In no particular room, William stood and sized up the floor and tiling, wondering what made those stick together, or what would make them break. Whatever was in front of him was there, while his mind was still in a daze, and he was barely aware of his journey. He felt like he was dreaming the moment he arrived at this building.

  Turning around, he watched the shut door with a decisive look and didn't even wonder if he was alone or not.

  He hit the door with his forehead, doing so with the gusto of silence. Another bang followed, and even a few drops of blood came off his forehead. Huffing and pounding, a twisting expression on his face revealed a much more relaxed face when he was over it.

  “This helped. Much better. Much better. Let's go by this day, or I will regret not doing more hits.” William spoke in a clear voice, ignoring the cracked door and the curved pieces of reinforced steel. Now, he was ready to learn some shit and overlook the entire day because there was no way that kiss was real. It simply couldn't be.

  Turning away from the door, William faced an empty room, which he didn't take for a lucky thing, let alone an opportunity. Instead, it was his escape room. There was no one here to watch his bleeding forehead or hear his excusable words or manners. He would do the same even if there were strange observers or someone he knew very well.

  What he entered was a room called Flow of Time #3. It was a historical selection of exciting or various Darks that touched the records of some lands or Walkers. In short, it was a historical room dedicated to the eventful changes Darks had brought about. Most were from the time of the Dawn, when Darks were different and hadn't undergone many changes or corrupting lines.

  They ate through quite a hefty buffet, fled each turmoil or self-caused catastrophe, and cherished this new world. Hence, this room was important in history, yet quite curious and impressive because it demonstrated how little things can change.

  For Walkers, it was a great reminder and a glimpse into a world of dread that had plagued humanity for decades, when humanity could not fight back.

  At least not properly, that is.

  Nukes, cannons, missiles... There were many powerful strings put into play, yet before those endless tides of fog and darkness, they weren't helpful; they only delayed the inevitable and gave humans a sense of relief or opposition.

  People were so used to infighting or hating each other that when the sky cracked, Rifts spread, and from depths rose things and monsters alike, their attempts were like jokes, coming far too little, far too late.

  William had visited this room once before, and it wasn't in his plans to do so again, because it shouldn't be visited with an empty mind or beginner's yearnings.

  Now, he entered it as if it were a safe place from anyone else. After all, barely anybody visited it, so he walked here on his own, or his instincts led him to a safe zone.

  There were many tablets and posters on the wall, examples of missions, successes, defenses, and tides of hordes described as walls or tidal forces, waves, and singular appearances of powerful Dark beings that were almost impossible to put into words or pictures. There was a great sense of the unknown when the Darks first came.

  Then, when Corruption took its course, many concepts experienced transformation, and humans became rats. Fogs spread. Sun wavered. The moon cracked and turned red.

  William figured those might be Rank 8 properties or worse, since what could do that, or conceptually change the whole world for worse or better, depending on who is answering? What came from the Dawn was impossible to note without Walkers around to give them words, aura, or System. Typical humans did it instead, and there were many curious, wrong, or crazy assumptions about it. What to trust? What might have been good or weak back then was different after a century, and William supposed they had no Ranks whatsoever.

  It was a raw world. They were starved. Insane.

  And humans lost.

  This place showed these factors while also being raw, but he wasn't stupid enough to believe that. A lot had been suppressed, and that was one part of Outside that latched to him like that gem. Not many descriptions clarified the future or changed public opinion because humanity didn't know what was important at the time.

  They could only notice how Darks' insanity spread, coming like natural disasters, and most conventional methods of warfare were no longer effective.

  On one wall were pictures, a dedication to the history of what humans have seen. That included a lot of outstanding qualities, as capturing the present for the future was nice, and almost everyone had a phone, which William couldn't believe, but it was their truth. Photography was of higher quality back then, and it showed.

  William saw a series of war images depicting rows of armored soldiers firing at the incoming horde. Dark Fog worsened the aiming, giving Darks hideous appearances as if they had no individuality. They were rampant. Savage. Hungry. There were notable Hellgars and Pounders, tall, humanoid monsters with large arms. Then, there were the monsters with savage jaws and claws, clawing their way from the fog against the bullets.

  They were laboring against it. Some Darks died until they speared their way to the soldiers and obliterated them in an instant.

  If anything came from that time, it was humanity's cracked sensibility. Their infighting had a history spanning thousands of years, yet this was not it. What they had experienced before was still helpful, and an adversary of this caliber didn't dampen their spirits, so they drew on their military experience to fend off the worst-case scenarios. In fact, there were nations that had plans against such craziness, but William doubted they would have ever imagined or known what kind of disaster awaited them.

  But what if they knew Darks were coming? Well, nothing could have prepared them anyway.

  Many survivors fought for their lives while the military clutched what they could, focusing on fortresses or vaults of humanity that had not yet been lost. It worked until it didn't change, or things remained the same. Then... not so much at all, as there were many kinds of issues.

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  That was in the other room—one familiar to William and compelling to high-ranking Walkers.

  “Since I am here, I may as well look at it. This room, this week, and the next...well, who knows what will happen next week or...” William sighed after remembering his promise. “Am I supposed to go wild? I promised Mi-Yung, but what's the point of this arm wreaking havoc? Those vials? I guess that, and the sparring she wanted, are acceptable reasons. I want to see what has changed since I came here, and my Emblem has been very odd. How to put it? Lively...more morbid than ever? Mi-Yung is...”

  Glancing at the photos, the word morbid wasn't as appealing as he supposed. He figured that if Mi-Yung wanted something, after everything that she had given him for weeks, he might sacrifice some of his sanity and give her what she wanted.

  Heck, he might even figure something out, even if he wouldn't like it, because this was about Walkers. They had their experiences, and this land might help and train him better than ever!

  Time flew by, and with William's recollected focus, his troubled mind went through documents and pages while his notebook proved to be a great shifter of mind.

  There were moments of pain, tragedies, and stories in between these pages. It portrayed Darks as shivering beings at first, hunting, eating, and taking this world by storm, yet it made little sense.

  They were like raging, broken dolls and statues, or... dogs or rats. Demons were more accurate because they accounted for the majority of early sketches, blurry photos, or descriptions. This world changed when the overwhelming natural disposition of species changed Darks forever. It helped them, but it also helped humanity because Darks started to focus on something other than the peak of clever, physically weak specimens.

  At this point, William watched it with a stern yet indifferent expression and fewer ideas about Ellie. Even though this might be about a sick past, it might as well be closer than one dared to think. History tends to repeat itself, and things that happened and had... No. That was wrong. It was happening right now, and there was no need for excuses or running away from it.

  Everything was closer, because this world did not become larger.

  What had started with the Dawn was a persistent problem. The Dark Age, as depicted by names, cultures, and the past, was a time worth reading about. Blank Century was the same, but in the end, names and terms were about the same shit.

  William even found documentation of camps, as well as numerous items describing unique past events or notable extinctions. One such thing was the camps that he had seen or heard about. Roshwell was surviving for quite some time, so the lack of word about it was given, but a lot of previous camps had mentions or even pages about them.

  They were gambles of the Federation, and this library had research on such subjects, even if William thought overzealous data would not happen. He was wrong. It was a closer history and more connected to this place than one might think. It was a great memento, and one of them —the that was destroyed —was here.

  For him, these details evoked unpleasant and harsh memories. William and Dann fought for their lives, surviving and living for themselves. They survived massacres, and many others did, too, before an intense scene spread beyond the mountains and massacred almost every survivor.

  “Primevals....” William took a cold breath as he looked at the aftermath of that time. He lived in it, so this picture wasn't it. There was cracked earth, mountains shredded to pieces, and no such thing as a camp was in the picture. But he recognized it, and couldn't believe he got out of that in one piece.

  “How did I survive that shit? I mean, the Primevals, of all things.” William wondered, trying to remember, but failed. Then he blinked and swore he saw a group of people surrounding something in a dark picture.

  [Do you want to see...]

  William winced, looking around. There was nobody.

  [Oh, you want to... You detest it...]

  [You need to learn the lesson...]

  “W-what?” William heard it clearly this time and got a horrible feeling about something on the horizon. His sight shook, the walls quivered. He started to shake, his mind and mouth trembled, and he dropped his notebook to the ground when his grip weakened.

  He watched as his right arm changed, tilted, and dropped liquid, just to point somewhere by itself, creeping towards that lone photo he hadn't dared to watch. Red picture. Crimson arm...

  A little kid.

  Then he lost it, fell deep, and felt as if this was a weird dream.

  [Good.]

  ***

  A small opening in the cliff was compact and tight. William knew it was a fine hiding spot, for he was little and finer, yet it wasn't for him. He shoved Dann into it instead of himself, since finding his own spot was too freaking late. One of many Hellgars found him already, sniffed him out, and gnawed at his arm as if it were a great treat, but it wasn't. He learned it wasn't a long time ago, but physical pain was still revolting and hot.

  William cried and pulled planks of wood over Dann's hiding spots while fighting the pain and his own twisting flesh.

  “Sorry...” Dann said, hiding.

  “I promised... haven't I?” William, a twelve-year-old kid, said. The cries and sounds of the fortress dying lingered in the surroundings. It was a war. A one-sided war, that is—one of the many that people have seen and will continue to see.

  Yet the big creatures overhead, clasping a mountain of rocks in ridiculous hands, crashed the camp into pieces, and nobody could stop it.

  William hadn't seen the entire vision. He closed his eyes in acceptance of what had come while the Hellgar tasted its own death.

  “Don't go too deep.” Dann reminded, knowing that it never worked out for the best.

  “I can't... do it.”

  The next moment, he opened his eyes and watched the crimson world. Something within him moved, and moved it did. His right arm breathed in and out, swaying in a strange movement as it twisted his bones, and it clasped the Hellgar, twisted its neck, and dug into its neck, crunching it. It was dead in a moment, falling to the ground where it convulsed and drowned in its sizzling blood.

  

  

  Voices came like angels and devils overhead, but he knew it was one of the same twists of his life. There were no differences. William turned, left side bleeding, right side even more. His clothes were drenched in sweat and blood, which might have been his or others', yet everything was bloody, be it water, sky, or mud. He saw it right. Everything was crisp and crimson, hurting, and moaning and generally being awful shit.

  And they were coming. Darks looked at him. People looked at him as if he were wrong! Their faces were hideous, afraid. They were fleeting for a reason, yet William walked through them, and then his hands moved, cleaving and piercing, guided by red veins and time that felt like yet another dream.

  [Good...]

  [Go on. KILL!]

  He did that. A lot, even, until he had seen a big, large block of Fog and Dark Figures approaching his eyes, looking crisper than the other, hazy things. Creatures, he knew and had recently learned about, resembled a tribal Dark society, wearing ornaments made of bones and fissures of Arcana. They were bloody lunatics, that's for sure, but they were far from human Lunatics. These were tame, for they were Dark, while humans can't be reasoned with.

  Looking, gnawing a death Walker, surrounded by a black halo of light, that's when shit turned fuzzy, and his arm winced in his steps.

  [Too late...]

  Then they looked at him, sizing up the approaching little person, and withered, their faceless facades seeming conflicted, as if they had gotten up like frightened cats. Some of them judged things in tides, jumping aside, and one even ran away.

  William should've fled back then. He shouldn't have gone too deep, but he fucking did.

  He bathed in it... enjoyed the stuff and listened to that voice because it was the direction he lacked for years.

  Like a parent... Or a devil.