CHAPTER XXI. 30 minutes
In my limited understanding, I can't understand what this place is. Thankfully www.biquge.info, there's at least no fog here, and there doesn't seem to be anything else.
It was a rectangular space with a very simple structure, and my back was a coarsely painted wall with cement, a pitted ceiling, and a broken kerosene lamp that had long since ceased to work. At one end of the room was a black podium that looked like a coffin, and behind the podium was a large arched fresco. Although a thin layer of ash has accumulated on the surface of the mural, it can still be vaguely seen that the painting is very detailed. The picture is a dense crowd of people trampling on each other chasing the blood-red sky, and the person closest to the sky in the painting has a finger with a notched circle on it, which is the sign erected on the outside of the building. Directly opposite the podium were three smooth columns, behind which there was a dark corridor leading out of nowhere. The sound of the organ was still coming intermittently, but it seemed to be muffled by the wall, and there was a faint sound of dripping water nearby.
"Hey, can anyone hear me?" Again, with a glimmer of hope, I tried to reach out to others through the headset.
This time there was a response.
"Aya 17?" It is the voice of Ki 87.
I almost cheered with excitement, but I managed to keep my composure.
"Where are you?"
"That's a good question, I don't know where I am, what about the others?"
"I'm separated from them, and I can't get any signals from anyone else."
"How did you get separated?"
"I came in and found the house full of fog, and then I felt a wall, and that wall would flip and send me to a ...... I can't tell you what this place is, but it seems to be safe for the time being. What about you? ”
"I just escaped from the fog, and I don't know what was hidden in the fog."
"I don't want to remember being there either."
"Looks like if there's a second time, we'll have to bring a device that can smoke the fog," Ji 87 laughed to himself in the headphones, "Okay, now that we can get in touch with each other for the time being, let's see if we can have a chance to meet." I have a few pillars here, and there is a corridor behind the pillars. ”
"I have it here, do you have a mural here?"
"No, I seem to have an empty lobby here, with nothing but pillars and hallways."
"Shall I go find you?"
Although there is no danger in this place at the moment, it inexplicably makes me not want to stay longer, especially the painting, which always makes me feel very uncomfortable.
"Well, okay, although I can also come to you, but since you think so, then listen to you, anyway, I'm too lazy to move."
"Okay, then I'll go, I'll be in touch with you in a moment. By the way, in order for me to concentrate on finding the way, I hope you don't speak before I speak. ”
"Are you afraid of being scared by me? Hahahaha, okay. ”
It's not so much scared as I want to concentrate. If someone chatters to me in the headphones right now, it does take a temporary share of my fears, but it also distracts me.
The sound of the organ was abruptly interrupted, which allowed me to hear the ambient sounds more clearly. I crept carefully against the wall to the hallway, and then quickly fired two shots to the left and right, but there was no extra sound except for the echo of the gunfire and the dripping of water. I took a cursory look in both directions, and since the location of Ji 87 was similar to the lobby, I decided to choose the left, which was relatively brightly lit.
Theoretically, the presence of biocarapaces was enough to isolate the humid and cold air here, but due to the surrounding environment, I still felt a chill attack at every step I took. I hesitated for a moment, but finally turned on the searchlight above Bioa's head.
My heart trembled with nervousness the moment the light came on, but fortunately, as far as the eye could see, it was still just a dilapidated and empty corridor, and there was nothing alive waiting for me. And the sound of the organ is back now, and it follows me all the way into the unknown.
I pressed against the inside of the hallway, and on the other side there appeared a row of open rooms, close together, the swarthy doors calling me closer. I was worried that there would be some "things" in there that I didn't want to touch, but it turned out that they were just ordinary rooms. Some had books inside, some were stacked with dusty toys, and one room was stuffed with humanoid puppets, all of them with round eyes piled up to the ceiling like garbage, and the scene made my hair stand on end.
Further on, the layout of the rooms began to look like bedrooms, but with only a bed and a simple bedside table.
Finally, two parallel pillars appeared on the right side of the front, but there was no open space behind the pillars, only a rusty iron door, the doorknob seemed to have been screwed off, and the iron sheet in the lower right corner was completely overturned. Curious, I bent down and glanced inside, this room was larger than all the previous rooms, and I couldn't see the whole inside without opening the door. The knives and syringes scattered on the floor made me think it was an infirmary at first, but when I found the handcuffs and shackles hanging from the chair in the corner, I realized that it was a torture cell, and the crimson red that appeared everywhere inside was not rust, but blood that had long since dried and coagulated.
I was struck with a thrill.
"I seem to see a torture cell." I tried to find peace by talking to Ji 87.
"Torture chamber? Why is there such a place? Ah, no, I'm starting to fog up here......"
"Fogging?"
"You better not come here, I'll find a way to find you, I'll go to the corridor now-"
The headphones are quiet again, and it seems that the signal has been interrupted again.
All I can do now is keep going, I don't know if I'm heading in the right direction, but at least there's no fog here yet.
"Anyone? If anyone hears it, please answer me. I repeated this sentence in vain as I walked down the road that had already weary me. Gradually, even the suspicious rooms disappeared, and I felt as if I was descending into a tunnel, surrounded only by endless brick walls.
Now, I have three options, one is to force my way out of this hellish place, the second is to keep going, and the third is to go back and find a way to get back to the door and find someone else. With my strength, at this stage, I'm afraid only one is the best solution.
The corridor began to get smaller and smaller, and what could have been enough for three people to pass side by side was now only enough for one person to walk, and perhaps, the end was near.
"Listen...... I...... Is it? No...... Over here! ”
There was finally a voice in the headphones, this time it seemed to be coming from Cloud 09, her words were intermittent, and I couldn't seem to hear my reply to her.
I continued walking forward for a while, and soon I saw the end. At the end of this corridor, there were no monsters waiting for me, and there was no exit, only a wall. The wall was empty, there were no words, no symbols, no paintings, but it seemed to be as rotatable as the wall that had just freed me from the fog, with a thin slit on its side that had not fitted. I pushed it hard, and it slowly turned vertically, revealing a downward staircase hidden behind.
Hey, sure enough.
The long and boring journey had exhausted my patience, and even my fear had been worn out by three points, so I didn't think about it, so I went in and went down the stairs.
It is a spiral staircase with no handrails or guardrails, and there is a risk of falling if you are not careful. But I have nothing to worry about in my bioarmor, I can't die anyway. What really intrigued me was what was hidden underneath. I carefully crouched down, put my hand on the stairs, and looked down. The depth below was much more than I expected, and it was as if I was standing on the top of a ten-story building looking down. When I saw what was underneath, I gasped and almost let go of my hand and fell down - below was a mountain of bones.
"Aya 17? Can you hear me? Aya 17? This time it was Ning 08's voice.
"Audible, where are you?"
"I'm outside. Where are you? ”
"I seem to be underground, and here are all bones ......"
"Huh? Anyway, let's not talk about this for now, you can come out first. Can you find a solution? ”
"Maybe you can go back the way you came?"
"No, that's too time-consuming. You look up, is it close to the roof? ”
I glanced up with difficulty.
"It's a distance, but you can see the edge of the wall, and beyond that, it's fog."
"You should have a rope around your waist, and you should throw the end with the inverted hook along the wall to the edge of the wall, and when you fix it, you will shrink the rope and climb to the roof."
"Crawling into the fog?"
"Yes."
"Is there another way?"
"The fog above is relatively safe and has been 'cleaned'. Hurry up, you can still be contacted, and then there will be fog in your place, and the signal will be cut off again. ”
"Okay."
I took out the rope that Ning 08 said, it looks very short, but in fact it can contract freely. I wrapped one end of the rope around my waist and threw the other end over my head, and due to my lack of experience, I tried about ten times before I finally succeeded in securing the other end.
After retracting the rope, I was safely teleported to the edge of the high wall.
"How? Is it there? ”
"Here we are." I climbed over the wall and found that this was the eaves. But the fog above was so dense that I couldn't move an inch.
"Is the light on?"
"It's on."
"Alright, I'm looking for you."
I stood motionless, the viscous touch of the purple liquid that had just returned to my left hand. I heard the whirring wind nearby, and then I saw a figure with an axe waving the fog.
"Found it."
My hand was grabbed.
"Are you scared to death?"
"Fortunately, it was someone who held my hand this time."
"So sure?" A rotting beast head appeared right in front of me, and I nearly fell back into the pit.
"Just kidding, I just killed this." Ning 08's face came in through the mist, she was like a nobody, smiling like an eight-year-old leather king who had just caught a unicorn and scared the teacher.
"What about the others." Although I wanted to have a big fight with her, I restrained myself and pretended that nothing had happened, and it was imperative that I let this matter go over as soon as possible and not give her a chance to laugh at me.
"KC66 and Tin 16 are still playing in it, and the rest of the people have already had a round of meetings, only you have not been able to contact them, and Duan 28 said that you haven't returned to the Asian gap, so I thought about it and will talk to you."
"If only I had known that I would return directly by force, you still had to let me climb up."
"It is said that the first team is already around our sleeping pod, isn't it cruel to let you go back and face it alone?" Ning 08 grinned.
"They already know?"
"Well, and it's already been chased." She pointed down, "Ji 87 is dealing with them, come with me first." ”
Ning 08 pulled me with one hand and held the axe in the other hand and rowed back and forth in front of me, I walked for a while before I realized that she was not "cutting the fog", but the "thing" in the fog, I wanted to also take out a weapon to help, but she stopped me.
"As long as I cut it, if you shoot in that position, it will attract more. Okay, so the fog has thinned out a bit. ”
"How did you just get out?"
"I climbed to the dome with a rope to see the layout of the place, and then I realized that the church had no dome at all, it was open-air. These fogs are part of the body of an alien organism that they teleport through fog. When we are in the fog, the communication will be blocked due to the interference of the fog. That is, we can only connect with each other when we are in the fog at the same time or outside the fog at the same time. In fact, none of us have ever been separated, only you and Ji 87 have disappeared from the beginning. ”
"I found a wall that could be flipped......"
"You may have entered the secret passage, I don't know. That shouldn't be the point, though. We may have found the invasion of these alien immigrants this time, just opposite the door, there was a large hole in the innermost part of the church, LL9 and Tin 16 went down to take a look, and said that it was a large cave complex. ”
"Those aliens came through these caverns?"
"It's very possible, but with our current manpower, it's too dangerous to rush in. Let's go down to the convergence first, and then look at what Ji 87 says. ”
Ning 08 led me to a protruding terrace, then lowered a rope and motioned for me to do so. We glided all the way down the rope to the surface.
The entrance to the church was more lively than I expected, and it looked like there were nearly two dozen people around. Except for the members of Team 5, there were unfamiliar faces, and to my surprise, none of them knew 339.
"Great, Aya-17, I've finally found you." Yun 09 waved happily at me, "Did you hear my message to you?" ”
"I only heard voices, but I didn't hear anything ......"
"Looks like your team has arrived?" Out of nowhere, a little blonde girl appeared, no more than twelve or thirteen years old, with a sense of enchantment of an adult woman hidden between her childish and lovely eyebrows. She seemed to be fond of bows, her hair was tied in high braids with two huge bows, and she wore a dark red dress full of bows, and two rows of lace bows on the sides of her pure white over-the-knee socks. There was a huge black box lying horizontally behind her, and when she saw me coming, she opened the black box and flipped it up, and the lid of the box was lifted to cover her whole person.
The appearance of such a child on such an occasion was completely strange to anyone.
"Who is this?" I whispered to Ning 08.
"Chief Leader of the Detection Group, LL9."
"Chief?" Because it was so unexpected, I accidentally leaked out. LL9 should be able to hear me at this distance, but she seems to be intently rummaging through the contents of the black box.
"She is said to be the youngest member of the whole Asian Gap, and when she first came to the Asian Gap, she cried all day long to find her parents, and the detection team was originally created around her, in order to help her find a way to return to her parents, isn't it particularly noble and humane?" Ning 08 whispered.
"Then this team leader is only a nominal identity, right? The actual affairs should be managed by Ji 87 and Xiao 339? ”
"That being said, but ......"
As he spoke, there was a loud "boom" in the direction of the church, and in an instant, the building that had been standing a second ago had been reduced to ruins.
"Okay, everyone's done a great job."
LL9 lowered the bazooka on his shoulders and lifted the hem of his skirt as if he had just finished performing a dance, and saluted us lightly.