The Dwarf King sat upon a throne made of pressed cardboard boxes, bound together with leather straps. He was a stocky man, nearly as wide as he was tall, with a braided grey beard that reached his belt. He wore a cloak fashioned from old red velvet linings, now stained and eaten away by time. Around him, stacks of moldy boxes created high walls that choked the air. The smell was heavy, like wet paper left in the dark for years.

  The escort of dwarves raised their oil lamps. The flickering flames glinted off the smooth surfaces of objects spilling from gutted boxes: scraps of colored plastic, dull metal pipes, and rolls of yellowed paper.

  Tsuki walked with her eyes fixed on the clean granite floor. As she passed a box with a torn lid, she felt a shiver at the base of her neck. Within her mind, Etan’s voice came as a garbled whisper—no clear words, only a surge of recognition.

  “This... I know this...” Etan thought through her senses. He couldn't remember the object's name or its purpose, but his mental presence stirred, as if reaching out with a hand he no longer possessed.

  Tsuki paused for a moment, staring at a grey metal object poking out of the sodden cardboard. It had a curved shape and small holes across its surface. She felt that sudden chill again, the same flash of light from the ship-temple when the doctor and the priest had held her down.

  “Let the strangers halt... let the King behold them...” a nearby dwarf said, his voice low and formal.

  Zeryth and Llyr-Vahn exchanged a look. Zeryth glowered at the boxes with a sneer, as if seeing nothing but worthless junk, while Vahn held her hands to her shoulders, visibly recoiling from the stench. Moko walked ahead of them, his two eyes wide open; he stopped abruptly, sniffing the damp air and pointing his snout toward the King.

  The Dwarf King raised a gnarled hand, silencing his subjects' whispers. His eyes, small and dark beneath bushy brows, locked onto Zeryth.

  “Let the Mercury-Man step forward,” the King said, his deep voice echoing through the cardboard walls. “Let him tell us if his hand is capable of opening that which is sealed. Many moons have passed since anyone has managed to awaken the contents of the Great Archive.”

  He pointed to a box unlike the others, set upon a wooden pedestal directly before the throne. It was wrapped in layers of clear plastic to protect it from the mold, the cardboard beneath still looking stiff and intact.

  The King beckoned, and two dwarves approached the pedestal. With agonizingly slow movements, as if unsealing a royal tomb, they cut the protective plastic with sharpened flint knives. They lifted the cardboard lid, and the scent of old chemicals and dust flooded the air.

  Inside the box, nestled in neat rows within transparent sleeves, lay dozens of platinum blonde wigs—waist-length, sleek and shining like strands of artificial silk.

  The surrounding dwarves let out a collective groan of wonder, lowering their oil lamps in a gesture of reverence. The King rose from his throne of boxes, spreading his arms wide.

  “Let the tresses of the Gods be revealed...” he murmured, his voice trembling. “Let the golden wisdom descend upon this Archive. Many moons have we waited for one with the right blood to don these sacred remains without burning.”

  The King stared at Zeryth, then shifted his gaze to Llyr-Vahn, and finally to Tsuki.

  “Let the strangers prove their nature. Let them don the manes of the Sun, so that the Great Archive may recognize its masters.

  Zeryth’s eyes widened, staring at those heaps of fake hair shimmering ridiculously under the orange firelight. He took a step back, but the dwarf guards closed the circle, leveling their iron spears at him.

  “They want us to put them on our heads?” Zeryth whispered, his voice trembling with disbelief. “Llyr-Vahn, tell me this isn’t actually happening.”

  Llyr-Vahn, tall and unarmed, stared at one of the wigs with an expression of pure loathing, as if it were the most dangerous monster she had ever encountered. “I’d rather stay transparent forever than touch that stuff,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  Tsuki felt a violent surge in her head. Etan was reacting. It wasn’t a battle memory, but a sensation of physical discomfort—an itch on the forehead and ears. In her mind, a blurred image appeared: a room filled with mirrors and white lights, where people in colorful clothes laughed while changing their hair in front of glowing glass.

  “…Fake… it’s plastic… it’s for hiding…” Etan tried to tell her, but the word “wig” kept eluding him, leaving only a sense of the ridiculous that left her confused.

  Moko looked at the box, then at Zeryth. With his two wide-open eyes, he let out a sound that was almost a choked snicker, then sat back on his haunches as if to enjoy the show.

  The Overseer took one of the wigs from the box. With extreme caution, he raised it above Zeryth’s head. The synthetic hair, nearly a meter long, swayed in the stale air.

  “Let the Mercury-Man not refuse the gift,” the King said, his tone shifting from devotion to a threat. “Or let his blood be spilled among these boxes.”

  Zeryth looked at the tip of a spear grazing his belly, then at the blonde wig above him. He sighed, closing his eyes.

  “Fine. But if anyone laughs, I swear I’m never fixing another thing in this place.”

  The dwarf lowered the wig onto his head. The platinum blonde hair covered his shoulders, reaching down to his belt, with a straight fringe that fell right above his eyes. Zeryth, with his weary face and unshaved beard, now looked like a strange creature from a technicolor nightmare.

  The King clapped his hands, enthusiastic. “Let the transformation begin! Let the warrior woman also be crowned!”

  The Overseer took another wig from the box. The long blonde strands shimmered under the oil lamps, casting golden reflections that lit up the dwarf’s grimy face. With a ceremonial gesture, he lowered it onto Tsuki’s head.

  The girl remained motionless. She immediately felt a sharp itch on her forehead and behind her ears, where the wig’s plastic mesh pressed against her skin. It was an annoying sensation, as if a thousand tiny insects were crawling through her real hair, but she didn’t care.

  Tsuki looked down and saw those flat, yellow locks sliding down her chest, almost reaching her knees. She ran her fingers through the synthetic strands; they were smooth, cold, and incredibly soft compared to the coarse wool or hides she was used to touching. A smile lit up her face—an expression of pure joy that clashed completely with the grim atmosphere of the throne room.

  “They are... they are like the sun,” Tsuki whispered, shaking her head to watch the hair sway.

  In her mind, Etan winced. His presence grew agitated, confused by the contact. He felt the itch through Tsuki’s nerves, but he also saw the reflection in his memory: laughing people, loud music, and lights that changed color. He couldn't remember why, but that material gave him a strange nausea mixed with a profound melancholy.

  “...Plastic... it’s not alive...” he tried to convey, but Tsuki wasn’t listening. She was too busy looking at her hands buried in that fake gold.

  The Dwarf King erupted into deep laughter, slapping his massive thighs.

  “Blessed be the maiden! The Sun has chosen her!” he shouted, pointing at Tsuki with pride.

  Zeryth, meanwhile, tried to brush the blonde fringe out of his eyes with a nervous twitch. He looked like a warrior caught in a bad joke. He looked at Tsuki, then at Llyr-Vahn, who was still the only one without fake hair. The warrior stood as still as a pillar of salt, her lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes sparking with pure rage.

  Moko approached Tsuki, sniffing the tips of the wig that touched the ground. His two eyes were wide open, which made him sneeze from the chemical dust, then he looked at the King defiantly.

  The King leaned forward from his cardboard throne, pointing a finger at Llyr-Vahn.

  “Let the silent woman also wear the golden crown. Or let her head remain bare forever beneath the executioner’s axe.”

  A dwarf stepped toward Llyr-Vahn, holding the last blonde wig. The warrior took a step back, her arm muscles tensed, ready to fight.

  The march through the cardboard labyrinth proceeded with an absurd solemnity. The dwarves walked in lockstep, raising oil lamps that cast gargantuan shadows on the walls of moldy boxes. At every step, the dwarves’ deep throats emitted a guttural chorus, a low rumble that vibrated through the stale air: “Ta-ta-ta-ta-tah!” It was a rhythmic sound, almost a military command, repeated obsessively as their feet struck the clean granite.

  In their midst, the group filed past like a parade of ridiculous specters. Zeryth walked with his head down, trying to ignore the long platinum locks tickling his back with every move. Beside him, Llyr-Vahn was a statue of fury: she walked stiffly, her empty hands clenched into fists, the blonde wig shining like synthetic gold under the firelight. Only Tsuki was smiling. She stroked her new, smooth hair with light fingers, enchanted by that never-before-seen color, while Moko trotted at her feet, watching everything with his two wide, attentive eyes.

  Suddenly, the corridor of boxes opened into a small circular plaza. In the center of the far wall stood a large glass door, incredibly clear and free of cracks, reflecting the lantern light like a pool of water.

  As the Dwarf King took a step forward, a tired sensor hidden in the ceiling reacted. From the walls came an electronic sound, scratchy and distorted, yet unmistakably cheerful: “Ta-ta-ta-ta-tah!” It was the original version of the dwarves’ chant, a bright melody that seemed made of air and light.

  Zeryth froze, a shiver racing down his spine. That sound clawed at his gut, summoning images of bright, safe places, yet the memory remained just out of reach. Llyr-Vahn grounded her teeth, her expression souring further: she too recognized that jingle, a fragment of a world that no longer existed.

  Inside Tsuki’s head, Etan’s agitation turned into a storm. The girl pressed a hand to her temple, feeling the heat of his presence become unbearable. “Again… I know it… why do I know it?” Etan’s thoughts were a blurred mess, a dissonant note trying to find its chord with the music of the door.

  The door, however, did not budge an inch.

  The Dwarf King grunted. He raised his heavy metal staff and, with a roar, delivered a violent blow to the center of the glass pane. The impact was a dull thunder that echoed throughout the hall. The staff recoiled, but the glass remained flawless—not a scratch, as polished as if nothing had happened.

  “Let the transparent wall not yield… let the strength of the dwarves be in vain before the seal…” the King murmured, panting from the exertion. Then, with a gnarled finger, he pointed to the space beyond the glass.

  In a small, barren antechamber, right in the center, stood a motionless figure. It was a mannequin with smooth, featureless traits, wearing grey clothes worn down to rags by the passing centuries. Upon its bald head sat the same blonde wig worn by Tsuki and the others, perfectly combed. Behind it, a second door of massive steel, devoid of handles, barred the way to the heart of the secret.

  The King turned to Zeryth and Tsuki, the shadows of the flames turning his eyes into two black pits.

  “Let the blonde strangers look upon their brother-in-hair,” he said solemnly. “Only those who wear the mane of the Sun can persuade the voice of the door to let us pass. Let the Mercury-Man find the key, or let our hospitality end here.”

  Zeryth stepped forward, irritably brushing away the long blonde locks that kept getting into his mouth. He knelt by the frame of the glass door, where a small metal plate hung askew, revealing a jumble of colored wires and contacts blackened by time. His fingers moved with a precision that didn’t belong to this world of caverns, but his face grew increasingly tense under the lantern light.

  He tried to join two copper ends, searching for a spark, a sign of life. But the metal crumbled between his fingertips like ash. The connections were decayed, eaten away by humidity and the ages. After a few minutes of futile attempts, Zeryth let his hands fall to his sides, shaking his head.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, his voice cracking. “It’s all rot in here. There’s no power left; the cables are dust.”

  A heavy silence fell over the hall. The Dwarf King tilted his head, the shadows of his bushy brows masking his eyes. He didn’t say a word but slowly raised his gnarled arm and pointed at Llyr-Vahn.

  The warrior, who had been trying to hide behind her own wig out of embarrassment, stepped back, her eyes wide.

  “Me?” she exclaimed, her voice betraying a profound bewilderment. “What am I supposed to do? I’m no spark-smith!”

  Zeryth turned to her, his eyes shimmering with desperation. “Llyr-Vahn, just try. We have no other choice.”

  “And how?” she shot back, looking at her empty hands. “I have no tools, I have nothing!”

  “Just try!” Zeryth insisted through gritted teeth, casting a nervous glance at the dwarves' spears, which were lowering toward them. “See if there’s a shred of current left in there—try to put them back together. If we don’t open this door, we’re finished, and you know it.”

  Llyr-Vahn shot a look of pure hatred at the wig hanging over her chest, then sighed heavily. She approached the gap in the wall, eyeing those small colored wires with the same distrust she would show a venomous snake. She concentrated, closing her eyes and reaching out with trembling fingers toward the tangle of dead metal.

  Tsuki watched the scene with bated breath, while Etan, inside her, seemed to strain every nerve in her body, as if trying to help Llyr-Vahn through sheer will. Even Moko had fallen silent, his two eyes fixed on the warrior’s fingers.

  Llyr-Vahn shook her head, letting her arms drop. Her fingers were stained with rust and grey dust. “Nothing’s happening, Zeryth. It’s just pieces of dead metal. I don’t know what you expect me to do; I’m not a technician.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Zeryth cursed under his breath, wiping a hand across his forehead and nervously shifting the fringe of his blonde wig. The Dwarf King, who had watched every movement with growing impatience, shifted his gaze to Moko.

  The chimera stepped forward. His two wide-open eyes darted from the exposed wires to the King’s face. Moko opened his mouth, but the shape of his jaw and short tongue wouldn't allow him to articulate human sounds. What came out was a series of guttural noises, tongue clicks, and modulated whistles.

  Moko was desperately trying to explain that the problem wasn't just the lack of power, but that the molecular bonds of the conductors had turned to dust—that time had erased the path the signals needed to travel. He was the smartest of the group, the only one to understand the physics behind this failure, but to the dwarves and the others, his sounds were merely the cries of an agitated animal.

  The King did not understand. His face flushed red with rage, the veins in his neck bulging.

  “Let the strangers mock us… let the Sun have sent us impostors!” he roared, raising a gnarled hand above his head.

  In an instant, the metallic clatter of spears being leveled in unison filled the hall. Dozens of iron tips stopped just inches from Zeryth and Llyr-Vahn’s chests.

  Tsuki felt her heart explode in her chest. Panic froze her in place, her legs trembling beneath her worn skirt. At that moment, a powerful vibration shot through the pendant she wore around her neck. The metal became incandescent, though it did not burn.

  From the object came a vitreous, deep voice that seemed to originate from every corner of the room at once. It was the voice of Etan.

  “Stop! Let us try.”

  The silence that followed was absolute. The dwarves stood frozen, terrified by that sound which did not come from a mouth, but from the very air itself. The King slowly lowered his hand, staring at Tsuki’s pendant with holy dread.

  “Tsuki…” Etan’s voice whispered, this time only inside the girl’s head.

  “I’m scared, Etan… I don’t know what to do,” she replied in a ragged breath.

  “Close your eyes. Do as you did with that coat in the snow. Do not think of the glass as a wall. Feel what is inside.”

  Tsuki closed her eyes, shutting out the leveled spears and the heavy breathing of the dwarves. She took a step forward, guided only by the sensation of heat spreading from the pendant down her arms. She reached out and pressed her palms against the cold, smooth surface of the glass door.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a sound like a sigh rippled through the pane. Under Tsuki’s touch, the glass began to lose its consistency. The transparent molecules broke apart, turning opaque and grainy. In the blink of an eye, the entire door transformed into a cascade of fine sand.

  The glass collapsed like a house of cards caught in the wind, pooling at Tsuki’s feet in a silent heap. The way to the antechamber, the blonde mannequin, and the steel door was now clear.

  The silence following the door's collapse was so dense it felt solid. For a few moments, the only sound was the light sliding of the last glass grains settling on the floor. The dwarves remained motionless, spears still mid-air, their faces—lit by the oil lamps—petrified in an expression of pure mystical terror.

  Then, the King let out a strangled groan that erupted into a roar of triumph.

  “THE SUN! THE SUN HAS SPOKEN!”

  It was as if a dam had burst. The dwarves lowered their weapons and began to leap, stomping their feet on the granite and shouting with their arms to the sky. In an instant, the guttural chorus resumed with overwhelming force, but this time it wasn't a war hymn: it was a frenzied dance.

  “TA-TA-TA-TA-TAH! TA-TA-TA-TA-TAH!” they sang at the top of their lungs, distorting the old commercial jingle into a shout of jubilee that made the stacks of moldy boxes tremble.

  The King, overcome by emotion, lunged at the prisoners. With tears streaking his soot-stained cheeks, he seized Zeryth by the shoulders and crushed him in an embrace so powerful it made his ribs creak, kissing the platinum blonde wig as if it were a sacred relic.

  Then he moved to Llyr-Vahn.

  The warrior stiffened, her arms pinned to her sides and her eyes wide. The King, barely four and a half feet tall but as wide as an iron barrel, nearly lifted her off the ground in a suffocating grip. Llyr-Vahn turned her face away, meeting Zeryth’s desperate gaze as the dwarf’s scent hit her like a physical wall.

  He reeked of rancid rat fat, the acrid smoke of lamp oil, and an ancient, stagnant sweat that seemed steeped in the same mold devouring the cardboard boxes around them. She felt the sovereign’s coarse, greasy beard rubbing against her neck while the dwarves around them continued to dance and intone their rhythmic, pounding beat. Her expression was a mix of pure disgust and resignation; she couldn't fight back, couldn't strike this small being who was smothering her with affection, but inside, she was counting the seconds until she could reach a room with breathable air.

  Tsuki stood in the center of the chaos, still shaken by the heat emanating from the pendant. She saw the dwarves embracing one another, weeping and touching the mounds of sand that had once been an invincible door. To them, she was no longer a prisoner, but a deity who had brought life back to the Great Archive.

  Moko was swamped by a group of dwarves trying to pet him and lift him into the air. The chimera, his two eyes spinning frantically with fright, let out a hissing puff and tried to wriggle out of those stubby hands that smelled of earth and grease, seeking refuge between Tsuki’s legs.

  The King finally pulled away from Llyr-Vahn, who took a deep breath, desperately trying to clear her lungs. The sovereign pointed solemnly toward the open passage.

  “Let the path be clear! Let the Children of the Sun proceed toward the Guardian! The Great Archive awaits its awakening!”

  The group moved past the heap of glassy sand, leaving behind the din of the dwarves, who continued to leap and chant their rhythmic “Ta-ta-ta-ta-tah!”. Tsuki walked at the front, still feeling the heat of the pendant against her chest, flanked by the King, who advanced with a solemn, almost fearful stride. Behind them, Zeryth and Llyr-Vahn exchanged tense looks, while Moko trotted at the end of the line, his two eyes darting everywhere.

  As soon as they crossed the threshold, the air changed. The smell of mold and wet paper that infested the rest of the Mall was gone. Here, the air was still, dry, and frigid, as if time had been sealed in a bubble. The floor was covered in a thin veil of grey dust, but beneath it, the tiles were white and polished, free of stains.

  They stopped beside the mannequin. Up close, its plastic skin was flawless, showing none of the signs of time that had reduced its clothes to greyish rags. As they circled it, they noticed a word deeply engraved into the plastic on the back of its neck, just below the hairline of the blonde wig: “HOPE.”

  “Hope…” Zeryth whispered, translating the word without even realizing it. The Dwarf King bowed his head at the name, murmuring a blessing in a formal, prayer-like tone.

  They pressed on to the metal door barring the far end of the room. It was a slab of solid steel, smooth and handle-less, seamlessly integrated into the wall. Beside it, a small numerical display still emitted a faint amber glow. The keys were all coated in dust, except for four: 7, 4, 6, and 3 appeared polished, worn down by the repeated touch of thousands of fingers over years now forgotten.

  Zeryth approached, studying the keypad with a grimace of discouragement. “It’s a combination system. If we want to get in, we’re looking at about five thousand possible combinations. It would take days, assuming the system doesn’t lock us out after a few wrong guesses.”

  Llyr-Vahn nodded, crossing her muscular arms over her chest. “We don’t have that kind of time. The dwarves will tire of dancing sooner or later.”

  Moko said nothing. The chimera raised his snout toward the display, then looked back at the motionless mannequin behind them. His eyes seemed to calculate invisible trajectories. With a leap, he approached the keypad, which was far too high for him. He had to stretch up on his hind legs, bracing a claw against the wall to keep his balance.

  Clumsily, he began to press the keys, following a logic only he seemed to have grasped: first 4, then 6, then 7, and finally 3.

  An acoustic signal—a sharp, metallic beep—rang through the silence of the antechamber. Immediately, a series of small green and white LEDs recessed into the doorframe began to light up one by one, racing along the perimeter of the door. With a high-pitched screech of metal scraping on metal, the steel door began to slide sideways, revealing an even deeper darkness.

  Zeryth stood agape, staring at the chimera as he returned to all fours with utter nonchalance.

  “Moko… how did you do it? How did you know the order?”

  Moko opened his mouth, emitting a series of rhythmic little sounds, clicks, and short hisses. He pointed at the mannequin and then at the display, trying to explain that he had simply counted the letters of the name or followed some logical pattern based on the wear and tear, but his cries remained incomprehensible to Zeryth’s human ears.

  “I don’t understand a word you’re saying, little friend, but you just saved our skins,” Zeryth said, shaking his head.

  The group resumed their march, stepping beyond the steel threshold as the small lights continued to shimmer like electric stars in that endless corridor.

  Beyond the steel threshold lay a narrow hallway, lit only by dim emergency lights that cast yellowish circles on the floor. The air here was even colder. Four doors lined the walls, two on each side, with a fifth door closing off the end of the passage.

  Without a word, the companions split up to inspect these cramped spaces, driven by curiosity and dread.

  Llyr-Vahn pushed open the first door on the left. She found herself in a suffocating supply closet, crammed with brooms with grey plastic handles, encrusted buckets, and bottles of thick liquids long since evaporated. It was a place dedicated to cleaning—a corner of everyday life that held nothing epic.

  Across from her, on the right, Zeryth entered the second door. It was a bathroom. A row of small metal doors hid the toilets, while three white porcelain sinks, marked by long streaks of rust, stood lined up under a now-opaque mirror. Zeryth stared at the faucet, feeling a lump in his throat for that lost normalcy.

  In the third door, Tsuki glimpsed a small electrical panel. The wall was covered in switches and levers, with old hand-written notes on yellowed scraps of paper stuck on with adhesive tape. Names and numbers that no one knew how to read anymore.

  Moko chose the fourth room. Inside was a low bed, neatly made but covered in a centuries-old layer of dust. On a small table lay personal items: hardbound books and metal containers that had once held food. The chimera sniffed the air with his two wide eyes, sensing the residual scent of a life interrupted.

  Finally, they all gathered before the last door at the end of the hallway.

  They entered slowly. Inside, the revelation froze them. Sitting in a wheeled chair, before a series of dead, black screens, was a woman. Her body was now mummified, the skin stretched like dark parchment over thin bones. She wore a long white lab coat that almost entirely covered her figure. Her hair was long and dull, spread over her hunched shoulders. She looked as if she were sleeping, her head tilted slightly downward.

  Her right hand rested on the metal table, directly atop a large red switch surrounded by a safety guard.

  Tsuki approached, mesmerized by that motionless figure. She felt Etan’s presence shudder violently—a silent scream echoing in her skull. The girl reached out with extreme gentleness, intending only to move that withered arm to see the woman’s face better.

  “No! Stop! Let the Sacred Sleeper not be touched!” the Dwarf King cried out, reaching to grab her wrist, his face twisted in terror.

  But it was too late. In her attempt to pull away from the King’s grasp, Tsuki’s movement became abrupt. Her fingers pressed down hard on the mummy’s hand and, with a metallic click that rang out like a gunshot in the silence, the red switch snapped down.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a deep hum began to rise from the floor, making everyone’s legs tremble.

  In a heartbeat, the darkness seemed to thicken, then the heart of the Mall restarted with an electric jolt that rattled the bones of everyone present.

  Suddenly, the centuries-old silence was shattered. From the speakers hidden in the ceiling, the jingle the dwarves had mangled for generations exploded—clean and ringing: “TA-TA-TA-TA-TAH!” It was no longer a guttural chant, but a synthetic melody, cheerful and pitiless, accompanied by a metallic female voice announcing: “Welcome to the ‘Beyond the Horizon’ Shopping Center. Today’s offers will take your breath away!”

  In an instant, the corridor and the side rooms were flooded with a white, cold, and violent light. The old neon signs, mute for centuries under layers of dust and rags, began to sizzle and flicker with intermittent flashes of pink, blue, and acid green.

  The dwarves collapsed to the floor, covering their eyes with their stubby hands, screaming in terror at what they believed to be divine wrath. Their oil lamps now looked like useless little matches against the power of the halogen floodlights awakening everywhere.

  The noise was deafening. Old advertising screens began broadcasting distorted images of smiling faces eating colorful foods; the escalators, encrusted with debris, started to move with a metallic screech of rusted chains, trying to force their iron steps against the weight of the centuries.

  Outside the mummy’s room, the light expanded like a shockwave. Through the opaque windows and the cracks in the Mall's ceiling, the artificial glare pierced the darkness of the outer night. The “TA-TA-TA-TA-TAH!” jingle echoed among the surrounding ruins, carrying the sound of a dead era into the middle of the wilderness.

  Tsuki looked at her hands, illuminated by a light so strong it seemed magical. Etan, inside her, remained silent, but the girl felt a shiver of pure melancholy: it wasn't a blessing, it was the awakening of a corpse made of metal and plastic.

  Moko huddled close to Tsuki, his two eyes reduced to slits to protect himself from the blinding glare of the monitors now projecting glowing text on every wall.

  The Dwarf King, crawling on the floor, approached Tsuki’s feet, weeping openly.

  “The end… or the beginning… the light has eaten the shadows!”

  Zeryth looked around, the light from the monitors carving deep lines into his weary face. “It’s a control room,” he murmured, his voice nearly drowned out by the hum of the servers coming back to life. “This woman… she must have been the security officer. She stayed here guarding all of this for centuries. How long has she been sitting in this chair? A thousand years? More?”

  He reached for the mouse on the desk, but the plastic, baked by residual heat and time, crumbled under his fingers like an eggshell. He tried to type on the keyboard, but the keys remained stuck, welded together by dust turned to cement.

  “Damn it,” Zeryth cursed. He closed his eyes and placed his palms directly on the metal frame of a computer. He tried to use his power, attempting to sense the flow of electrons, to straighten the microscopic circuits within the processors. But his expression immediately grew tense, almost pained. “It’s too much… it’s all digital. The structure is too complex, too small for me to manipulate. I can feel the metal, but I can’t speak their logic.”

  As he withdrew his hands, his gaze fell on a black, compact object resting right next to the woman’s mummified hand: a small portable camcorder.

  He picked it up with extreme caution. It was heavy, solid, less exposed to decay than the monitors. He flipped open the side screen and, with a shiver of hope, pressed the power button. For a moment, nothing happened, then a small red symbol flashed on the glass: LOW BATTERY.

  “Got you,” Zeryth whispered. He concentrated on the small power cell inside the device. He couldn't write code, but he could force the ions to move; he could “push” pure energy into that small container. His fingers glowed with a faint bluish light and, suddenly, the camera screen stopped flashing and turned green.

  He pressed PLAY.

  The image was sharp, terrifyingly alive. On the screen appeared the same woman who now sat beside them as a withered remain, but in the video, her skin was taut and healthy, and her eyes were clear and filled with a strange urgency. She wore the white lab coat, clean and dust-free.

  On the camcorder screen, the image stabilized after some interference. The woman in the video appeared from the waist up, sitting at the very desk where her body now lay. Her coat was white, clean, and without dust. She ran a hand through her hair, visibly exhausted.

  “Okay, so… my name is Nadine. I don’t even know why I’m recording, maybe just to keep from going completely insane.” Her voice was steady but laced with a subtle tension, her French accent softening the consonants. “I’m the head of night security here at the mall. It’s three in the morning and… I don’t know what happened. There was an earthquake, the kind that throws you right out of bed. Then the lights went out, and when they came back… the city was gone. No streets, no parking lot. Nothing.”

  Zeryth scrolled through the file. The scene changed. This time Nadine was standing; beside her was a muscular man in uniform, holding a flashlight. They looked terrified.

  “It’s me and Marc,” Nadine told the camera. “We tried to leave through the main entrance. But out there… my God, Marc says they’re worms, but they’re massive. They burst out of the ground the second we stepped off the pavement. We barely made it back inside and got the security shutters down. Marc’s leg is injured. We’re waiting for rescue—someone has to notice an entire Mall has vanished into thin air, right?”

  Zeryth pressed the button again. The third recording was darker. Nadine was alone, sitting on the floor, her eyes red from crying.

  “Marc is dead. The infection took him in two days. Those damn worms won’t leave; I can hear them crawling against the walls downstairs. I’ve sealed off the entire security sector. I’ve got food in the vending machines and water in the tanks for a while. Someone will come. They have to. I left the lights on in the atrium so if a helicopter passes by, they’ll see us… they’ll see me.”

  The last video was different. Nadine was sitting in the wheeled chair, the very one where the mummy now sat. She looked much thinner, her skin pale. She wasn’t crying anymore. She looked into the lens with a resigned, almost sweet melancholy.

  “A month has passed. Maybe two. The camera batteries are dying and I… I don’t have the heart to eat those stale crackers anymore. The sky outside is always that same strange color. No helicopters. No sirens. I’m alone. If anyone finds this… well, at least you’ll know I stayed at my post until the end. I’m sitting here, in front of the monitors. Maybe I’ll fall asleep, and when I wake up, I’ll be home again.”

  The video cut off with a sharp hiss of static.

  The silence in the room became suffocating. The Dwarf King, who had watched those images as if they were divine visions, covered his face with his hands, trembling. His “Goddess” was just a woman left without water and without hope in a dusty office.

  Llyr-Vahn looked down, a lump in her throat she couldn't swallow. That loneliness weighed on her more than any chains. Tsuki looked at the mummy, then at the red button she had pressed. She had awakened Nadine’s world, but Nadine was no longer there to see it.

  “So that’s it,” Zeryth whispered, setting the camcorder on the table with agonizingly slow movements. “The earthquake ripped the building away. And they were trapped here with those… things outside.”

  Just then, from the illuminated escalators overlooking the central atrium, came a horrific sound: a wet, screeching noise, like something massive dragging itself laboriously over metal.

  Moko’s fur bristled along his back, and he opened his eight eyes, fixing them on the open door of the corridor.