The two reached the center of the ruins, and at its center is the void of blackness that extends hundreds of meters in diameter. They stopped for a while, staring at the sphere of nothingness.

Alexa: Now what?

Akino: This was your idea.

Alexa: You’re the one who can create drones, not me.

Akino: Wow, always on me, huh?

Alexa: It’s disgusting…

Akino: What do you mean?

Alexa turns her back on Akino.

Alexa: Look at it.

Akino: Look at what? Your back?

Alexa stretches her back, as Akino stares intensely some wings started growing on her back.

Akino: Wings?

Then a head of a six-eyed crow popped out of her back, it keeps on emerging until a full white crow-like creature split-off on Alexa’s back. Akino steps back in horror as the flying creature flew around and landed on Alexa’s shoulder.

Akino: What the fuck is that?!

Alexa: Binary fission. Not on a microorganism, but on a macroorganism. And it was so fast, like I can create other creatures for five seconds. It is disgusting, but sure I’ll get used to it in the future.

Akino: You – you can control it?

Alexa: Yeah.

Alexa made the crow-like creature fly towards the void, both watched the bird as it disappears towards the pitch-black hole in the air.

Akino: See anything?

Alexa: Umm, it’s dark? Cold, and feels like its crushing the body.

Akino: I’ll send in my drone.

Alexa: Wait!

Akino: What is it?

Alexa: I lost it? I can’t see nor fell anything, weird…

A quadcopter drone flies in the void, Akino commands the thing to slowly enter the hole, she flinches as it enters it.

Alexa: Yo! You alright?

Akino: You told its dark, but it was fucking bright like facing directly at the sun!

Alexa: What?! I swear it was dark!

Akino: You sure the one you did wasn’t blind?

Alexa: Nope.

Akino: Do it again.

Alexa created another crow, and made it flew in the void. She exclaimed that she sees a beach, but a huge unknown creature swallowed the crow. Akino paused for a minute, she told Alexa to create another bird, and she made another drone. They let both enter the void at the same time.

Akino: It’s cold.

Alexa: Yep.

Akino: Wait, is that a mountain?

Alexa: Looks – looks like it?

Akino: Woah, woah. The place changes everytime?

Alexa: Should we check it now? We should enter at the same time then.

Akino: Can we just wait a damn minute? Let me analyze it.

Akino tweaks the buttons on her arm while Alexa waits exasperatedly. After two minutes, Akino stops doing her stuff, and faces towards Alexa.

Akino: Uhmmm, uhh…

Alexa: What is it?

Akino: The place beyond that void resembles to ours, ‘Earth-like’ to be exact, with plants, water, and stuff. The thing is, the other side changes every five seconds.

Alexa: Which means?

Akino: We could end up in the bottom of the ocean or at some magma chamber of a volcano.

Alexa: That is pretty risky.

Akino: So the chance of any survivors entering this hole may never make it out there.

Alexa: OH COME ON! We already made it here! We should at least go there and check out things there!

Akino: And never made it back here?

Alexa stops venting, she sat at the floor looking devastated. Akino sighs and approaches the sitting kid.

Alexa: At least - at least it will be good on that place, right?

Akino: It’s a gamble entering that place. I know you understand that. We should just check out the other facilities in this place, okay?

Alexa: …fine.

Akino assists Alexa to stand up. They started walking away on the void, and Akino stopped.

Alexa: What’s wrong?

Akino: Do you have, I don’t know, HUD on your vision? I mean like in the first-person games or something?

Alexa: Yeah, but I always deactivate them. It’s a distraction.

Akino: I checked mine, and I received a message.

Akino turns around and points at the void.

Akino: The signal came from there…

Alexa: WHAT?!

Akino: Hey, don’t shout at me.

Alexa: We should head there! Like, now!

Akino: I told you, its risky to go there!

Alexa pulls Akino as she runs toward the void. Akino turned her legs into giant hydraulic anchors to stop Alexa from pulling her. Alexa used huge-thick tentacles and insect-legs to drag Akino. Both struggled, and then Alexa unknowingly stepped into the void. They got sucked in an instant, like getting caught on a surging river, but all dark. After ten seconds, the two see themselves drifting on a river, but it was different. The environment seems fresh. There is life and decay, unlike the previous one only with eternal suffering. It seems that they got teleported to a fresh forest of greenish trees, located on an unfamiliar place. Akino scolded Alexa immediately after they reach the riverside.

Akino: What the hell is wrong with you?!

Alexa: I’m sorry! Sorry!

Akino exhales and helps Alexa to stand up. She looked around but didn’t see any void where they came from. She stared for a moment at the surroundings that is mesmerizing, for a million years they were able to breath in unirradiated air from normal trees and plants, resting under the nearly-orange dusking sky.

Akino: Good place, huh?

Alexa: Yeah… wait, can we still –

Akino: The drones? I lost its connection, how about yours?

Alexa: Mine was – was eaten by something…

Akino: A bird with six eyes and doesn’t know what ate it.

Alexa: I was focusing on the surroundings! How about the message you got?

Akino looked for the message, it was only a single word: Welcome.

Alexa: That’s it?

Akino: And the signal – the signal is, I can’t explain it.

Alexa: What is it?

Akino: The signal is all over the place…

Alexa: What do you mean all over the place?

Akino: I can’t pinpoint the exact source location.

Akino sat down on the grasses, she closed her eyes as she concentrates. Metallic liquid spheres of sixty centimeters in diameter started to come out on Akino’s back and flew upwards to the atmosphere. She sat there for an hour, releasing exactly a thousand of these floating spheres in the atmosphere. As Akino does her stuff, Alexa curiously examined the plants and trees in the area. She saw similar animals, a normal squirrel, birds, etc. After exploring the new surroundings, Alexa went back to Akino.

Alexa: So, what are those?

Akino: I send self-constructing drones to create satellites in the orbit. Ten out of fifteen were done constructing and now running planetary scan on this place.

Alexa: The place – its just the normal Earth. Did we travel to past or something?

Akino: I think not, the continents are different from my initial scans, and the signal we received is being interfered by some unknown energy field covering this planet.

Alexa: How different? The squirrel and hummingbird I saw was no different than the ones we have.

Akino: A parallel dimension?...

Alexa: What?

Akino: Oh, nothing. Nothing. We should find camp soon. This planet rotates for 26 hours, and nighttime will be soon. Another day will be ahead of us.

The two went to walk into the dense forest as the day sets into nighttime in that different world.