There's cleaning supplies on the floor and some shelves with the same color as the room, even a closet with tools and cleaning robots, the last being shut down. The sour and fruity smell came from the bottles and boxes with cleaning agents, some unproperly closed or with corroded edges, and the filthy rags hanging on the walls. It was really hot, even more than before, and it made breathing difficult. A digital watch hanging on a wall showed the current time: thirty four hours and ten minutes. My fists were closed and my arms were stiff, so I tried to relax them as soon as I was aware of my defensive posture and both of my friends noted this change immediately.
"You okay?" the redhead asked, "You almost let yourself get dragged by the wind, and we can't fly so as to bring you back if that happened,"
Still half focused on my breathing, I managed to nod and pay more attention to her words.
"I'm better than if the wind had carried me away, what happened to you?"
Abril looked at her too. Both had their hair messed up and full of dirt, the breeze must have left me in the same state, as I noticed a bunch of locks of hair that had escaped my ponytail. They also felt stiff when I passed my fingers through them. Wonderful.
"I was behind you, I thought I'd fall next to you, but I didn't have that luck," my friend started to explain us.
Apparently, Jollibeth landed in the middle of a loading area in the Center, and when she came back to her senses, a robot was going towards her at full speed. The girl was able to move out of the way before being crush but it activated a proximity alarm and a bunch of workers ran after her. They didn't even bother trying to communicate with her, they simply dragged the redhead to a room and began asking her questions that she, evidently, wasn't able to understand. They brought a translator to the place, but her story was not convincing enough and they associated her with some rebel spy.
"I think they were taking me to some sort of cell they have in here, but..."
She turned to the entrance door from where we were sheltering. We understood. Some of the chaos could still be heard, but at least no human voice was part of the terrifying symphony played on the outside. Although, it was always possible that the screams were being drowned by the powerful wind that was blowing...
"Point is, I saw this place on the way, that's why I brought us here," the redhead cut right through my grim thoughts, "What about you?"
"A warehouse full of dust," Abril replied, words started slipping out of her mouth, "Literally, inside a storage room that was full of dust. With boxes and those things, it was super dark. Then we went out and the lock of the door was broken, and we got scared and went through some hallways that were also dark, but not as dark as the storage room, and when we finally got out we saw you and then the explosion and-"
"Yeah, Abril, she knows that part," I interrupted, exhaling and leaning on the wall. I felt exhausted and dizzy, everything was getting worst. What worried me the most now was, how the hell were we going to leave? How to explain to the officers what had happened? How we ended up there, to begin with...
Oh. And what happened on the previous planet: the three rebel boys that were sealing portals. Should I mention this to my friends? Was it safe? They had seen their faces too, or at least one of the three. If they suspected that we were rebels for suddenly appearing at an Exportation Center and we started talking about young rebels who were sealing portals, it would look ironically accusatory on us.
Shit, I wanted to believe that everything was a nightmare, but I wasn't waking up.
"Mel," Jolly called, she'd seemed to have done multiple attempts on getting my attention, judging by the tone of her voice.
"What is it?"
"Yes, what is it? What is it that happened at the previous planet? We came for you because you hadn't come back and found you inside the building with another guy!"
My gaze went from her to Abril. To tell the truth, I wasn't a hundred percent sure about what had happened yet, and telling half truths could bring them more problems. And if I told them a lie, I could also get them in trouble, but at the same time, they could separate themselves from the matter if it got worse and we ended up in prison cells, being questioned by a pastir officer...
"Uhm, you know, your silence is not a valid answer in this case," Abril told me, looking a bit lost, "We happen to not read minds,"
"Yeah, yeah, just... I'm trying to put my ideas in order," I excused myself, with a poorly fabricated smile in my face, "Uhm... it was... a boy,"
"Yeah... we noticed."
"Well, he was lost. I went to the central building to check if there was anyone trapped in the fire or something, and I heard a voice inside, so I looked for an air duct or something..." Ok, so, until this part, everything was true, now came the non-real section of my story, "And yeah, turns out the boy was stuck in there, I think he was an intern or something like that,"
"That young?" Jolly sounded impressed.
I shrugged.
"It was weird but I didn't think about asking anything else, I was more focused on avoiding his death. And avoiding mine as well," I stood up, trying to take some distance for a moment. The cleaning room wasn't small, but a big part of it was being occupied by the cleaning robots, "The exit door where you came from couldn't be opened from the inside, not sure why, and before we tried going back through the vent, an alarm came from the portal equipment, like, I think it was destabilizing,"
"That's why it released remnants..." Jolly added, frowning, "Just like the one from our city, back on Earth."
I nodded. Both seemed even more confused, and I was just like them. I mean, I knew about a very obvious reason for the destabilization of the portal where we initially fell, but I wasn't sure if the exact same had happened with the one from our city. Could they be related?
"So, what do we do?" The brunette looked uneasy, "Should we try and talk with the officers again? See if this time they'll listen to us..."
"First we have to wait for all this... 'end-of-the-world' thing that's happening outside" the redhead suggested, grimacing, "We don't even know where they went to hide, everyone fled in the same direction."
"Yeah," I mumbled, my attention going back to the chaotic rumbling coming from outside, "It's an Exportation Center... they should have a place to shelter in case of any disaster,"
After a brief moment of silence, my eyes began to wander the inside of the room, passing from bottles and cleaning tools, to walls and the stairs leading to the exit. Then, I noticed an announcement pasted on one of the walls closer to me and, to my surprise, it was written in more than one language. I spotted russian, english, spanish, french, chinese, and I was sure that the rest had to be extraterrestrial languages; all the characters were completely unknown to me. I got closer to read its content, and found important information.
"I know where we are!" I told my friends, thrilled, "We're at Miko-74!"
"Miko what?" Abril repetead.
Jollibeth blinked, then made the connection.
"Oooh!" she let out, "Miko planet, the one with the sand bugs?"
"Yes!"
"What am I missing?" the brunette seemed lost.
"Abril, we saw this in geography last year," I tried heping her remember but didn't see a reaction in her face that indicated any success on my behalf, "The planet that was assigned to Jorge, when he dressed as a cowboy and brought a giant bug made of cardboard and which you crushed with the door."
"Yeah, I remember that... but truth be told, I didn't exactly listen to his presentation,"
"Point is that in planet Miko, everyone lives inside mountains because that's where the water is and it's also free of sand, and they also have their Exportation Centers at the top of those mountains," I opened my arms, as if to help her get the picture of where we were standing, "We are at the top of the mountain."
"I know all of this is supposed to make me realize something, but it's not happening," Abril apologized, her lips tightening at the end.
"Abril, they went back to the city," the redhead explained, who still had some patience left, unlike me, "Their shelter has to be the underground city, all of their centers are connected directly to them and their entrances are super reinforced to protect them from the wild beatles from the dessert,"
"So... we have to look for that entrance?"
"Yes" Me and Jolly ratified.
"Okay… but when the disaster ends," she continued, "Because I don't want to die toasted by a fire tornado."
"It shouldn't take that long for it to end, I know about one that happened in Japan a long time ago, and it only lasted fifteen minutes or so," the redhead pressed her back on the wall, "It's been almost twenty, maybe it's not even outside anymore. We'll just wait a bit more."
Nevertheless, the floor kept trembling under our feet, but with less intensity. How long did we have to wait? I checked the clock, and only three minutes had passed during our conversation. No disaster ended that quickly, I knew that. Mine, at least, had lasted for a few hours. The lights started blinking and the three of us watched the bulbs in silence and anguish.
"What if it doesn't hold?" Abril whispered.
"We won't hold out there," I replied, sighing.
Jollibeth went from checking me to Abril, and she mimicked my sigh, dropping to the floor and subsequently, leaning on the wall.
"Then, let's wait" she said.
And we did.
We sat in silence, trying not to let the strong hissing of the air intimidate us, nor let us be consumed by the anxiety we felt when we thought about our current state. For a couple of minutes, my mind traveled back to the planet with the giant flowers, and all of what happened with the boys reenacted itself inside my head. I was trying to make some sense of everything, for example, the time the doors close on my face without them moving from their spots. How did that even happened? I kept repeating that event in my head, over and over, but couldn't find an explanation, unless I added some uknown technology to the picture. It could be that they had some artifact that pulled the doors, but I was also sure that they had nothing in their hands at the moment of our encounter. Besides, I didn't remember seeing anything either on the hands of the third member, I couldn't imagine what or how they had closed that portal.
Of course, theoretically, destabilizing the controllers should do the trick, but judging by the conversation they had, that didn't seem to be what they were doing.
Everything was so confusing.
"Hey," said Abril, her gaze on the doors, "You hear that?"
Her words pulled me out of my thoughts and I paid attention. Nothing. I heard nothing at all. My eyes went straight to the digital clock on the wall, only to find that we had been an hour and twenty minutes waiting inside that hole. I haven't even noticed the numbness in my limbs after being in the same position for so long. I stood up.
"Then, let's go."
Jolly stood up as well, looking at me with severity.
"Mel," she seemed uncomfortable, "I think it's best that you stay here while Abril and me look for the entrance,"
"What? Why?"
Abril followed, the same facial expression.
"Well, there's fire outside... and you got pretty bad before."
I shaked my head.
"No! No! I'm fine now, it was... it was just so sudden," I tried to convince them, "It won't happen again, I promise. I can go."
Both turned to the exit without even looking at me. Jollibeth carried a way more resolute expression than Abril. They were not going to allow me to go.
"Please, understand," the brunette told me, apologetically.
I wanted to argue, but she was right. I understood. I had just given in to a panick attack at the most imperative moment, and they had to drag me to our current shelter. Having me in that state had only put them in danger. Against every fiber in my body that wanted to refute their fears and explain that it wouldn't happen again, I decided that it was best not to be selfish and respect their decision.
They both left the cleaning basement, watching carefully their surroundings. From the bottom, where I was, I detected the smoky smell in the air and my body replied by making my hair stand. Abril and Jolly took a last glimpse at me.
"We'll come back as soon as we find the entrance or if there's an emergency," they assured.
"Why don't you text me? We should have signal" I suggested.
"You've got your phone?" Jolly asked, raising one of her eyebrows.
"Yeah," I took it out of one of my short's pockets.
Oh, there was no signal. Shit. Why was there no signal? Did I had to pay to use the communication satellites from other planets?
"Well, lucky you, because mine was inside my backpack," the redhead complained, clearly frustrated.
I blinked. It was true, we had backpacks when the portal reached us in front of the school, but we didn't have them anymore after landing at the previous planet. Apart from my house keys, I didn't believe I had anything of value in there, but their disappearance did left me puzzled. For what I knew, my backpack could have ended in a different planet. My friends seemed to notice my confusion.
"It doesn't matter anymore, we probably lost them forever," said Abril, "Anyways, we'll be back for you as soon as we find that entrance, ok?"
I nodded, my lips pressed.
Abril closed the door and I was left alone in a quiet basement. I looked at the clock on the wall and decided to wait... for about two minutes. I thought that'd be time enough for my friends to get some distance, but when I sticked my head out of the improvised shelter, both of them were standing about three feet away from the doors with their arms crossed.
"Hi," I let out, after an awkward silence, "You're still here."
"You know, if I did what you're doing right now, you'd be very pissed of," the brunette claimed, "In fact, you wouldn't let me hear the end of it."
"Ok, I'm sorry, I'll go back to my hole."
"Mel," Jolly was threatening.
"I truly will, I'll wait here," I insisted, feeling a bit guilty... A bit, "I was anxious, I didn't do it with bad intentions."
"We know you didn't, but please," Jollibeth added, going from a strict to a pleading tone, "Please, stay."
I restrained myself from letting out a heavy sigh and just nodded. I closed the doors and sat on the floor, again staring at the clock. I could wait, I had done it before.
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