My hand approached the end of the real world, knowing it'd be disadvantaged. My fingers handled each string of fate as if I didn't see the ends with my own two eyes. The longest required me to sacrifice my daughter; the shortest required my sacrifice, and the one in between sacrificed both of us.

I blindly followed the string in the middle this whole time. And this is where it led me, this desolate place the inhabitants call Consonance. It is a saddening post-apocalyptic environment, where those who remain are destined to die.

I acted as if I belonged to this place, investigated the people and its locations, and recognized what this place really was. I figured it was a trap a long time ago; they knew my name and had me wake up where they would know my location.

What bothered me the most about the tune of this stage was the lack of my daughter's words. Unfortunately, I'm a stranger in her eyes, a lost stranger, just as she views herself. It's all my fault.

And now, I'm unable to find you in this reality. Where would you be? Possibly their headquarters, but I'd assume it'd be heavily guarded. I hope she has managed without me this far, or else I don't know what I would do with myself.

My time has already ended here. They caught up to me just a few steps ago, I heard their footsteps, and as unfortunate as it may be. Camilla, I won't be able to be there for you during your big moment. As a parent, my only responsibility was keeping you safe after bringing you to this world.

I'm sorry, Camilla, for being such a terrible mother when you most needed it.

♢♢♢

After a rough battle with the shapeshifters defending the gate at the Armonia Headquarters, your group decided to set foot inside. The facility from the inside consisted of several sectioned rooms, big white marble walls, and a black tile floor. Upon following the path through the entrance, a machine blocking the way lights up with indecipherable text.

"Hmm. The text on the machine is unreadable; you can't even make out letters," Fortunata said while trying to decipher anything on the screen. You were utterly confused; maybe they decided to use shapes for a combination?

"Maybe they used some foreign language! Like! Uhm," Carlotta attempted to help by giving a vast amount of ideas, some plausible and others ridiculous.

Fortunata started pressing black buttons around the machine, each time she pressed a button, it made a slightly toned-down sound. "I see. I understand now, the machine is displaying music notation; however, due to the age of this device, it is somewhat erased."

After following a specific tune, the machine gets sucked into the floor, allowing them to continue inside the building. "This place is damn weird... I have never seen a thing like this in my whole life," Vitalia stated as she followed the others forward.

Finally, you've all approached the starting area of the headquarters. Sectioned rooms with small hallways leading to each other, a set of stairs leading to the second floor, and multiple reception desks scattered around.

The building still had plenty of natural light entering from the outside; however, it was still dark enough to be terrifying. "The smell is certainly not the best, the walls are covered in mold, and the floors are cracked to pieces. It's been a while since this place was in use at all." Fortunata placed her index finger around the walls and floors, she would then smell the odors that would attach to it.

"Something's weird... but I can't put my mind on it. Well, I say we should individually search through each room in this building, if anything happens, just scream."

You immediately opened a door leading into one of the many rooms in the second hallway, it had a desk, a chair, and some books thrown around. There were some posters glued to the walls of the room as well, they stuck out more than anything else around the room.

The poster displayed a drawing, it had a blue sky extending across, a red ocean, and a woman kneeling above the red ocean. It also had a quote at the bottom, "We allow the world to see the truth. We allow her to seek the world's retribution. Elysium Deas."

"What the hell are you doing, Camilla?" Vitalia suddenly walks in the room, you were spacing out a little and didn't even notice. You pick up one of the books, it was fully blank, there was no front, back, or even any content in general.

You do the same with the other books scattered around on the floor, but they all have no content whatsoever. "Why would this person have so many blank books?"

Vitalia grabbed one of the books, she tried slowly going page by page to verify what you said. It was true, there was nothing written, or even drawn on them. "What the actual hell? Maybe it's just this room, right?"

The two of you decide to go into the next room, other than being slightly messier, it also had many blank books, a desk, a chair, and the exact same poster attached to the wall. Carlotta and Fortunata walk in the room. "Blank books! So many blank books! And those weird, weird posters."

"We found the same damn things. It doesn't make any sense. Why would they put so many blank rooms in here?" Vitalia threw one of the books away, she looked stressed. None of what they'd found had made any sense.

"On the way to the rooms I checked, there was a sign that described the second floor as the Correction Hall. I'm not sure what type of corrections the employees here did, but we should definitely head there now as we've not found anything here," Fortunata pointed toward the long set of stairs.

All of you started following Fortunata's steps ahead. "This place is a little freaky. Hah, yeah. A little scary," Vitalia's face looked a little frightened, her arms shaky, and her voice did not sound as confident as usual.

Carlotta grabs her hand, seemingly putting Vitalia at ease. Fortunata had finally reached the end of the stairs, you approached right behind her. There was one big room with wood planks blocking the entrance door and any windows, there was also a set of stairs right next to you leading to the third floor of the building.

"I'll use my lightning stuff to explode the entrance open," you said confidently. Fortunata stared at you awkwardly. "Vitalia's probably able to open it for us."

Vitalia walked toward the entrance and kicked the door covered in wood planks, it flew away, but the inside of the room looked a lot darker than the other areas, as it lacked any natural light coming from the outside.

"Do we... really have to?" Vitalia stuttered as she stood firmly on the floor. Carlotta continued to hold her hand as they walked inside the room. You and Fortunata followed behind, the room was nearly pitch black, the only light emitted was from machines scattered around. The machines resembled the one at the main entrance, the same music notation, and black buttons surrounding it.

Vitalia and Carlotta had gone on ahead, you two started looking around the desks in the room. A few of them had notes, which were written in actual language. The notes contained schedules, office routines, and musical notation written to match specific chords.

Some of the desks had names written on them, a majority were undecipherable, but some of them stuck out. "Vincenza and Marinella. Those are the only names that are readable; unfortunately, the mold in this room has made the names unclear." Fortunata sat on the floor while tracing each name with her finger.

You continue to wander around, the same desks, and notes were all that was left in the first section of the room. Or at least that's what you thought, until you approached a shelf. "Did they miss this massive book somehow?"

The large book was black, it had hundreds of pages, all containing names, ages, dates, and reasons. "Reasons? 'Could not hit sound level.' What does that mean? And why is everyone here barely even 5 years old?"

You continued to look through each page wondering what any of it meant. Out of curiosity, you decided to look for your name, but it wasn't there. You did another look for others' names, Fortunata wasn't a hit.

That's when uneasiness hit your body. Carlotta's name was registered on the book, the same as Vitalia's name, they were also some of the only kids listed without a reason. "Why are their names here?"

Your realization also brought you back to reality. Fortunata was nowhere to be seen, and when you called out for Vitalia and Carlotta's names, they were also not responding. You decide to slowly walk toward the only door they could've gone through...