"Uh...guys? We've got ardents coming!" I quickly took aim and shot at the ones at the front. Using the few seconds it used to reload to aim.
"From what direction?" Merah sked through comms
"Everywhere!" I yelled back as I continued to fire. Sean grabbed Merah's arm and flew her to where I was. They both helped me up and we ran through the half-destroyed building.
"The cryogenics room is in the basement of the building," Merah said as we loped down a hallway. We reached the bank of elevators and she forced the doors open and stuck her head through, as did I. The elevator was floors above, she turned to us.
"We will climb down."
Sean sighed. "I better fly down and see what's waiting there." She nodded and he slowly rose from the ground, carried by an unseen breeze, before carefully turning upside down and flying into the gaping darkness till he disappeared beyond our line of sight.
I felt chilly as goosebumps erupted all over my body, i wrapped my arms around myself, straining my ears for any sounds. Merah had already maneuvered her body through the elevator shaft till she reached the metal ladder attached to the walls on the left.
As soon as she was far enough away I followed behind, or atop her, as we climbed down carefully. The shaft was completely devoid of light, the electricity was completely gone, had probably been gone since the invasion ten years ago.
Slowly we climbed down till I felt arms come around me, I nearly shrieked until I felt a hand close over my mouth.
"It's me," Sean whispered and my heart stopped palpitating. It had to be the dark, and mostly this whole fucking day, i wasn't usually one to be scared of the dark. "Let go of the ladder, I got you." His breath fanned the wisps of hair by my face, tickling my jaw and initiating a shudder.
I did as he asked and the faint movement of air around us was the only clue we were moving till we landed on solid ground. Everything was completely dark so I pulled out my gun and turned on the flash to see by. There wasn't much to see.
Soon I felt the wind flutter behind me and turned to illuminate Sean as he dropped Merah. She took my gun and moved ahead of us through the dark hallways. "Come on, it's this way." She was the one that had studied the plans of the building, although i had visited my dad here once before, it was when I was a child and i hadn't gone wandering.
Sean and I followed, at some point we began to jog. The massive building had an even bigger basement somehow. It took us nearly twenty minutes of searching to find the right room. Hidden behind a pile of crates, stood the dusty, old, but sturdy door. We could see the cryo pod beyond the small glass window.
"Step back." We did as Merah bade and moved away from her, she reached out to the door and was about to do something with her powers.
"Wait!" I yelled and moved in front of the lock.
She frowned. "What are you doing? The spyders will be here soon."
"If you smash the lock, how will we close it back from the other side? How will we safeguard it?" I turned to look at the locking mechanism. It was the kind that came with a wheel, the code to the keypad was needed to unlock the wheel turning mechanism, a code we didn't have. "We won't be able to hold it closed if you force it open."
She had such a deeply sad look in her eyes that made me frown. I did not like that look. Nothing good ever came from it.
"The seer Saw, Lily. Trust me?"She had brows up and we had a little stare-down before I moved out of her way and she did what she had intended to the door. If a seer had Seen then there was nothing I could do. We heard skittering down the way we had come and I turned to see Sean flash the light of my gun at fast approaching ardents.
"You might wanna hurry with that!" Sean yelled as he shot at them.
With a resounding crash, she forced the door open and we ran inside, i realised that she had completely broken the wall on the other side, the metal lining and all, now the only way to hold that door close would be...oh no. She stretched her arm towards the door and her moon mark lit up in the near gloom as she held it shut with her telekinesis alone. Straining as the large group of ardent trying to get in, fought against her.
The room was awash in red light, powered by some kind of backup generator that ran independently of other facilities. How had it been around long enough for this? Could it even take what we were about to do?
The pod lay in resplendent glory on a slightly raised platform. I climbed slowly to peek inside, but it stayed dark. Sean headed to a far wall where some weird-looking outfits hung. I looked away when he picked one, still trying to make sense of the room.
"What now?" I asked as I took a seat on one of the nearby crates.
Merah looked away from the door although both hands were stretched towards it. She flashed Sean a look and the next thing I knew Sean was dropping one of the weird outfits on my lap. I frowned down at it before looking up at him.
"Whats this?" I let the strangely liquid cloth flow through my fingers and puddle on the floor before I stood up and looked at both of them. "What is this?"
Sean had already moved away to tinker with something by the pod. "Just Put it on Ilya, I promise to tell you everything." I stepped away from the puddle on the floor.
"No fucking way, you're the one supposed to wear it, you're the one that is going in the pod why all of a sudden are you trying to make me do it?" I stepped back from both of them.
At that moment, I was more terrified than I had ever been. I had noticed the looks they kept exchanging, the furtive glances from certain people even before the mission began. What exactly was going on? Was this some kind of elaborate plan to get rid of me?
"It wasn't all of a sudden," Merah finally said through gritted teeth and she bared them at the door she was holding back with her powers. She was getting to her limit already, just how many were waiting beyond that door?
"What does that mean?" I asked her but she grunted and appeared to put all her strength in the door and couldn't answer so I looked to Sean. "What is she talking about?"
He too had that sad look in his eyes, "The seer Saw some terrible."
I was sweating and freezing at the same time. He had said it before but now I understood. You see, of all the gifts, no matter how powerful, non were as advantageous as foresight. The ability to see things before they took place. It was the only thing that had kept us all alive all this time, their sights were always right.
"Yes I know, everyone knows, that is why we embarked on this stupid mission. You're supposed to get in the cryo pod and sleep for ten years so you can warn the people in the future about something I wasn't cleared to know about."
"We lied," he ran his hands through his hair. "it wasn't me that went through in that vision, it was you."
My mouth dropped open. "Wh...what?" I raised my hands to my hair and tried to force down my erratic breathing. "Are you saying the seer saw me make the cryo sleep journey into the future? Why?" my gaze jumped between the two of them.
"I am nobody, I-I have no notable power. I can talk to animals but almost all animals are dead and gone, what good will my power do?" I didn't even know I'd been pacing until Sean stopped me with a firm hand on my shoulder.
"You are more than you know Ilyana, we do not have time to explain everything to you. The seer Saw that if we told you or everyone the true plan we wouldn't have made it here. Can you trust us? When you joined the Verdeant you vowed to reveal the Rohiren for what they truly are and liberate all humans under their thrall. Do you still stand by that oath?"
My eyes were locked on his and a tense moment of silence occurred. "Yes, I still stand by the oath but ten years is a long time. How will I meet you guys again? You're..." I took a deep breath, "You're all I have left." I mumbled and i felt his hand wipe the tear that i didn't even know had slid out.
"I know," he said, "everything is going to be okay."
He moved away from me, refusing to meet my eyes. Oh no, I knew that look. I held his arm and moved around to face him again.
"What?"
Neither he nor Merah spoke and the only sound was the muffled struggling beyond the door and the sound of sand falling from the cracking doorway.
"Sean, what aren't you telling me?"
He groaned and finally met my eyes. "You're not sleeping for ten years Ilya, you're sleeping for a hundred."
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