[4-12] The Mines

[Amaterasu]

Even after having somehow managed to turn the lights on Fiara played on a little with the rusted command console, turning on a few more lights, turning off others and generally causing a somewhat annoying lightshow of dim flickering on the ceiling that made it harder for Okor and Marcus to carry out their respective tasks. Finally though, she ended it when one lever caused the console to spark threateningly and pulled said lever back before stepping away. "That's good enough as it is, I guess... huh?" She looked up because just then Marcus called Okor's and her names. She was about to run over when a thought occured to her. She ripped off the chair's remaining three legs - that chair that she had salvaged for her makeshift torch - and brought them along in case that the torch she had ran out on her, or if Okor and Marcus wanted one.

The explanation that Marcus provided struck Fiara with surprise, but she didn't interrupt the terminator. It wasn't possible that they all lived inside... an illusion, a fake. Okor and Marcus began heading towards the elevator, and she followed them, until a thought shaped in her head. An idea that grew with every step she took until she decided that it needed to come out.

Fiara eyed the mineshaft that led downwards, then turned and stepped back one step so that she could look at both Okor and Marcus at the same time as she had done before. She did want to adress the both of them after all. "Listen, I don't know WHAT is up with this place, with the whole Omniverse even, but whatever 'thing' -" She made air quotes with her fingers as she said that - "befell the miners shouldn't affect the three of us nearly as much. I mean, you two are Primes, right? If you can manipulate this Omnilium matter, then you are probably resistant to whatever drove these... these Secondaries crazy, right? And me, I'm nothing like those guys. Marcus, don't give me that look, I'm really not! And even if I was, the miners were in here for... what? Twentysomething days? We've been here for twentysomething minutes, tops. I can still climb even with my injury, and you both are okay too."

As Marcus and Okor didn't reply at first, Fiara waved her torch towards the direction of the mineshaft. "What I'm saying is, we could go down there and take a look. We're not forced to stay and can still back away. And I'm not exactly thrilled about staying down there for long, anyway... I want to get out of here and find Saber again." Neither of them seemed convinced, but she couldn't read Okor's face due to his helmet, and Marcus just seemed skeptical about it all.

"Another thing. These miner guys are the only people we heard of thus far, and they lived in this mine, which is pretty close to where the savages attacked us. I don't know how big this whole island is, but... it could be a connection. Those men could've been the miners, driven crazy by The Ascension."

This theory was met by even more skepsis. "It's far-fetched", was all that Okor commented on it. Marcus added: "There's no evidence of such. They could just as well have been natives or summoned by a Prime."

Yes, yes it was. Fiara looked back at the mineshaft then at Okor and Marcus once again. It's not that she was drawn to it or anything, she was simply curious. But it may be a better idea to just leave it as a mystery and to go find Saber again. "I was just saying... but even if we don't explore, we should at least keep note of it and pass it to Syntech. Maybe they'll make more of it." Her mind was rattling through the types of Youkai that could perform a feat such as this, to influence entire groups of humans into doing its bidding, but none came to mind. At least, none that could do so in just twenty days and on upwards of a dozen individuals, in ways that caused ill dreams. She looked at the elevator door they'd been heading to, wondering whether or not this was best left. She had a mission and couldn't risk it by throwing herself at a Youkai that was completely out of her league.

737 words according to MS Word.