Like baby ducks, we followed in a straight line after the ex-leader of the surviving group earlier. He and George Kruger were the only people everyone here respected.

The sky, or rather the ceiling of the tower, looked like a night sky. Thousands of little bluish lights specked high above us, illuminating our way on the ground. It was a sight anyone would admire, but I couldn't. 

My mind had found something, and now it was gnawing at me.

The voice had been right. All. The. Time. And that bothered me.

We had done precisely as ‘fate’ told us beforehand. Several victims had died in vain, perchance. Perhaps, if we hadn’t killed anyone, everyone would have survived. Or would they have found their end by the meteor, regardless? Or something else?

I wasn’t sure, but the idea, that everything eventually just turned out like this, inevitability, had found a place in my brain and now grew like a tumor. The sentences by the Voice weren’t orders or potential outcomes; it was just what would definitely happen.

It made me highly uncomfortable that this whole situation was maybe predetermined by a higher power and therefore completely out of my hands. A shudder traveled through my body.

I wondered if the quiet voice also had been part of the ‘fate’ that we experienced. As strange as it seemed, it felt so out of place this whole time.

“Hmm…” 

People whispered again. Startled, I elevated my head.

The walled arcs left and right had given way to two still gigantic, but, compared to the dome and the portal at the entrance, almost minuscule, doors. Metallic rectangles were attached in the middle between them. A small extra star, a bluish light, shone down on each one like a stage light.

“Which one should we take?” The Ex-Leader of the motivators asked unsurely.

“We should divide, I would say.” A man in a green vest said. “We already have two groups, so why not just go in this constellation?”

“I think we should stay together.” I disagreed.

I said nothing else and instead observed the reactions. If ‘the fate voice’ was always right, then dividing was the only option again. Before, we only superficially divided into teams but never properly separated. The people here would have to lament and be adamant to divide to make the scenario — the predetermined scenario — happen.

“No, I’m also thinking dividing is the better option. At least one group has a better chance of surviving, then.” The Ex-leader agreed with the man in the green vest and shook his head.

“Have you never seen a horror movie, old man? We will all die if we divide.” A little girl rolled her eyes. Her appearance was striking.

Absurd was an understatement for this sight. She was maybe 12 years old. Her face and her dark, oversized hoodie were splattered with half-dried but still sticky, red blood. The straight black bob cut with the way too short fringe on the forehead wobbled when she turned her head. I could see tear marks from run makeup on her face, but her expression right now was unmoved.

The leader took a step back. “I’m not saying we should go alone, but divide in half. We are plenty. There will be abundant people in each group.” 

“Duh, but we will get fewer every time we divide. Do y'all really want to separate into groups?” She waited for anyone to react, but it stayed quiet. She sighed. “That Eonni there seems to be the only reasonable person.” 

“Eonni?” asked the leader and pushed up his white cap.

“The young looking adult woman with white hair… Are you stupid?”

“… Actually, it’s platinum,” I mumbled.

She heard it. “Oh, sorry, my bad. The light here is horrible. Looks great, honestly!” 

I couldn’t say anything to that. “Thanks.”

The tiny figure, who was an entire head smaller than me, waved her hand as if to drive away a fly.

The man in the blue shirt and white cap cleared his throat. “Ahem, How about this?” striking a confident tone, he spoke, “We vote.”

After a pause of breath and a look around, he continued, “of course, I cannot decide on the lives of anyone. Let's give everyone the option to vote for themselves, no? Let’s all decide where we want to go, individually.”

“Fine, whatever... Hey, Eonni! You seem sensible. I’ll stay with you for now.” Then the girl tugged my sleeve on the right. Phee still held my hand on the other side. I felt like a babysitter.

“Which way?” She asked. “Ah, by the way, my name is Nanuq Thiel and my pronouns are she/they. What about you? Ah, do you even go by she/her pronouns? Sorry for assuming. If you go by he/him pronouns, I’d have to change Eonni to Oppa, but that’s endearing, I think. That would be weird.”

“Uhm, no, it’s fine. I go by she/her pronouns, I guess. My name is Yu Anya. Do you speak Korean by chance?”

“Ah, no, I just had a huge K-Pop phase two years ago. I know, it’s a little cringe, but the music slapped, no cap... Uhm… It’s really good.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Ah! Are you Korean? Because of your name and all? And you put Yu in front of Anya. I guess your surname is Yu. Am I right? But you don’t look Asian that much with the light hair and all… Is that natural?” She put her hand on her lip and plugged it a few times, observing me.

“I’m half Korean. And it’s natural, yes. My brother has the same hair, too.”

“Oh, you have a brother, too? Nice. You do speak Korean, yes? I wish I had learned back then. But school was sooo much trouble, you know. I’ll call you Eonni then, okay? Always wanted to call someone that.”

“… sure…”

I stood a little away from the group so that I wouldn’t be shoved around. George Kruger stood, of course, amidst the chattering people. He did not enjoy it too much, though. Helplessly, he looked at me. 

I shook my head to answer him. Group dynamics and opinions aren’t easy to shift, so nobody should know that he depended on anyone. It would make him look less trustworthy. The time was too short to form a sense of loyalty and comradeship from vulnerability. Right now, they were seeking a powerful leader. For now, he should stay there.

“We should take the left path.” Phee suddenly said. He had a stern look on his face, fixating on the entrance on the left. Maybe that look was what made Nanuq Thiel not question his opinion.

“Hey, old man! We go left. You do you.”

Unsure, I looked from one child to another. They nodded in unison and walked to the left door. Poor me was dragged along.

George Kruger shoved himself through the crowd towards the left door, too. He bowed and apologized to the people he pushed away. Ultimately, he arrived simultaneously with the kids and me.

“You go for this portal?” He asked surprised after spotting me.

“They dragged me along. But why are you surprised? Didn’t you follow us here?” I replied, perplexed.

“No?” He said. Then he scratched his head. “… I thought you meant… I shouldn't…”

Automatically, my hand wanted to free itself from Nanuq Thiel’s clutches and ruffle his hair. However, I held back. “It’s fine. Now that you’re here, we already have 4 people. I wonder who the other… 8 members will be.”

“Why exactly eight? Are you not hoping for everyone to come here?” Nanuq asked.

“Because it’s fate,” I just said and shrugged my shoulders.

“Fate, huh?” She closed her eyes and bobbed up and down with her feet. Up, down. Up, down.

“Should we go ahead?” Phee asked, ready to take a step.

Nanuq Thiel intervened.

“No! Horror movies, remember?” With the hands on her hips, she looked older. 16 maybe. I took back that statement immediately when she bobbed up and down again.

The crowd was slowly dividing. 

The leader with the blue shirt stood in front of the other door, wildly gesticulating. In an instant, a crowd had gathered around us as well. Only two people remained in the middle between the doors, unsure of their choice. Arno Holmann was one of them. The other one was the blonde girl that had followed him since earlier. 

The problem was that the girl wanted to go to the right door, while Arno Holmann wanted to join us. While they didn't want to separate, they also did not want to be apart. Additionally, our group had more individuals. We already were twelve people, so they inevitably would go to the right door. What use was there waiting for them?

I told George Kruger and the children to be ready to move. Whereupon George Kruger organized the order for leaving.

The door was wide enough for five people to go through shoulder to shoulder, but the path behind it gradually narrowed. One couldn’t see far, since it was dark. However, the descending floor 7 meters from us was visible. I deduced that it was a staircase.

Arno Holmann and the blonde girl eventually chose the other door, and after almost thirteen minutes of waiting, we finally started moving.

Our group was a wild mixture of individuals. A guy named Jacob took the lead in the dark. He looked like a stereotypical nerd in school if it weren’t for the shattered glasses that still sat on his nose, and the bandages on his arms and hand, which made him look more like a boxer. Next to him walked a woman with a dark ponytail, whose name I forgot. I recognized her as the woman who almost fell down from the cliff in the beginning and then was rescued by George Kruger. A loud, chattering couple in their fifties followed them. After that came three people — two men, and one woman, who looked so ordinary that — in case they did something unjust, you would have to file a complaint against unknown persons. Their faces were just so forgettable. 

“They are probably spies.” Nanuq Thiel jokingly said.

To me, they seemed exactly like the aunt of Harry Potter. A person whose only purpose in life was to be part of the ‘normal’ neighborhood, to have a ‘normal’ family, and in the end, have a ‘normal’ death. The situation right now was not ‘normal’. How did they even survive, of all people? Maybe they weren’t as ordinary as they seemed. Nanuq Thiel’s spy theory started to grow on me.

Behind the ordinary spies walked a Chinese man in his late twenties. He said he was a programmer for Mata, the social media tech giant. His income seemed to be quite high since he wore a fitted suit and the silver watch also looked expensive.

Then came the two children, Nanuq Thiel and Phee, with me. George Kruger came in last.

We walked down the slippery and overgrown stairs, careful not to fall over. The path led further into the walls. After we followed the plunging pathway for a while, it became wider again. A warm wind blew in our direction, and the humidity had increased. Surprisingly, it didn’t smell moldy at all. The air was clear, like right after a short summer rain.

“Wow.” the woman with the ponytail said and stopped. 

The path had opened up into a room. The room wasn‘t big compared to the tower's entrance, but the view was still breathtaking. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, and big, sturdy stalagmites had formed on the floor over a long time from the small drops of water dripping down from time to time. The sound from the drops echoed cadenced in the small space, reminding me of indoor swimming pools. 

“Look at this!” 

“It looks like a magic circle.”

“It could be a mechanism, too.”

“Maybe it’s just art…” Nanuq Thiel remarked.

On the floor, amidst the stalagmites, was a big, round mosaic. It depicted stars, several moons in different stages of their cycle, a few other objects, and the same cryptic swirls and lines that I already had seen in the letter to the ruler’s son.

‘The little voice sure would be helpful now,’ I thought, hoping it would again translate the text for me. But nothing of the sort happened. I sighed internally.

In the middle of the mosaic, black stones formed the picture of a hand. I went closer. The other people examined the circle, too.

Everyone was still cautious from the brutal reactions from the Voice of Fate earlier. Their fear, however, had calmed down in the few minutes that we walked. In my case, I still was emotionless about the situation before and more distressed about the possible unavoidable destiny.

“Fu-ah!”

Suddenly, someone was lit by a flash of light from above. 

“Ahh!”

It was the woman from the ordinary spies. 

“… Oh.” She quickly retracted her foot from the mosaic. The light dimmed immediately. 

A little blinded, we tried to orientate ourselves. 

“Fu-ah!”

“Fu-ah!”

Again, the light got triggered. This time, the middle-aged man and the Chinese tech guy were illuminated. The middle-aged man backed up quickly, like the spy before. The other man stayed. He looked around the room, which now was bright. After a few seconds, wherein nothing happened except the blinding light’s appearance, more people stepped on the round mosaic.

“Fu-ah!”

“Fu-ah!”

“Fu-ah!”

“Fu-ah!”

The three spies and the middle-aged woman stood under the headlight. 

“Look!”

A glowing ring lit up around the circle-shaped mosaic on the floor. It was the same faint blueish light as the stars in the entrance hall.

“Werner! Come here too.”

“Fu-ah!”

The middle-aged woman had drawn in her husband as well.

Another ring lit up.

“I wonder if something happens if all of us stand in the magic circle.” The tech guy said.

“Should we go too?” Phee and Nanuq Thiel looked at me, expectant. 

“Is it safe? Have you heard anything?” Phee asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Nanuq Thiel tilted her head from one side to the other, thinking hard. 

While she was thinking, I noticed black smoke coming from the walls of the chamber. The dark clouds drifted slowly but steadily to the middle of the room.

“Fu-ah!”

“Fu-ah!”

Jacob and the ponytail woman joined the illuminated as well. George Kruger followed them.

“Fu-ah!”

He gestured for me to come up, too, as the third circle lit up around the mosaic. The smoke came closer. My hackles raised. The smoke gave me goosebumps.

I was already moving to the middle when Nanuq Thiel decided. “Let’s do it. I might be scared, and I realized earlier I didn’t really want to die at fifteen. Maybe we get to go home after this?” 

She was 15? She looked younger than 15. Maybe because she was Asian? Or because of her height. She was an entire head smaller than me, and I wasn’t tall, either. Maybe it was the face. The round face was cute, even with the short black bob cut.

I brushed this line of thought aside. The smoke came from behind, too. Hurriedly, we tapped on the mosaic.

“Fu-ah!”

“Fu-ah!”

“Fu-ah!”

Instead of a fourth circle, radial lines appeared around us, starting from the edge of the mosaic. Twelve lines rushed to the walls into the smoke. The shining lines absorbed the thick billows and turned them dark.

In only a moment, the glowing lines became black, darker than the surrounding stone. Then, at the outermost crossing points of the radial lines and the rings, the black smoke leaked. It swirled around, became faster, and eventually took form. 

A circle of twelve eerily smoking figures had formed around us.