|Location: SIGNAL TOWER|
-NUK-
The signal tower was nothing like I had imagined, yet I was grateful to Dia for leading me here.
As my eyes lifted beyond the immediate view, what first seemed like a few branches gradually revealed themselves to be hundreds—no, thousands—sprawling outward and upward in a tangled, majestic canopy. These were no ordinary branches. They stretched like colossal arms across the sky, twisting and weaving together into a vast, intricate lattice, as if cradling the heavens themselves. The bark shimmered faintly, alive with a subtle, rhythmic glow that pulsed alongside the energy humming in the air. Each branch reached so far that their tips disappeared into the mist above, vanishing into the darkness like the fingers of some ancient giant stretching endlessly toward the stars.
The sheer scale of it left me breathless. This wasn't just a signal tower—it was a living colossus, woven from the very fabric of the sky and forest, towering over the land in a way that felt both condescending and suffocating.
"Whoa…" I whispered, unable to tear my gaze away from the tree and the crater that creates this gap between me and that massive thing. The more I stared, the more the tree seemed to glisten, drawing me closer with an almost magnetic pull.
Then, unexpectedly, I heard a voice—familiar yet distorted. Unlike the soft whisper I had heard before, this time it was a loud, screaming cacophony of baffling words that echoed inside my head. "Why now!"
"Ah!" A sudden ringing filled my ears, sharp and relentless screeching. I clutched my head, desperate to block out the noise, but it was useless. The voices screamed on, relentless and overwhelming. I tried to shake the dizziness off, but my efforts only seemed to intensify the chaos.
I could feel something in me shifting, like tangled veins being forcefully stretched — straighten strokes following a rigid mold. My breath started to become ragged as I tried to catch it, I fell in a fetal position trying to fight off the pain — that seems to want my head to explode into a thousand pieces.
"Zero, are you okay?" Dia's voice was gentle as her hand rested soothingly on my back.
When I thought it wouldn't end, then, as abruptly as it started, the noise suddenly ceased. In the silence, a single voice called out to me: "Come."
Something primal stirred inside me. I instinctively knew the voice came from that towering tree. Without hesitation, I bolted forward, leaving Dia behind as I descended into the crater below. The fall wasn't far—only a few meters—but enough for me to land solidly on my feet.
Yet the moment I crossed the crater's edge, everything shifted. The air thickened, growing dense and heavy, and the soil beneath my feet started to transition from a crumbly one into a hardened steel-like substance. Each step I took seemed to generate this echoing sharp tone from the bottom of my feet, like a metallic clang like rods striking one another, reverberating across the empty space. The sound persisted even when I stood still, knocking on the ground with my fist confirmed its cold hardness.
And emanating from where I am, this thick, murky, and suffocating intangible wave keeps on brushing against my skin as if hindering me from walking any closer.
Yet despite this strange phenomenon, my focus remained glued to the tree and the emotions stirring inside me was enough to keep me moving. It was reminiscent of when I first left the desert—the overwhelming feeling that my world was changing rapidly, becoming something entirely new and unfamiliar.
I pressed forward, captivated. And before I knew it, there it was in front of me. I couldn't deny its breathtaking beauty. Leaning closer, I pressed my ear against its bark, hoping to hear a voice. Silence. But then, something else caught my attention.
"This tree, the branches, and these tiny veins — are pulsating? I didn't notice this before — are these codes?" I murmured, awe-struck. The longer I look at it the more it seems I somehow understand what it is in its core, I continued. "It's like a massive compilation of code running a program. This tree... it's a system. A brain trying to process a massive amount of information and seems to be transferring it somewhere."
Then it dawned on me that this tree might be responsible for the wasteland itself. It was gathering energy, gathering information. Information—that was why I came here, to extract data from the signal tower.
"Did I unknowingly go here for this?" recalling my excitement and my decisions back then, this seems to be calling me. "But how?"
Lost in thought, I suddenly felt a cold breath whisper down my neck. It evaded my senses until it was right behind me. I spun around. Dia stood there, silent and still.
"Close, but not that close," she whispered with a sly smile.
I stared at her, baffled. How did she sneak up without a sound? My own footsteps echoed loudly on the steel ground, yet Dia moved like a shadow, silent and graceful. She circled me now, footsteps inaudible, her presence unsettling.
"How?" I asked, wariness creeping in.
She cut me off with a playful grin. "So, what do you think of this?"
Her tone pulled me back to the moment we met, and I forced my worries aside.
I blinked, focusing on the tree. "It's amazing."
"You said it's a system," Dia said, pacing around the trunk. "But to me... it's a memory. A long lost — forgotten data of a civilization, though just a fraction."
She faded from my sight and as if she circled the colossal tree walking to the right just to immediately emerge from the left, she then leaned against it and looked at me straight in the eyes. "How about you try extracting something from here?"
A voice suddenly whispered right into my head, my mind was in a trance as I stretched my hand spreading my palm against the pulsating number of codes. Ideas popped into my head, data from the past, maybe there's something about me. Hope and longing pushed me even deeper into the moment.
"SAI, do the extraction!" I whispered in my head, then suddenly, a bright red error screen flashed before me breaking me out of the trance.
I jolted when I saw the flashing screen.
[ERROR] [ERROR]
"What?!"
[ERROR] [ERROR]
My thoughts spiraled. How could I be, I was confident that — with certainty this was going to work?
I sank to the ground, back against the tree's rough bark, staring blankly at the endless dark forest beyond. I curled into myself, wrapping my arms around my knees, a heavy sigh escaping.
I silently laugh for a bit, my chest rising and deflating as if the tension from before now gone. Then continued to chuckle at myself, "What was I thinking? Was there any point to this?"
What was I thinking? Maybe I hadn't seen the sun in too long—that was why I was losing it.
Suddenly, Dia's feet appeared before me. I looked up to meet her face, looming over mine.
"You might be wondering why nothing happened right?," she said, tapping the trunk.
I nodded, and she chuckled, a warm smile lighting her face. "You only need to use your blood to activate synchronization—and touch it directly."
Without hesitation, I followed her instructions. Her confidence was contagious. I felt my cold blood stir and warm within me. I stood and laid my arm on the roots.
"You knew how to do this all along?" I asked, surprised.
She only smiled.
She then suddenly ripped a portion of my skin from my arm and pressed it against the bark. My blood spilled into the roots, and the tree's surface shifted, absorbing the color of my blue blood.
"I knew it! What he said was true!" She said frantically and smiled from ear to ear, pupils dilated and mouth trembling to say the next part of her sentence. "You! It's Happening!"
I was too taken aback to react to what just happened, but then a comforting warmth began spreading into me..
At first, I tried to pull my hand out of Dia's grip, but then the unexpected happened. The tree pulsed, shifting into a muddy, viscous substance that engulfed both my arms. I struggled, twisting and pulling, but no matter how hard I fought, I couldn't break free.
That's when panic kicked in too late.
The tree wrapped itself around me, cold and unyielding. I tried to run, but it was faster, pulling me into its grasp.
Dia stood in front of me, a wide, cruel smile stretching across her face. "Zero, you're smart, but you're also a bit childish—easily tempted and easily fooled. It makes us wonder if you really are his work."
"Dia, what are you saying? Help me!" I cried, struggling against the tree's tightening hold.
But every time I tore at it, the tree closed back in, relentless and merciless.
As the tree pulled me deeper, a sickening sensation filled me from within. My strength faded, my body shuddering.
Dia grabbed my face, forcing me to meet her eyes, her expression sharp with mock offense. "Hey now, didn't you want the signal tower? I'm giving it to you."
Fear gripped me like nothing before—not helplessness, but raw, paralyzing fear.
"Dia, this is..." I tried to speak, but my body went numb, my energy draining away. It was clear—the tree was sucking me dry.
"If there's a next time, don't be so easily tricked," she warned harshly.
She released my face.
"D-D-Di-a?" My voice was weak, my mind drifting.
"Right, almost forgot. This part was a slipped from me, but you didn't even notice." she said, glancing back. "Didn't you wonder how I knew you wanted to see the signal tower when you never said a word about it? Also didn't you hear me say 'the heart' and your not wondering why I suddenly changed it to the 'signal tower'?"
Her words hit me like a slap. Why hadn't I suspected? She was a threat from the start.
As my consciousness began to fade, a silhouette appeared—familiar, a faint glimmer of hope that someone might save me.
"H-huh?"
"Look who showed up," Dia said, her voice cold as she turned away.
"Dia, what's going on? What did you do to Zero?" Nuk's voice echoed faintly—the last thing I heard before my body and mind slipped away into darkness.
••••••••