They had arrived at a crossroads.A cold, almost perfect intersection, four identical corridors meeting like the branches of a symmetrical trap.Silence hung in the air. Again.
Then Yuki spoke, without hesitation, as if she had rehearsed the scene in her head for an hour.— "We split up."
No one replied immediately.
She raised her hand and pointed to two opposing corridors. Her voice was clear, almost mechanical.— "Masachika with me. Subaru, you go with Alya and Masha."
Masachika blinked slowly. He turned his head toward Alya.But she had already looked away.— "Seriously?" murmured Masachika. Not a shout, just a tired tone.
Alya stepped forward, straight as an arrow. She stared at the right-hand corridor.— "Fine. At least I won't be with you."
No anger. Just a fact.
Subaru, on the other hand, made no effort to hide his enthusiasm. He nodded with a broad smile.— "I'm totally up for this team. Three is good. Three is... balanced."
He wisely refrained from saying that being alone with Alya was a blessing offered by the hive itself.
Yuki, unshaken, continued:— "The objective is simple. Find food. Anything. Canned goods, old biscuits, edible roots, we don't care."
She pulled a folded sheet from her notebook, then one of her favorite pens, which she handed to Masha.— "And if you find a map, a plan, an elevator, a ladder, anything that goes up, write it down here. You can draw, write, scribble. Doesn't matter. But don't lose the info."
Masha grabbed the sheet, a bit surprised, but nodded.— "Got it. I'll take responsibility."
Yuki crossed her arms, her eyes serious.— "We go back to the base. Not here. There, where we sleep. Where we have water."
She let silence hang for a moment, then added more quietly:— "We meet there… after a rest cycle. After lying down. Let's say... at the next wake-up."
She didn't say the word "tomorrow." It no longer made sense here.
Masha slowly nodded. Her voice was soft, but her eyes gleamed with new tension.— "No way we lose sight of each other, okay? We found each other... so we'll find each other again. Even if we take different paths."
Subaru looked at the sheet in Masha's hands, then at Alya, who was staring down the tunnel with a distant look, and finally at Masachika, frozen like a statue.
They were five. But already, they seemed far from each other.
Yuki turned on her heel.— "Group A, with me."
One step.— "Group B, good luck."
And just like that, without clocks, without markers... they split.
The silence didn't last long.That wasn't really possible between them.They knew each other too well for that.
Brother and sister, maybe not on paper anymore, but still somewhere—in the heart,in the gestures.
Yuki spoke first, her voice lighter than usual. Softer. Stripped of the clinical precision she used with the others.— "Masachika-kun... do you like being alone with your beloved sister?"
A smile. Light. Ironic, but not mocking.— "It's been a while, hasn't it? Just you and me. No assignments. No meetings. No... world falling apart."
Masachika didn't answer right away.He walked straight ahead, hands in his pockets, shoulders slightly lower than usual.No sharp comeback. No sarcastic jab.For the past few days, reality had shifted.And he felt it with every breath.Every step.He hadn't told the others, but the air here... he couldn't get used to it.It was too heavy.Too dry.Too fake.Being with Yuki was a strange kind of relief.Like a fragile memory that still breathed.Like his body was finally allowing itself to lower its guard—just a little.But he kept his eyes fixed forward, like an older brother should.And he replied calmly:— "We've got a mission, right? We're not here just to chit-chat like before."He paused—barely noticeably.— "I'm hungry. And the thirst is coming back."Yuki lowered her eyes slightly.She saw his profile.The crease at the corner of his lips.His clenched jaw.He was standing tall. But that didn't mean he was okay.Usually, she would've tossed out a teasing remark.She would've said, "Rare to see you being useful," or "You haven't lost your dramatic flair, huh."But not this time.This time, she said nothing.
The corridor suddenly opened onto a vast emptiness, an abyss of metal frozen in time.A bay window, cracked in several places but still standing, offered a plunging view of what looked like… a factory.A cathedral of iron and dust. A sunken relic.
The floor, far below, was covered in a thick layer of gray ash, almost perfect, as if no one had dared step there in decades.Through the stagnant mist, colossal structures could be seen: chains hanging from rusted hooks, articulated arms frozen mid-gesture, twisted rails running between half-collapsed furnaces.Everything was there, intact in its decay.A silent worksite, stripped of its purpose.
It might have been an old steel mill. Or a foundry. A weapons factory?Impossible to say. But everything exuded extinguished power, vanished heat.The blackened walls, burned by time, still bore traces of soot, fire, labor.Giant numbers hastily painted on catwalks.Codes. Directions.Remnants of an ancient order.
Masachika slowly approached the window.
Yuki, at his side, froze, her mouth slightly open.It wasn't fear. It was erasure.Next to this thing, this place, they were nothing.Not even dust in the dust.The void swallowed sound.Even their breathing seemed out of place here.
A huge crane stood at the center, suspended from the ceiling like a forgotten mechanical god.It was no longer powered, its cables dangling like dead limbs, but it still seemed to watch over everything.Present. Authoritative.
And down below, at the exact center of the room, something worse:A chair.All alone.Lost in the middle of the void.
As if someone had been there. Sitting. Waiting.
— "That's…" whispered Yuki, unable to finish.
Masachika closed his eyes for a second.The weight of the place had fallen on him like an anvil.
He didn't reply.There was nothing to say.
They slowly descended the metal stairs, rusted but still solid, the structure creaking under the weight of their steps.Each step seemed to swallow the sound, as if the dust itself smothered the echo.Yuki brushed the railing with her fingertips, and the hairs on her arm stood on end.The surface was cold, bumpy, covered in a fine black soot that clung to the skin like living ash.
Masachika said nothing.He walked ahead, straight, but every movement betrayed a new tension.Here, the air was heavier.As if space itself shrank the deeper they went into the belly of the factory.The ceiling was high, but the feeling of being crushed was everywhere.
They finally reached ground level, where the ash formed a silent carpet.Their shoes left clear, perfect prints, like scars on ancient skin.
Around them, the infrastructure became menacing.Beams curved like giant arms, hanging chains like forgotten hooks…Everything seemed ready to snap shut.No sound.No draft.No life.But a presence.Still. Latent.
The chair was there.Alone.Improbable.It seemed to be waiting for someone. Or something.
They approached, step by step, slow, cautious.
Yuki pulled out her notebook.She wrote on the fly, page after page.The factory deserved to be recorded, to exist somewhere.Maybe this trace, later, would make sense. Maybe not.But in this void, even taking notes was a form of hope.
She didn't know what to think.But she wrote.
Masachika stopped a meter from the chair.He didn't reach out.He didn't speak.He didn't move.
— "We don't touch it."
Yuki slowly nodded.It was obvious.As if touching that seat would trigger an invisible mechanism.A memory. Or a curse.
They were at the exact center of the factory.Where everything converged.
And suddenly, they felt it.
No sound.No breath.But a pressure.
An intangible weight, settling gently on their shoulders,as if the walls themselves were watching them.As if the factory, in all its vastness, remembered them.
They stopped dead.Yuki stepped forward, eyes narrowed, focused. She examined it without touching, circled the object, observed the inscriptions, the symbols. Then, in a low voice, she said her thought aloud:— "It's… a purifier. For water."Masachika frowned.— "You sure?"She slowly nodded.— "Not completely. But… it looks like one."She looked up at him, more serious than ever.— "If it's what I think… then we could drink. Even here. Even that disgusting water from the depths."
Silence fell again. Not a breath.It was absurd. But the idea had sprouted. Like a fragile miracle. A ridiculous light in an ashen world.
Masachika straightened up, cast one last glance at the object.— "We're taking it."Yuki slowly turned her head toward him, her gaze full of doubt.— "You sure?"— "I don't see any owner. And we need it."He stepped toward the cylinder, extended his hand without hesitation. The metal was cold, heavy, but steady. The object didn't resist, didn't blink. Just… silent. Offered.
Yuki watched him, arms crossed.— "We've never stolen. Neither you. Nor me."Masachika shrugged, a bitter smile on his lips.— "This world… isn't ours."She didn't answer. She stared at the object in her brother's hands as if it were a heavier decision than it seemed.— "Survival comes first," she finally said, in a resigned whisper.— "And honestly… it'd be pretty ironic to run into the owner now."He was already turning around, not waiting for a reply.
Yuki followed. She cast one last glance at the wrecked room, the twisted table, the cylinder meaningless yet full of hope.She didn't need more explanation.They had crossed the line. To the side of thieves. Survivors.
They climbed the stairs quickly. The silence had thickened. Heavier. More present. As if the factory understood.
They hadn't noticed it at first. Too busy exploring, searching, observing.But now, as their footsteps echoed again on the blackened metal, they felt it.
Time.It had slipped. Drifted.
They didn't have watches. No timer.But their bodies knew.They had stayed too long. And hadn't even realized it.
As if here, in this dead cathedral, an invisible breath compressed the hours.A machine spirit, asleep yet still alive, gently blowing on the world and bending the rules.
Masachika picked up the pace. The purifier under his arm, he descended the last steps almost silently.
Yuki followed, her thoughts blurred.She wasn't taking notes anymore.She wasn't calculating.She just wanted out.
The factory was watching them. That much was clear.So they hurried to vanish from its memory.
The return was rushed. Short of breath, legs heavy, throat burning.Hunger gnawed at them, thirst began to scrape again at the back of their mouths.Each step weighed a little more.
Masachika stopped for a moment, pointed to an object on the ground.— "Pick that up."Yuki squinted. A metal rod, twisted, dirty. She picked it up with hesitation.— "You really want us to carry that?"— "Could be useful."She raised an eyebrow, a dry laugh escaping her despite the fatigue.— "You, fighting with an iron bar? To protect me?"She shook her head, amused. The image seemed absurd.Her brother, irony incarnate, turned post-apocalyptic knight? She laughed at the thought.— "I think I'd rather die."
But Masachika wasn't smiling. He kept looking forward, his face tense.— "I'm not joking, Yuki."
She looked at him for a moment, surprised by his tone.He was scared.
So she said nothing. She kept the bar in hand, and they resumed their path, faster, shoulders lower, the factory still behind them.
They finally reached the resting room.No way to tell what time it was.Here, time was a distant concept, a rumor from another world.
Nothing had changed since they left: the torn couches, the flickering light, the dry air.Everything was frozen, as if they had never gone.
But this time, they were two. Just the two of them. Like before.Like in early childhood, when the world was just a succession of mornings, school days, and returns home.
Yuki immediately set the cylinder on the ground, knelt before it, and began examining it.Her hands moved fast.She was looking for an opening, a button, a mechanism.Something that might give them a chance.
Masachika, meanwhile, sat against the wall.Exhausted. Drained.He no longer had the strength to think.No more energy for comments or jokes.He was hungry. He was thirsty.
He watched his sister move, focused, sharp.He thought she hadn't changed.He smiled, just a little, the shadow of a memory at the corner of his lips.
Then his eyes slowly closed.No alarm. No threat.Just the weight of the world on his shoulders.
And for the first time since they arrived,he allowed himself to sleep.Deeply.