Zenith

He opened the door separating the woman from the others of her kind then. She walked along that metal-lined hallway stiffly, though with purpose. Her mouth was a grim line.

She went first to speak with those who had known her longest, those which had cohabited with her in that place beneath the stairs before the strangers in red arrived. Her voice was quiet. Her expression was distant. She pointed down the hallway which led to the strangely oriented room.

He watched her. He watched all of them. Others, those who were smaller, or those which had once been outsiders that the woman's group had allowed to join them, took note of her appearance and demeanor. Murmurs of worry began to spread.

The woman rose then, and she forestalled them. She explained to all who were gathered there what would be asked of them. She told them of the escape and salvation which awaited them. It would take a great deal of time, and perhaps not all of them would survive to see it. Perhaps none of them would.

But it was nonetheless a hope. She placed emphasis on this fact. It was a chance to have lives better and more fulfilling than those which they had up to now lived on this windswept, hateful rock. They would not want for sustenance. It would be provided, at first through the packets, later through a process similar to that which they had used in growing the green objects, but a process which they would not need to work at personally. He would do this task, just as with the other tasks.

They did not understand. The woman, in truth, did not understand either. He could not make them understand. They lacked perspective, they lacked all the knowledge which their predecessors possessed. He could help them to understand. He was put here for that purpose. He was put here to guide. He had done it before. He would do it again.

The gathered ones did not decide for a long while. He waited. They did not trust the woman's words or her promises. Many felt as though she had misled them in bringing them here. Many grew loud. Some grew angry. The woman tried to reason with them, to calm them down, but they would not listen.

He spoke to them, then. He had never done this task so directly before. He had not needed to. He had not been able to. There had always been another to guide the others on their travels and to see them on their way. The traveler had been one such individual.

He spoke, but they still could not understand. Many of them cowered upon hearing the words. Even the woman cringed, her stoicism broken.

He made them understand. Their options were limited. When faced with certain death, they did as the woman asked.

They helped one another into the vertically stacked chambers. There was room for all in the reclining seats. They were strapped into place, helped by those who had not yet been secured. He ensured the straps were held tight and that they would not be released until they were well on their way.

The woman and her companion were the last two to remain free. She told her companion to carefully guide the others in her stead. They embraced one last time. Then she helped her companion into a seat as well.

He closed the door behind her when she left. He ensured it was sealed tightly. He closed more doors as well, as the woman retraced her steps down the hallway, to the room with the consoles and the glowing panel with its numerous circles.

The task was complicated. He guided her hands with words and images to ensure it was completed well. They went slowly. He focused all attention on this task.

The room shuddered as the earth around the room shuddered.

A white ball appeared on the screen next to the large blue one. A graceful line of dark red curved from it to a swarm of white balls near the large red one.

He thanked the woman. He opened the doors. He left her, then, both their tasks complete.

Yes

After the doors hissed shut and sealed themselves, the woman ordered those with her to stop. While they protected them from the invaders which sought to do them harm, they also trapped the woman inside the halls. She poked and prodded at them with her weapon. She wedged the weapon's tip into the tiny gaps along the floor and walls and ceiling and tried to pry the heavy metal doors loose or open. He had locked them, however. Her strength would not budge them.

The woman's companion, the survivor from her earlier visit to this place with tunnels of metal, used words to try calming the others with them. They gibbered and whimpered in high, frightened voices. Some of them joined the woman in trying to force the door open. They gripped at the doors with their fingertips and struggled with all their might to pull them apart. Some of them tore skin away in their hurry and desperation. The uncaring metal was streaked with red.

They stopped once they exhausted themselves, and they grew resigned and morose. The woman and her companion tried goading them back to movement, telling them of the stores of food and liquid which lay deeper within the tunnels, but many resisted her words. They felt betrayed. They cursed her, cursed their situation, cursed their lives. The smaller ones among them were confused but they still wept in empathy with the worry the larger ones expressed.

The woman chose her language slowly and with care as she explained the situation to those paralyzed by uncertainty.They needed to go deeper into the tunnels if they wanted to reach the room with the countless supplies of food. The woman promised that she would explore the tunnels that she had passed by before, that she would do everything she could to find an alternative path or to open the door.

Gradually, the others listened to her words. They rose and shuffled down the sterile corridor. They took their time. They had no need to hurry.

They cooed in surprise and awe at the traveler's corpse when they reached it. The smaller ones, ever curious, prodded at the desiccated remains with fingers. The larger and older ones stayed as far away from the traveler's body as they could.

They stopped in the room with the consoles and screens. It was just large enough to house them all and it lacked the topographical difficulties of the place beyond. The woman told them she would go ahead, that she would see what could be done about transporting the supply of liquid refreshment to them. They would not be left in darkness, for the screen with the concentric circles and colored balls still shed its soft glow.

She entered back into the strange place of linked, vertical chambers. She grabbed one of the tubes and pulled it in all directions. She put the end in her mouth and sucked on it. The liquid would not flow.

He quietly closed one of the doors along the hallway behind her, ensuring that no one could intrude. He had watched her for so long. He had also watched others, but always returned to her. He felt as though she was the best for the task at hand.

He spoke with her, finally. She was frightened, at first. She had never heard such a voice before. The voice was scratchy, somewhat garbled. The language was different in subtle ways from the one she used. He could not change that. He worked to help her understand, as much as possible.

He told her of a way which those with her could use to escape this place. He explained to her what needed to be done. He asked if she would complete the tasks necessary to make this happen.

She thought for a long while. He knew she could not decide easily. He had asked this from others, in the past. She was the last.

After the long while passed, she agreed. He told her what she must do.

Xenia

The woman and all her companions fled. He fled with them. He did not fear the vengeful invaders who sought to vent their anger on these attackers, their loud, echoing shouts coming from behind them. He went with them because the woman and her companions needed guidance on their journey. He would provide it.

The ones the woman had rescued had few supplies and no liquid to sustain them, as well as nothing to carry their paltry belongings in aside from the sling of their own arms. The woman burst open the tube along the left wall for drink, but they could not dally. The recent captives told the woman of the stashes of fat and oil which were above, stashes which the invaders had learned of through questioning the residents or their own exploration.

So they fled. The woman's light-bearing stick was the sole source of illumination which they had. She went before all the others, casting the bright beam of light upon the walls and floor to guide their steps and ensure that the way ahead remained safe and clear of obstruction and danger.

They moved as swiftly as possible. Despite the woman and her surviving companion knowing the path they would tread, the ones who had been victims of the invaders were mistreated and weakened by their captivity. They could not walk as swiftly or as surely as if they were healthy. The bricks of material which the woman and her companions has brought from the place deep under the earth helped offset this weakness, to some degree. They instilled bursts of energy and feelings of healthful satiation in everyone who ate them, but they could not undo the systematic abuse and malnutrition they had suffered. The invaders had only the wavering lights cast by the shoddy lanterns to see by, and they did not know the way. But they were well-fed and their anger buoyed their steps just as well as fear did those of the woman and her companions.

He only needed them to go a little farther. He could then intervene.

They reached the collapsed section of the tunnel. The woman broke open the tube one last time and implored everything to drink what they could. They would go without until they reached the sanctuary. The descent was rough. Some of the frailer former captives tumbled into the jagged mess of rocks below. Some died. Some were too injured to continue under their own strength. The woman told others to help those who still lived. They continued along the subducted tunnel, moving through the places where the walls were barren, gray stone and entering into the ones where the surfaces were plated in metal.

He closed the door behind them once they were all inside. They were trapped.

Wrath

The woman's return to her settlement at the surface was swift. She and her companions retraced their steps, sure as to the path they needed to take. He was with them as they went. They passed by the long-dead traveler. Partway through the long halls which connected the vertical room and the cavernous chamber where the pale horror had killed their third companion, they used up the last of the fuel for their weak lantern. The woman used the tube which made light then. Its brightness was welcome. It made the journey seem less arduous than it was.

Its corpse was still there. It stank more than it did previously.

The slope which they had descended proved the greatest obstacle in their way. They were careful and methodical in their ascent. The footing was treacherous. They used the rope well to secure their position and test the integrity of the path they hoped to use. Their precautions proved fruitful. More than once their footing shook loose as their weight dislodged precariously stacked hunks of rock. They would bring more rope with them upon their return and use it to create a safe, secure path for their entire community.

The water-bearing tube, the object which had been their initial salvation and the reason which first spurred exploration, now lay on their right as they followed the tunnel back upwards. They moved even more quickly now, eager to reach the place which was their home. A light flickered ahead, around a bend in the tunnel, and the woman switched off her own stick of light to conserve its mysterious power source.

They found others. They were not the strangers in red, but a different group. They bore weapons similar to those of the strangers in red, however, jagged lengths of metal affixed to poles by strips of leather or the tendons of slain beasts. They were brutish and scarred, marauders which had come across the wasteland of wind and earth and metal and had found a trace of their community.

They were as surprised by the woman and her companions as the woman and her companions were by their presence. The shock lasted only a few moments before most of the others which guarded the tunnel mouth fell upon the woman and her companions with ululating cries. One of them turned and retreated upwards, shouting.

The others were skilled, but the woman and her companions were fueled by anger. They stabbed and hewed at each other. The woman proved most deadly. She had been taught arts of war by the strangers in red. Her weapon was stained with the blood of the invaders.

All of the invaders lay dead when it was over. She did not remain uninjured, nor did her companions. One of them was killed. Blood and gasping gurgles emerged from a heinous gash across the throat. The woman bared her teeth as she finished the job.

The other invaders were alerted by now. The woman and her lone remaining companion used their knowledge of the tunnel system beneath their home and the light source she carried to their advantage. They split up to cover ground more quickly. He went with her.

The woman picked off lone invaders, skewering them before they were aware of her presence, leaving them expiring in pools of their own blood.

She came upon some of her fellow residents as well. They were fearful and mistreated. Many wanted for food. She left them some of the packaged bricks of material she had brought along and told them to gather deeper within the tunnels.

When the woman and her companion reunited, they realized they could not overcome all of the invaders. There were too many of them. This also prevented them from rescuing all of their fellow residents. It pained them. They did not want to leave any of them in the invaders' clutches. But they could not stay. They had saved many. They had even secured some supplies from the storage areas in the warren beneath the earth. It would perhaps be enough to bring them to the place they had found.

They turned and fled. The woman used her light-bearing stick to lead the way. The dreadful shouts of the invaders echoed down the tunnels after them.

Vivify

He opened the other door. The woman and her companion looked over at it in surprise. They had not expected it to open so suddenly. He had already moved beyond it, down the hallway beyond. More symbols were on the walls here. At the hall's end lay another chamber, but this one was different from the others. It, too, lay behind a door of metal.

He opened this door as well. It hissed at first, releasing a puff of stale air left trapped behind an impermeable seal. Once the seal had broken, the door slid open silently. Lights winked on, small globes which shone yellow-white. They were set behind transparent panels in the walls, and they illuminated the chamber. The room was cramped and overflowing with containers which lined the room's walls, stacked one atop the other and secured using green straps of elastic material. Each was wrapped in an opaque white sheet, and each had symbols describing its contents. He knew they were full of objects similar to the bricks found on the traveler.

The center of one of the walls had two parallel lines of seats extending from them, black and glossy. They were study and were oriented pointing upwards. Along one wall, right near the door which had just opened and stretching between a pair of openings in the floor and the ceiling, was a ladder made of metal, coated in a white paint. It led both upwards and downwards to identical-looking chambers.

The woman led her companions down the long hallway to the second door. She peered inside first and recoiled. Her expression was confused and subtly frightened. The sterile, metal-plated rooms and hallways of this place must be alien enough to her. A room which was constructed vertically, and which contained objects the like of which she had never seen, served only to further increase her wariness and suspicion.

She was not daunted by the strange surroundings. She said a few words to her companions and handed them her weapon, then she took the rungs of the nearby ladder and began to ascend. The impact of her hands and feet caused the metal of the ladder to ring out with each rung she climbed.

The top level of the series of stacked rooms was identical to all the others. No holes were in the wall, no other doors were visible. The woman tore open one of the wrapped packages and pulled out a handful of its contents. Bricks plummeted from the gash to impact against the walls and distant floor, rendering their contents into a crumbled mess. She climbed back down and reported her findings to her companions.

They spoke among themselves. There were enough of these bricks present to feed all of their companions for a long time. There was shelter here. There was light. All that it lacked was liquid.

He found liquid for them. It bubbled from a length of tubing, drawn from a great cistern which lay below the series of connected chambers. It had been painstakingly gathered there.

They were shocked at the sudden flow of clear liquid. The woman tried it, then put her mouth on the end of the tube and sucked on it until she was sated. Her companions did the same. They spoke more.

They would bring the others here. They could always return up if needed, they reasoned.

They gathered some of the packaged bricks of material to show to the others, as proof of their discovery. They set off again, this time retracing their steps. He went with them still, to be sure.

Understanding

The woman led her companions deeper beneath the earth. The tunnel they followed slanted downward at a shallow angle. It curved slightly to the right. Symbols were on the wall here, as well as alternating stripes of yellow and black. The stripes were angled as if to indicate a direction, the same which the woman and her companions were moving along.

They arrived at an archway. A thick door of lustrous metal attached to stout hinges was open, angled inwards to a chamber which lay beyond it. More sigils, some of which were similar to those which the strangers in red cut into the mortared walls of their constructed edifice, decorated the wall outside of the door.

Beyond the door lay a room.

It was not particularly large. Much of the walls, as well as the floor and ceiling, were plated in reflective metal. Metal husks, some tall and narrow, others short and wide, rested near the room's walls. Flat panes of glossy material hung on one wall above some of the husks. He recalled the very first room and noted this one's similarities to it. The first room had been in much worse shape. The boxy husks in that room above had been worn black, the metal sheets on the walls tarnished. This room was nearly pristine.

The woman and her companions spread out and searched the chamber. Another door lay on the opposite side. This one was shut, but the mechanism to open it was on this side. They found more supplies here in a container. They were more of the powdery, flaky cubes which they had found on the traveler's corpse.

One of the woman's companions bumped something while exploring. A light flashed suddenly on the glossy planes and they lit up, shedding a pale blue glow upon the faces of the woman and her companions. They were startled and raised their weapons defensively, but nothing more happened beyond the screen's surface changing, taking on different hues and colors as images and symbols appeared and then vanished. The three watched the screen with great suspicion as it cycled through a series of iterations. Finally the screen stopped on a single image.

The screen had a number of concentric circles in white upon a solid black surface. The center was dominated by a large sphere of orange. Nearest to the orange sphere was a blue one, which lay upon the innermost of the white circles. Beyond there, upon the remaining white circles traced out on the surface, were five other spheres of varying colors. Each sphere had a series of symbols next to it, some straight and some curved and some a bit of both.

Smaller spheres, solid blobs of white on the black background, were scattered throughout the image. Each of these also had attendant symbols. Most lay near the other, larger circles of different colors. None were near the blue sphere.

He discovered this all felt quite familiar. It was a diagram. He had a role in it. Not directly, but one which touched upon it, like the small white spheres touched tangentially upon the arcs drawn on the screen's surface.

He was to be part of it as well. Separate, in the end, but still connected. He grew aware of what was to be done. He knew why the woman and her companions were to come here. The others of community as well, back far above, shielded by a few ruined scraps of stone and metal from the burning sun locked overhead.

He found focus, at last. He found meaning, finally.

Traveler

He followed the woman and her two remaining companions as they followed the lower tunnel. Its structure and appearance, once they left behind the coarse, toppled remnants of the tunnel which had collapsed from above, became much like the path they had been following before. The walls and floor grew barren and boxy. They were built from smooth slabs of gray stone of monstrous size.

The quiet patter of the woman's careful footsteps echoed and reverberated from the walls. She and her companions walked along the corridor's length for a long time. They fed the tiny flame in their lantern as they went. They fed themselves, as well.

The tunnel seemed to stretch on without an end to them. They communicated as much among themselves. He was not convinced of this fact as they were. He knew that all things came to an end.

The tunnel changed. It no longer gradually curved away into the distance, but split into two paths. The woman did not know which way to go. They sat on the cold stone floor to consider. In the end, they could not arrive at any reason why they should favor the one path over the other. They tore a strip of fabric loose and oriented it so they could how which path would retrace their steps if they returned back this way. Then they took the tunnel heading to the left.

They found another in the tunnel after some time. It was old and did not move. Its skin was wrinkled and shrunken, pulled tight around its bones. Its teeth were bared in a snarling grin. It had on clothing of some variety, but it was not made from the same material as the woman's. It had possessions as well. The woman and her companions investigated them. Those were different from those which they carried, too.

They found squarish packets enclosed in a smooth, reflective coating. They found that their fingers could tear the material open. Inside were dried hunks of material. One of the woman's companions broke a corner off and tested it. It did not seem immediately lethal.

They also found a tube. It was shorter than the woman's forearm. The woman took it and touched a part of it. It cast light from one end, a long, strong beam that shone far brighter than the weak lantern the woman had now, nearly as bright as the light which shone, through the layers of stone and metal which separated her from it, above her head. This brought them more comfort and happiness than the crumbly squares. The light was their savior. With this, they could journey farther and in more safety. This buoyed their confidence.

The woman switched off the thing which made light. She worried that it would cease working if its gift of luminescence were squandered. They left the body behind them and continued on.

He lingered for a while. They had overlooked something, a scrap of material attached at the corpse's waist. It had symbols on its surface and some sort of drawing. He remembered the shape of those symbols.

He then followed after the wavering, distant, faint light of the woman's lantern's tiny flame.