*click-click-click♪*

Himari flashes her wrist light in the darkness, briefly revealing a room’s outline

“…..there~” I whisper pointing to a corridor of stairs

“Older children are up, babies are down”

*Click-click♪*

Himari flashes the light again so, we can see our way forward,

With XPunk outside watching out for us,

Apollo, Himari and I descend down the emergency staircase, of Xander reproduction lab,

Only one of many subsidiary facilities of under the Xander Lab name…

Tap♪

Tap♪

Tap♪

Our feet reverberate with each step down the steel stairs, despite our attempts to make as little sound aa possible, this can’t be helped

(Not like there is anyone here to hear us anyways)

Though this lab in particular is usually left unattended for days on end at times,

It still feel weirdly abandoned,

No, not weirdly, alarmingly so, I could just be overthinking it

(There’s no way anyone would know exactly when we were showing up)

…..

Piiiiiib!♪

A glass door slides open automatically as we come to the first lower floor,

*Click♪*

Instead of her using her light this time Himari touches the panel next to the door, flooding the room with lights

“Home sweet home,” I grunt glancing around

Glass ‘shapes’ is the only way I can describe them, they line the room equally and orderly apart from each other, inside is a bubbly red fluid that holds suspend almost fully developed babies,

“What would you call that shape,” I mumble to myself out loud,

“Heart-shaped,” Himari answers me solemnly,

The objects are semi cylindrical, but instead of being smooth and rounded, they jag out at the bottom and top into large vein-like openings that draw on the weird red fluid from a pipe on the roof,

“A heart-shaped box”

“How will know which one is ours?” Apollo asks sounding immensely disturbed

“They’re all labeled,” Himari remarks, examining one of the ‘tubes'

At the center of it is a little panel indicating the fetus’ growth status, among other miscellaneous information

“Don’t bother, it’s probably not on this floor,

Let’s keep going down,”

“How do you know for sure?” Himari presses me,

“Because all these are clearly regular children of this ring,

Yours would be a special case, meaning it’s probably either on the lowest floor, or highest floor,”

“Then shouldn’t we split up to make this faster?”

“No, the lowest floor seems more likely seemingly since if I wanted to trap people such as ourselves, it would be much more logical to keep it below,”

“I have to agree with that,” nods Himari

“Even though the chances of this being a trap is low, it’s best to keep it as a logical thought at least”.

“Umm, did I miss something?” Apollo interjects

“How could this suddenly become an elaborate set up when no one besides us know,”

“That’s true, but we have no clue what the potential of the magic and technology of Terra is like, so it’s best for us to assume the worst case scenario of any situation,” Himari elaborates

“So negativity”

“Yes–now come on we done know how long XPunk can keep the labs surveillance inactive for,” I reply, moving towards the emergency staircase

……..

Caution H Particle pipes

A holographic sign flashes I front of us as we descend, going down with us from the previous room, are the glassy pipes carrying the bubbling red fluid

“I wonder what it is,” Apollo peers curiously

“…..

You don’t want to know,” I murmur

“Well, I do,” Himari sensing something off about my response

“…..

H particles,

Human particles,

You get it now?”

…..

“Human as in,

Second ring humans, right?” she accurately guesses

“……” I nod

“That’s what they’re used for, ‘converted’ into this fluid to help with fostering children born outside their parents,

And that’s just what they do to the people of the second ring, you don’t want to know what they do to the third,”

“…….”

“You’re right about us not wanting to know” grumbles Apollo uncomfortably, before going quiet

Nothing is said between the three of us for a while after that

(I think it’s funny,

Not in a comedic sense, it’s all just a joke,

People who value life the most, treat it the worst….)

……

……

…..

“The stairs end here,” Himari leading our group, says

After silently but hurriedly making our way down, we finally stop at the last door in our way

“It’s locked” Himari fidgets with touch panel

Ehhng!

It buzzes red declining her attempts,

“Let me try,” Apollo flexes, pulling his fist back,

“Wait!” I halt him before he can smash the door,

“We don’t know if doing that will alarm anyone, furthermore it could be a trap or worse,”

“Then what do you suggest Kage, we have to move quickly,

We can’t just go around searching this place for a key”

“This door is clearly hand activated” I point at the touch panel arrogantly

“No key needed, just the right biological signature,”

“Where do we get one of that?”

“……”

Instead of replying I turn around and place my hand on panel, it glows a green light

Swwoooom♪

The door slides open

(……)

“….”

Himari and Apollo exchange, similar looks, that say ‘obviously!’

They don’t seem surprised I unlocked the door, nor do they attempt to question me

(Well that was anticlimactic)

…..

….

*Click♪*

*Click!♪*

Himari presses for the lights twice put it doesn’t come on, the room ahead remaining in darkness

“Wrist light it is” the woman flashes across the room,

There’s only a singular, heart-shaped glass tube in it

…

(What’s that?)

The more I focus on the tube my hearing starts to fluctuate from the current silence to absolute silence

(Am I going deaf…)

….

(Or)

“It’s a girl” Himari flashes on the tube,

“It has mana,” I speak up

Now that I ignore it the muteness goes away

“Are you sure?” questions Apollo

“Mhm,

I can hear the sound…

This one’s mana sound is a deafening silence,”

(Doesn’t make sense when I say out loud)

“Then we’ve come to right one” Himari remarks semi pleases

“How do we get it out?” Apollo taps the glass,

“Is it big enough to survive out?”

“Bdjdbddjekekk” Himari replies

(What?)

“Uroejwfj”

(Aghh not this buzzing now)

Juxtaposed to the silence I was just hearing a piercing static of buzzing stabs my eardrums

“Aghhh!”

(Not no–)

“WELCOME BACK AMADEUS ~” a snake like voice pierces through all the static in a clear whisper

“What the–”

Everything blacks out….

……

…….

“Kage!?” Apollo turns around peering into the darkness

Hiamri flashes her light back to assist him

“What happened?”

“Kage, he just disappeared,

A second he was there then,

Gone…

Kage’s gone.”