Hi! Here is the prologue I made over the last week. It's not nearly good enough... I'm going to do some editing... but here it is for now! I hope you like it. Since this is WAY in the past, it's not in Zoe's perspective, but the rest of the book will be. Thanks for reading!
Prologue
The room was almost completely dark. A single light hung over the square table, untouched for years. The people who had built and used this room just didn’t come around much anymore.
But tonight, they would.
Outside, miles above, it was 9:12 PM on August 8, 1930. But the instant that a certain main entered the room, time wavered. The table flashed between ages, from sparkling new to chipped and historic to even disappearing. The light did the same, flickering on and off. The man’s face went from younger to older in a second, and then settled into the correct form. So did the table and the lamp.
And so did the markings behind the man’s head, on the ancient wall, which had glowed gold a moment ago but were now barely visible.
The man was somewhat young, had brown hair, brilliant green eyes, and a tired but ever-watchful face. He wore a black suit and a green tie with touches of bronze. He looked around, capped himself with a black fedora, and slid on dark sunglasses. He leaned on the table. He watched. He waited.
Perhaps a minute later did someone else enter the room. Her face flashed like the man’s had previously, and then it stayed. It was an amazingly beautiful young-looking woman in a fabulous, bright blue dress. Her oceanlike eyes matched the dress and her blonde hair was up in a twist. She held some diamond and silver jewelry in her hand, as if she had just taken it off. She smiled at the man and he nodded acknowledgingly, as if they knew eachother. She stood across from him, waiting, but doing so rather impatiently. The tapping of her long silver heels were the only noise to be heard.
Another man came in not long after. Time played with his face, too. He seemed about the same age as the first man, so he was not old, but he had a cane that gave his prescence much more grandeur. It was gold with purple and black touches. He had gold-rimmed glasses that made him look supremely intelligent, and perhaps he was. He had jet black hair, and eyes that were quite strange… just a pale gray, but they too were rimmed with gold. He wore a suit similar to the first man’s, and a gold and purple tie. He smiled knowingly, assuringly at the first man before acknowledging the woman. His face betrayed that he didn’t know her and was slightly confused as to why she was there. He stood by another side of the table, leaving only one side vacant.
There was silence, as there had been… no one saw reason to speak. And maybe it was not safe to speak just yet. They had all learned well enough that someone is always listening to see if you are talking about them. The silence was solace, and this they knew well, for soon it would be interrupted by the clicking of shoes on the floor and-
“Hello,” the voice of the next and final man to enter said.
This man gave off a feeling of supremacy, an aura of power, so strong that it could give you the urge to bow down to him. But no one did.
“Hello, Victor,” the man in sunglasses said dryly.
“You really shouldn’t be wearing those, Carter. It’s so dreadfully dark in here,” Victor said with a smile that revealed how much he really did enjoy the darkness.
“Let’s get to business,” the man with the cane said. “Where is it, Carter?”
“Rather eager for one so detached from the system,” Victor said. “Pray tell, where has your meddling with ancient sciences gotten you, Seamus?”
“You have no idea,” Seamus replied calmly. “Forgive me for my absence. May I ask, who are you?” he asked the woman in the blue dress.
“Alice Queene,” she said, holding out a hand. They shook. “My agency…” she began, searching for the right words, “came to be in the past year.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Seamus said cordially. “Carter, you could’ve told me.”
“If I so wished,” Carter said with a small smile.
“Excuse me?” the largely less friendly quarter of the table asked. “I hope you all realized this, but there is a very dangerous object in our midst,” Victor said hungrily. “And we must get to the point!”
Everyone else thought this was odd because a minute ago he had been the one going off on tangents, the one who was late. But no one said this. Because if you knew that Victor was more than just a rude person, you wouldn’t cross him.
Carter removed his sunglasses and his eyes glinted briefly in the dim light. “All right then. Here begins the Council of Iridescence, called together for the first time in forty-nine years, to discuss the future of the Timeshaper, peacefully and all together.” He leaned down and fiddled with his shoe. There was a clicking noise, then another. When his hand came up it was grasping a stone.
Somewhat reluctantly, Carter placed it in the center of the table. It was completely iridescent and it shone, magnifying the low light. It was shaped like a four-pointed star. Running down the center of the stone was a jagged crack.
Alice breathed in sharply. Victor looked at it eagerly, his fingers itching to reach out for the raw power of it. “Iridescence,” murmured Seamus, as if he couldn’t believe he was really looking at it. Carter looked at the faces around him and wondered if this was all quite wise.
“It is rightfully mine,” Victor said, clearly trying to measure his voice and keep it even. “My great grandfather is the only User. It is mine.”
“Iridescence belongs to no one,” Alice spoke up bravely. Victor scowled and glared at her, leading everyone to wonder just how long that “peacefully and all together” thing was going to work out.
“She speaks wisely,” Seamus said. “It is far too dangerous. No one is worthy to Use it.”
“Agreed,” Carter said. “The flaws of mankind cannot be trusted with such a gift as the control over Time.”
“Why was it made? If not to be used?” Victor asked. “There are reasons for everything.”
“And sometimes the sinister reasons and the good reasons are difficult to separate,” Seamus said. He paused, looking nervous to say what he was about to say. “I say we destroy it.”
A long, drawn out “NO!” from Victor was blocked out by the others as Alice asked Seamus if this was even possible.
“Yes,” Carter said quietly.
Everyone else stood silently while Victor rambled on. “Never! It will not, it cannot, not now, not ever, its power is unbreakable!”
“Hold on!” Carter interrupted. “Seamus, show them.”
Seamus nodded. He laid his cane on the table and turned it over. He felt around for something and his hand settled on one spot. The well-trained eye could have seen the faint outline of a crescent moon set into the gold, black, and purple. Seamus pressed the crescent moon down, and it popped out so it was easily visible. At the same time, the top, curved part of the cane popped off, hanging on a hinge.
Seamus overturned the cane and a long, thin-enough-to-store-in-a-cane, purely gold sword slid out into his hand.
Victor laid his head in his hand as if he couldn’t believe how terrible this was going for him.
“This,” Seamus said, balancing the sword between fingertips, “is the way.”
“It’s beautiful,” Alice gasped, marveling at the gentle but yet harsh curves and lines.
“I call it Direction,” Seamus said. “It knows the purpose it was made for. It’s created from the purest gold existant-“
“Alchemy,” spat Victor.
“It’s the only thing to destroy Iridescence. There’s a long, technical explanation, but we all know it’s more than just a rock. It can only be destroyed by something more pure. Nothing purer existed until I created it,” Seamus continued.
“Brilliant,” Carter said with finality. “Let’s do it.”
“NO!” Victor cried. His coal-black eyes seemed to light up with an even darker fire. “YOU CANNOT DO IT!” His voice was now an unnatural roar. He began to shake violently. “IT IS NOT YOURS TO DESTROY! YOU ARE INSIGNIFICANT COMPARED TO ITS SUPERIORITY!”
“Victor!” Carter said, trying to break through, but Victor didn’t seem to hear. Carter sighed. “He is nothing unlike his kind. They let themselves be consumed by the power…”
“Yes, he’s certainly not himself,” Alice said warily. It was probably the understatement of the century. She looked to the other two. “We should either do it right now, or elsewhere.”
“Now,” Seamus decided quickly. He raised the sword and brought it down on Iridescence-
But all he hit was the sleeve of Victor’s jacket. Victor had flung himself across the table and knocked Iridescence to the floor in a wild attempt to grab it.
The blow hadn’t caught Victor’s flesh, so he tore away from the sword, his sleeve mangled and ripped. He dived for the ground, but Direction had made it there first. It indeed did know its prey, and knew it well.
Victor slammed into Seamus, a more deranged version of the skillful fighter he was. Seamus held onto the sword with an iron grip as he hit the floor.
Carter silently crept up and took Iridescence, but only Alice and perhaps Direction noticed.
“Give me the sword, that I may take the wretched thing and break it into pieces,” hissed Victor into Seamus’s ear. “It will not touch the Timeshaper.”
“You can’t… break it,” Seamus, gasping for breath, said. “It’s… imp… impossible…”
“Then you will die before you can use it!” yelled Victor. He most certainly was not himself, though his normal self was unpleasant still. The fire in his eyes seemed to leap out at Seamus to intimidate him. Fear was useful- this much Victor knew, even in his possessed state.
Carter saw this, and he stepped forward to help Seamus, but at that instance, Direction struck the ground in an attempt to help its beholder up. The blow rippled across the ground and onto the walls, where the inscription lit up again. This time, it stayed glowing gold.
The ceiling started cracking and falling in.
“It’s caving,” Carter said. He gave one last pained look towards Seamus, but he knew there was no time to save him. The thought of Using Iridescence crossed his mind, but he shook it out. That was not what Seamus would have wanted.
Carter was about to do something to escape when Alice pressed her hand on her hip, hard. A rappling hook shot out of the sash on her dress and Alice expertly aimed it out of the room. It sailed through the entryway and lodged itself in the wall of one of the underground tunnels.
Alice grabbed Carter around his waist and released the tension on the cord. It worked something like a bungee cord and they were hurtled at an extreme speed to where the hook had lodged into the layers of rock and clay.
At the last possible second, Alice cut the cord with a hair clip that had been in her hand with the jewelry. It was sharper than it looked. Alice and Carter fell to the ground just before they would’ve hit the wall.
Carter landed on his feet, but Alice misjudged the speed of their fall and landed in a sort of crabwalk position.
“That was impressive,” Carter said as he helped her up.
They started running down the twisting halls of rock that were yielding behind them. Direction’s blow was still flowing through the tunnels, and no one could say where it would stop.
“Well, yes, it was better than you could’ve done,” Alice said with a smile.
“You do know I taught you everything you know,” Carter retorted, “don’t you?” He smiled a bit to himself, knowing that the somewhat-ditzy, gasping and sighing girl who had been in the room seconds ago was all a cover. Alice was just as intelligent and covert as the rest of them.
“Ah, the summer in London. Good times.”
“Of course,” Carter said. He then proceeded to do something he had never done before, something he wasn’t really supposed to do.
He looked back. For Seamus, who he had known personally. This was why, in his line of work, Carter often regretted getting to know someone personally. Pain and love are intertwined.
“I’m sorry,” Alice said softly.
“So am I… for the world, as well.” Carter knew that not only were Seamus and Victor gone. Direction was gone, and with it all the hopes of destroying Iridescence. He felt it in his pocket, felt the unrefined power of Time.
“There will be another way,” Alice said. “It just has to reveal itself. All in good time.” She paused, then smiled. “In the movies, this is where you would kiss me.”
Carter had no objection to this, but they’d been standing in one spot for far too long. “Sorry. There’s no time. But perhaps later.”
They broke into a run down the long, dark corridor they had reached. Just a few more twists and they would be on their way out. Wherever they ran, the walls around flickered with unsteady Time. It was rather perplexing but Alice didn’t falter on her high heels and with Carter as navigator, they couldn’t get lost. The tunnels were still caving in behind them, so slowing down wasn’t an option. The passageway’s slope sent them upward until they ran right into the basement of a house, breathing hard. There was a door open and they could feel the night air, which was warm and humid, but still better than the stifling tunnels. Just as they stepped out, they noticed the rumbling noise stopped. It was over. They walked out and up some stairs, inhaling thankfully. They were alive, and they knew to value that more than ever.
Carter wordlessly crowned Alice’s blonde head with his fedora. She smiled. “You’ve got to get in to get out,” she said gently. Then she went off to call a car and deliver the information hidden in a compartment under the brim to the rest of her agency.
Carter and his kind, however, had some different work to do. He took Iridescence out of his pocket and watched the full moon’s light spark off it for a moment before putting it in the secret section of his shoe’s heel, the place it had been earlier. Out of seemingly nowhere (it was really his jacket) he drew a pen and a notebook labled “Observations”.
Then he stepped out into the up-and-coming California town of Amati, sunglasses on.
Underground, the tunnels were all fallen in. Some places were worse than others, but no way was clear. In the room with the table and light and wall writing, someone had just gotten very lucky.
Victor could have beaten Seamus in any physical fight. He was trained for it. Even with Direction, Seamus could not win, because Direction knows what it wants… and it never wanted Victor. Seamus was as good as gone the moment he was tackled.
And then with the cave-in, they should both be dead.
But sometimes people don’t do as they should. Children disobey their parents, people say unkind things, and expectations fall to disappointments.
One of them wasn’t dead.
Just after Alice and Carter had left, the room had caved in, except the wall with the inscription. It stood strong. One person had rolled to the standing wall for cover just in time. The other had been crushed by the three falling walls.
The survivor laid there until the crashing stopped. The damage was done. Then he stood up and began the wearisome work of navigating through the small spaces, the air pockets, the few sturdy spots that had resisted. It would take days without water, but he would make it out alive, changing the course of expected things.
No one ever went back into those ancient tunnels, and no one else ever read the inscription as it faded away slowly, year by year…
Trust or secrets
Make your choice
Lies or regrets
Decide now
Because Time is always running out
But tonight, they would.
Outside, miles above, it was 9:12 PM on August 8, 1930. But the instant that a certain main entered the room, time wavered. The table flashed between ages, from sparkling new to chipped and historic to even disappearing. The light did the same, flickering on and off. The man’s face went from younger to older in a second, and then settled into the correct form. So did the table and the lamp.
And so did the markings behind the man’s head, on the ancient wall, which had glowed gold a moment ago but were now barely visible.
The man was somewhat young, had brown hair, brilliant green eyes, and a tired but ever-watchful face. He wore a black suit and a green tie with touches of bronze. He looked around, capped himself with a black fedora, and slid on dark sunglasses. He leaned on the table. He watched. He waited.
Perhaps a minute later did someone else enter the room. Her face flashed like the man’s had previously, and then it stayed. It was an amazingly beautiful young-looking woman in a fabulous, bright blue dress. Her oceanlike eyes matched the dress and her blonde hair was up in a twist. She held some diamond and silver jewelry in her hand, as if she had just taken it off. She smiled at the man and he nodded acknowledgingly, as if they knew eachother. She stood across from him, waiting, but doing so rather impatiently. The tapping of her long silver heels were the only noise to be heard.
Another man came in not long after. Time played with his face, too. He seemed about the same age as the first man, so he was not old, but he had a cane that gave his prescence much more grandeur. It was gold with purple and black touches. He had gold-rimmed glasses that made him look supremely intelligent, and perhaps he was. He had jet black hair, and eyes that were quite strange… just a pale gray, but they too were rimmed with gold. He wore a suit similar to the first man’s, and a gold and purple tie. He smiled knowingly, assuringly at the first man before acknowledging the woman. His face betrayed that he didn’t know her and was slightly confused as to why she was there. He stood by another side of the table, leaving only one side vacant.
There was silence, as there had been… no one saw reason to speak. And maybe it was not safe to speak just yet. They had all learned well enough that someone is always listening to see if you are talking about them. The silence was solace, and this they knew well, for soon it would be interrupted by the clicking of shoes on the floor and-
“Hello,” the voice of the next and final man to enter said.
This man gave off a feeling of supremacy, an aura of power, so strong that it could give you the urge to bow down to him. But no one did.
“Hello, Victor,” the man in sunglasses said dryly.
“You really shouldn’t be wearing those, Carter. It’s so dreadfully dark in here,” Victor said with a smile that revealed how much he really did enjoy the darkness.
“Let’s get to business,” the man with the cane said. “Where is it, Carter?”
“Rather eager for one so detached from the system,” Victor said. “Pray tell, where has your meddling with ancient sciences gotten you, Seamus?”
“You have no idea,” Seamus replied calmly. “Forgive me for my absence. May I ask, who are you?” he asked the woman in the blue dress.
“Alice Queene,” she said, holding out a hand. They shook. “My agency…” she began, searching for the right words, “came to be in the past year.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Seamus said cordially. “Carter, you could’ve told me.”
“If I so wished,” Carter said with a small smile.
“Excuse me?” the largely less friendly quarter of the table asked. “I hope you all realized this, but there is a very dangerous object in our midst,” Victor said hungrily. “And we must get to the point!”
Everyone else thought this was odd because a minute ago he had been the one going off on tangents, the one who was late. But no one said this. Because if you knew that Victor was more than just a rude person, you wouldn’t cross him.
Carter removed his sunglasses and his eyes glinted briefly in the dim light. “All right then. Here begins the Council of Iridescence, called together for the first time in forty-nine years, to discuss the future of the Timeshaper, peacefully and all together.” He leaned down and fiddled with his shoe. There was a clicking noise, then another. When his hand came up it was grasping a stone.
Somewhat reluctantly, Carter placed it in the center of the table. It was completely iridescent and it shone, magnifying the low light. It was shaped like a four-pointed star. Running down the center of the stone was a jagged crack.
Alice breathed in sharply. Victor looked at it eagerly, his fingers itching to reach out for the raw power of it. “Iridescence,” murmured Seamus, as if he couldn’t believe he was really looking at it. Carter looked at the faces around him and wondered if this was all quite wise.
“It is rightfully mine,” Victor said, clearly trying to measure his voice and keep it even. “My great grandfather is the only User. It is mine.”
“Iridescence belongs to no one,” Alice spoke up bravely. Victor scowled and glared at her, leading everyone to wonder just how long that “peacefully and all together” thing was going to work out.
“She speaks wisely,” Seamus said. “It is far too dangerous. No one is worthy to Use it.”
“Agreed,” Carter said. “The flaws of mankind cannot be trusted with such a gift as the control over Time.”
“Why was it made? If not to be used?” Victor asked. “There are reasons for everything.”
“And sometimes the sinister reasons and the good reasons are difficult to separate,” Seamus said. He paused, looking nervous to say what he was about to say. “I say we destroy it.”
A long, drawn out “NO!” from Victor was blocked out by the others as Alice asked Seamus if this was even possible.
“Yes,” Carter said quietly.
Everyone else stood silently while Victor rambled on. “Never! It will not, it cannot, not now, not ever, its power is unbreakable!”
“Hold on!” Carter interrupted. “Seamus, show them.”
Seamus nodded. He laid his cane on the table and turned it over. He felt around for something and his hand settled on one spot. The well-trained eye could have seen the faint outline of a crescent moon set into the gold, black, and purple. Seamus pressed the crescent moon down, and it popped out so it was easily visible. At the same time, the top, curved part of the cane popped off, hanging on a hinge.
Seamus overturned the cane and a long, thin-enough-to-store-in-a-cane, purely gold sword slid out into his hand.
Victor laid his head in his hand as if he couldn’t believe how terrible this was going for him.
“This,” Seamus said, balancing the sword between fingertips, “is the way.”
“It’s beautiful,” Alice gasped, marveling at the gentle but yet harsh curves and lines.
“I call it Direction,” Seamus said. “It knows the purpose it was made for. It’s created from the purest gold existant-“
“Alchemy,” spat Victor.
“It’s the only thing to destroy Iridescence. There’s a long, technical explanation, but we all know it’s more than just a rock. It can only be destroyed by something more pure. Nothing purer existed until I created it,” Seamus continued.
“Brilliant,” Carter said with finality. “Let’s do it.”
“NO!” Victor cried. His coal-black eyes seemed to light up with an even darker fire. “YOU CANNOT DO IT!” His voice was now an unnatural roar. He began to shake violently. “IT IS NOT YOURS TO DESTROY! YOU ARE INSIGNIFICANT COMPARED TO ITS SUPERIORITY!”
“Victor!” Carter said, trying to break through, but Victor didn’t seem to hear. Carter sighed. “He is nothing unlike his kind. They let themselves be consumed by the power…”
“Yes, he’s certainly not himself,” Alice said warily. It was probably the understatement of the century. She looked to the other two. “We should either do it right now, or elsewhere.”
“Now,” Seamus decided quickly. He raised the sword and brought it down on Iridescence-
But all he hit was the sleeve of Victor’s jacket. Victor had flung himself across the table and knocked Iridescence to the floor in a wild attempt to grab it.
The blow hadn’t caught Victor’s flesh, so he tore away from the sword, his sleeve mangled and ripped. He dived for the ground, but Direction had made it there first. It indeed did know its prey, and knew it well.
Victor slammed into Seamus, a more deranged version of the skillful fighter he was. Seamus held onto the sword with an iron grip as he hit the floor.
Carter silently crept up and took Iridescence, but only Alice and perhaps Direction noticed.
“Give me the sword, that I may take the wretched thing and break it into pieces,” hissed Victor into Seamus’s ear. “It will not touch the Timeshaper.”
“You can’t… break it,” Seamus, gasping for breath, said. “It’s… imp… impossible…”
“Then you will die before you can use it!” yelled Victor. He most certainly was not himself, though his normal self was unpleasant still. The fire in his eyes seemed to leap out at Seamus to intimidate him. Fear was useful- this much Victor knew, even in his possessed state.
Carter saw this, and he stepped forward to help Seamus, but at that instance, Direction struck the ground in an attempt to help its beholder up. The blow rippled across the ground and onto the walls, where the inscription lit up again. This time, it stayed glowing gold.
The ceiling started cracking and falling in.
“It’s caving,” Carter said. He gave one last pained look towards Seamus, but he knew there was no time to save him. The thought of Using Iridescence crossed his mind, but he shook it out. That was not what Seamus would have wanted.
Carter was about to do something to escape when Alice pressed her hand on her hip, hard. A rappling hook shot out of the sash on her dress and Alice expertly aimed it out of the room. It sailed through the entryway and lodged itself in the wall of one of the underground tunnels.
Alice grabbed Carter around his waist and released the tension on the cord. It worked something like a bungee cord and they were hurtled at an extreme speed to where the hook had lodged into the layers of rock and clay.
At the last possible second, Alice cut the cord with a hair clip that had been in her hand with the jewelry. It was sharper than it looked. Alice and Carter fell to the ground just before they would’ve hit the wall.
Carter landed on his feet, but Alice misjudged the speed of their fall and landed in a sort of crabwalk position.
“That was impressive,” Carter said as he helped her up.
They started running down the twisting halls of rock that were yielding behind them. Direction’s blow was still flowing through the tunnels, and no one could say where it would stop.
“Well, yes, it was better than you could’ve done,” Alice said with a smile.
“You do know I taught you everything you know,” Carter retorted, “don’t you?” He smiled a bit to himself, knowing that the somewhat-ditzy, gasping and sighing girl who had been in the room seconds ago was all a cover. Alice was just as intelligent and covert as the rest of them.
“Ah, the summer in London. Good times.”
“Of course,” Carter said. He then proceeded to do something he had never done before, something he wasn’t really supposed to do.
He looked back. For Seamus, who he had known personally. This was why, in his line of work, Carter often regretted getting to know someone personally. Pain and love are intertwined.
“I’m sorry,” Alice said softly.
“So am I… for the world, as well.” Carter knew that not only were Seamus and Victor gone. Direction was gone, and with it all the hopes of destroying Iridescence. He felt it in his pocket, felt the unrefined power of Time.
“There will be another way,” Alice said. “It just has to reveal itself. All in good time.” She paused, then smiled. “In the movies, this is where you would kiss me.”
Carter had no objection to this, but they’d been standing in one spot for far too long. “Sorry. There’s no time. But perhaps later.”
They broke into a run down the long, dark corridor they had reached. Just a few more twists and they would be on their way out. Wherever they ran, the walls around flickered with unsteady Time. It was rather perplexing but Alice didn’t falter on her high heels and with Carter as navigator, they couldn’t get lost. The tunnels were still caving in behind them, so slowing down wasn’t an option. The passageway’s slope sent them upward until they ran right into the basement of a house, breathing hard. There was a door open and they could feel the night air, which was warm and humid, but still better than the stifling tunnels. Just as they stepped out, they noticed the rumbling noise stopped. It was over. They walked out and up some stairs, inhaling thankfully. They were alive, and they knew to value that more than ever.
Carter wordlessly crowned Alice’s blonde head with his fedora. She smiled. “You’ve got to get in to get out,” she said gently. Then she went off to call a car and deliver the information hidden in a compartment under the brim to the rest of her agency.
Carter and his kind, however, had some different work to do. He took Iridescence out of his pocket and watched the full moon’s light spark off it for a moment before putting it in the secret section of his shoe’s heel, the place it had been earlier. Out of seemingly nowhere (it was really his jacket) he drew a pen and a notebook labled “Observations”.
Then he stepped out into the up-and-coming California town of Amati, sunglasses on.
Underground, the tunnels were all fallen in. Some places were worse than others, but no way was clear. In the room with the table and light and wall writing, someone had just gotten very lucky.
Victor could have beaten Seamus in any physical fight. He was trained for it. Even with Direction, Seamus could not win, because Direction knows what it wants… and it never wanted Victor. Seamus was as good as gone the moment he was tackled.
And then with the cave-in, they should both be dead.
But sometimes people don’t do as they should. Children disobey their parents, people say unkind things, and expectations fall to disappointments.
One of them wasn’t dead.
Just after Alice and Carter had left, the room had caved in, except the wall with the inscription. It stood strong. One person had rolled to the standing wall for cover just in time. The other had been crushed by the three falling walls.
The survivor laid there until the crashing stopped. The damage was done. Then he stood up and began the wearisome work of navigating through the small spaces, the air pockets, the few sturdy spots that had resisted. It would take days without water, but he would make it out alive, changing the course of expected things.
No one ever went back into those ancient tunnels, and no one else ever read the inscription as it faded away slowly, year by year…
Trust or secrets
Make your choice
Lies or regrets
Decide now
Because Time is always running out