Chapter 29:
The Strangers
Part 3
Day Five
Date: 05/01/01
Location: In the City
Mission Duration: Four Days
Remaining Time: 4 Hours
Objective: Reach the City Gate
Subject Names: Thomas, Samira Ali, Amanda Jefferson
Native: Khorcha (Guide)
Previous Success Rate: 85%
Expected Success Rate: 70%
Failed Subjects: 250
Successful Subjects: 10
Success Percentage: 4%
Experiment Results: 96% Failure
Experiment Outcome: Termination
Next Stage: Initiated
Objective: Monitoring
Stage Duration: 30 Days
Days Count-Down: 30
The creature's body lay twisted on the cracked ground, steaming under the greenish-gray light. The smell was sharp — part ash, part iron — and as I watched, its dark flesh began to dissolve into thin glowing threads that faded into the air.
Amanda stood a few feet away, breathing hard, her hands trembling as she clutched the crystal club. Blood — or whatever passed for it in this world — was splattered across her sleeves. Her eyes darted between the creature and us, wide with disbelief.
Although I didn't doubt it to begin with, I was sure that she was human. Definitely human.
Samira lowered her weapon slightly but didn't put it away.
"You alright?" she asked, her tone careful, like she wasn't sure if the girl would understand her.
Amanda nodded weakly. "I… I think so." Her voice a little bit shaken. "It just came out of nowhere. I didn't even have time to"
Her words stopped as the familiar system voice interrupted all of us at once:
{Combat Zone Cleared. Remaining Hostile Entities: 0.}
For a moment, we all just stood there, catching our breath. Khorcha was the only one who moved. He crouched beside the creature's remains, his long fingers tracing the faint glow that was fading from its skin.
I couldn't help but ask, seeing the way he was looking at it, "You've seen one of these before? Do you know what it was?"
He didn't look at me right away. "I have seen many who fell to the same hunger," he said quietly. "But they were not the last."
He sighed — or that's what I thought at least — and said, "This used to be a peaceful animal, changed by the parasite."
Amanda frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
Khorcha stood up slowly, the dull light glinting off the gray surface of his eyes.
"There are others," he said. "Survivors. Hideouts scattered through the ruins. But no one trusts the others anymore. The system made sure of that."
Samira tilted her head. "There are other hideouts?"
I wondered if I didn't share that information with her because the reward we — or now as I think only me — were supposed to get was information about the other hideouts, so since she didn't know that much I guess we didn't share the mission information through the system together.
"Yes," he said simply. "But none cooperate. They cannot."
"Why not?" I asked. That piece of info I didn't know myself.
He paused, his gaze shifting toward the faint sky as if searching for something that wasn't there.
"Because the system does not allow it. Communication between shelters was severed cycles ago. Every group lives and dies by its own test."
That hit harder than I expected. We were barely keeping ourselves alive — and now I was imagining dozens of others doing the same, all in silence, all believing they were alone.
But something about the way Khorcha spoke made me frown. His tone had changed — quieter, more cautious.
"You sound like you know more than you're saying," I said.
He turned to me, and for a brief second, his eyes flickered with light — gold and cold."I say only what I am permitted to say," he answered. "There are ears that listen even here."
"Permitted by who?" Samira asked, but Khorcha didn't answer.
The system chimed again.
A data prompt appeared in front of me, each line appearing after the other, and the fragments began to arrange themselves into readable lines. And I believed Samira also received the same message.
{Mission Complete}
{Assist the Hideout Status: Success.}
{Reward: Information Archive Access Granted.}
{New Information Packet: Unlocked}
{Survived Inhabitants Status Part 1/4}
{Number of active hideouts: 7.}
{Estimated total survivors: 400,000–600.}
{Communication between shelters: Terminated.}
{Interference cause: System security protocols.}
{Guidance Access: Local Unit "Khorcha" authorized for limited navigation.}
No points. No levels. Just that.
I scrolled through it mentally, feeling both relief and frustration.
"So instead of a reward, we get… information instead," I muttered. Not that I was disappointed or something.
Samira frowned. "I guess the reward to begin with was information, but we haven't even reached the hideout yet, so why was the reward given in advance?"
"Not at all," Khorcha said, his voice steady. "The system does not reward by need or achievements, but by what furthers its plan. It gives you what you must know, sometimes what you need, not what you want. It's a calculated plan."
Amanda, while she was still catching her breath and listening to the conversation — which she didn't even understand most of — hesitated to interrupt their conversation but at the same time felt the need to ask and finally asked:
"And what exactly is its plan?"
Being not even a day since she woke up in this alien planet and still trying to figure out what was going on — until now she didn't get enough answers to the questions she had — she was hoping at least to get some useful information. The two humans here seemed like they knew something, and that was obvious since they had been here before she arrived.
But the alien seemed to know more than he was letting out, and that was just a feeling since they had known each other for only a few minutes, and she told herself, Whatever happens, I should not let my guard down. I am not sure if the two are really like me or even something entirely different.
He didn't answer right away. But in a mysterious way he said, "To see what remains worth saving."
The silence after that was long and heavy. Each one of us was deep in thought. I was lamenting on the last sentence Khorcha said; apparently he was indicating the system was helping, like it wanted to save something. But the question is: what is worth saving for the system? Which brought me back to the question that I didn't get an answer to so far — Was the system a friend to us or a foe like it is to the inhabitants of this world?
We rested in what used to be a plaza, surrounded by tall, bent spires that looked like they'd grown out of the ground rather than been built. Some still pulsed faintly with blue light, like veins running through a dead body.
Amanda sat near one of them, still gripping her club. I could tell she was fighting to keep her composure. And lamenting whether to trust us — although we didn't give her any reason not to — but still I could imagine the reason for her hesitation to share anything with us, simply because we didn't share anything with her ourselves. So I decided to start the conversation, and before asking anything I shared with her what happened to me from the start until now.
Without dwelling on much of the details, just simple information about my background and how I found myself here — in brief of course — and how we met, me and Samira, without narrating what happened with Samira. That was not my tale to tell. Nor any of our skills. Not that I didn't trust her, but to be cautious, nothing more. Then I started asking her about her experience.
After I finished, she started telling her story as well until she met us, then she stopped talking for a second staring in front of her, which I guessed meant she received a message that we didn't.
"I just got another mission," she said suddenly, looking at me. "It said, Reach the City Gate."
Samira looked up quietly after being silent for a while, just listening to us. "That's the same mission as ours."
"Then I guess we are supposed to travel together," I said, though I wasn't sure if I meant it as comfort or if I was just excited knowing that she was really one of us.
Khorcha tilted his head slightly. Using his cryptic way of speaking, he said, "The system merges paths when goals align. For now, you share a purpose."
Amanda nodded slowly, processing everything.
"It told me… there was a way out through the Gate. That if I reached it, I could leave."
Samira exchanged a look with me.
"That's what the hideout leader said, too."
Amanda's eyes flicked up. "The hideout you were helping now's leader?"
"Yeah," Samira said, "the guy who helped us before we left. He said the government — scientists, leaders — all escaped before this world fell apart. They're up there now, in orbit."
"In the orbit?" Amanda repeated. "How would you reach there?"
"I am not sure yet," I added. "But apparently, the City Gate is the only way to reach them. That much I heard — but we will discover that when we reach there for sure." I was thinking maybe there's a spaceship or something similar.
Khorcha's voice was low, almost like a warning."The Gate connects the world below to the world above. But not all who enter return. Or all who enter can leave also."
Amanda looked at him sharply. "Why not?"
"Because the Gate does not open for everyone," he said. "Only for those who have been chosen."
A faint hum rippled through the ground beneath us, like the world itself exhaled. I checked my mission log again.
{Gate Objective Progress: 82%. Remaining Time Before Gate Objective: 1 Day, 15 Hours, 3 Minutes.}
Samira noticed me looking. "Still thinking about the timer?"
"It's hard not to," I said. "Feels like my life is being counted down in front of me."
"You worry too much about time," Khorcha said, repeating his earlier words. "You fear failure."
"I fear what comes after it," I admitted quietly. Why it felt like deja vu — like we had this conversation more than once.
He gave a slow nod. "The system does not punish failure because it hates you, Thomas. It does so because it must make you change."
I wanted to argue, but I didn't. Maybe he was right — or maybe he was just another voice in a world gone insane.
We began moving again through the skeletal remains of the city. The air had grown colder, the green light deepening toward something darker.
Samira's scanner flickered suddenly, a faint blip appearing on the screen.
"Wait…" she said, stopping. "There's another signal. This is a different signal and it seems like it's a human, and it disappeared now."
Amanda frowned. "Now you mentioned it, I remember now the system told me that I was the 4th human in this city. That means there is another human in the city except the three of us."
I felt a chill crawl up my spine. "Then who's the fourth one now?"
Samira adjusted her scanner. "The signal was weak actually and it disappeared east of us."
Khorcha stopped walking, his expression unreadable.
"Be careful what you hope to find," he said quietly.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Not all who survive remain the same as they were before. Maybe he is not a human anymore."
The silence that followed that line felt heavier than the air around us. Even Amanda looked unsettled.
As we walked, I couldn't help glancing up. Through the haze, faint lights shimmered in the distant sky — like stars that didn't belong there. Maybe they were ships. Maybe they were the stations the leader talked about.
Either way, that was where we were headed.
The system pinged one final time, and a new line appeared across my vision:
{Subjects Linked. Shared Objective Initiated.}
{Objective: Reach the City Gate. Estimated Time Remaining: 1 Day 15 Hours.}
Amanda fell into step beside me. She was still shaking a little, but her voice was steadier now.
"Four survivors," she said quietly. "Do you think that's all of us?"
I thought about it for a second, then shook my head.
"No. I don't think so. As far as I know, we are test subjects, so the more the better. That is why logic dictates."
She looked at me, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I mean we're not chosen because we survived," I said. "We're the subjects that survived. That is why we have been chosen."
She didn't reply, and for a long moment, the only sound was the crunch of our boots on the black glass ground.
We reached the hideout and delivered the supplies that we collected. Feeling anxious about what is to come — I had a feeling that this is just the beginning — we decided to spend the night in the hideout and start leaving early in the morning.
Somewhere far ahead, hidden beyond the fog and the ruins, a faint blue glow marked the horizon — the City Gate.
And for the first time, I felt it — not hope, not fear, but something else.
The sense that whatever waited there… was watching us already.