but paired towers are absent from any official structures of our state."
"But these inscriptions, I've seen them dozens of times in numerous Eden Centers and other constructions," his fingers in white gloves touched inscriptions that had been sealed underground for an immense amount of time.
"Yes, these are indeed Alliance inscriptions, but this structure isn't in my database, as per the earlier conclusion," Arlok carefully observed everything, descending proudly.
"Constructed after our expedition into the Frontier…"
"Yes, that's more likely."
Eden Centers, structures of the first colonists, the first humans arriving on the planet to start a new life. But this building was nothing like an Eden Center; the two towers made one wonder why such a colossal structure was built.
The two towers were small parts of a huge structure. But this construction hadn't withstood the test of time; most of it dissolved into underground waters, becoming metal, stones, and earth beneath the feet of the locals. However, some parts of this place seemed untouched by the passage of time. Like the steps Arlok was descending, the walls without decay, all abandoned and unclaimed by anyone.
"This place is filled with fallen people…" Skeletons were everywhere, but what interested Carnage was something else; the absence of clothing, as if someone deliberately destroyed the garments and left the bodies.
"Analyzing the bones, I can infer that the skeletons resemble those of Protocol 17 humans," Arlok's hands levitated numerous bones, and Aria's glow illuminated them in reddish light.
"Then we share common roots with them," the bones vanished, but the man continued to descend.
"This place is deep, terribly deep," some places had holes in the steps, peering inside, one could see only darkness.
"This structure is strange; the descent was supposed to be circular, yet we're moving 'straight' or sideways from the expected trajectory of that building. Is this place trying to confuse us?" Carnage smiled; his smile could frighten anyone.
"Indeed, if we were to create a 3D model of the path we've taken, we would see how we've gone beyond the presumed tower where we initially entered."
"It's built in an extraordinary manner, and I'm not sure if others would sense the changes around…" He glanced over his shoulder; the path behind him was warping as if he were descending a spiral staircase.
"Funny," he continued his descent.
Suddenly, the building began to shake; it started to rearrange itself. As if its separate parts were in motion. Arlok had to levitate a few centimeters to prevent his already throbbing head from hurting even more due to the shaking.
A piercing noise filled the man's ears, and everything within him screamed: below, there was something dangerous for people, something that shouldn't coexist with them in the same world.
"Your heartbeat has accelerated!" The reaction to these words was different, one that Aria did not expect at all.
"I can feel it now…" Excitement, that's what he felt.
His hand grabbed his chest, and he plummeted downward; the speed was incredible compared to the slow descent before. His eyes noticed details that shouldn't have been there. Symbols, inscriptions - they appeared and disappeared, not allowing Arlok more than just faint outlines.
"Columns?" His eyes widened as he beheld what lay before him.
Blood flowed through the steel structures; this place had changed in color. Mountains of bodies were bloodied, and the corridor was covered with hundreds of corpses. But these weren't skeletons; they were full-fledged people whose flesh hadn't disappeared yet. Whose eyes, though barely, could still catch the glimmer from the ceiling.
Cries, pleas, and dying cries reached Arlok's ears. His hands immediately grasped his head. The pain was incredible, as if hundreds of huge needles pierced his brain and ears.
Figures clashed, blood splattered, but there, in the distance, a door opened. The rush of air shook everyone, even Arlok, who had never experienced anything like it. Huge gates opened, and a small human figure holding two enormous parts of these gates stared directly at Arlok.
A smile, but there was nothing else visible on that face, no ears, eyes, nose, or hair - nothing but a snow-white smile against a black background. It spoke, but not to Arlok, to what was behind him. He quickly turned, but saw nothing; there was only black emptiness. He couldn't peer beyond.
Silence, a moment, and this scene turned into a simple corridor. Where huge columns were damaged, and piles of bones were scattered around the edges. The "past" picture changed into the "present."
"Gates, do I need to go there?" He wanted to know what creature managed to unsettle him. It was something unseen to him, neither man nor woman. It was something that made Arlok breathe in more air. This image, this strange slaughter, something inside Carnage denied what he had seen, yet something irresistibly desired to see it all again...
"Aria, did you see?" He flew towards the "gates."
"Yes, a strange battlefield…"
Carnage was pleased that it wasn't a spiritual world but a physical one. It meant he could change it, influence it, rule over it…