The week after the Lecture passed like a fever dream. The schedule became habit. The only difference being, now Arata woke up before the first siren. Noe because he wanted to, bet because he was unable to sideline the constant humming in the Academy.
The other cadets had adjusted quickly, moving like clockwork in corridors that hummed to the same rhythm. But Arata couldn't, even with all the suggestion from Wanuy on how to sleep through it.
"After a while it becomes like a white noise, helps you sleep." He said.
"Is it white Noise to you?" Arata had asked in response.
"Sometimes... Other times it feels like my eyeballs will fall out"
Arata had realised that Wanuy was well meaning person, but he didn't have the faculties to help the people of Academy.
Arata even went to Lyra Vale once, just so he could get 6 hours of humless sleep... But to no avail.
"Just embrace it, listen to it more closely. The humming always tells something. Not everyone hears it. Those who do are closer to the vein's and consequently the First Flame."
"You are a researcher, do you really believe that?" Arata had asked her.
"Not the Flame part, but the vein part I absolutely believe" Lyra replied to him.
No one is of any use in this accursed place.
Every night, the hum grew louder, it wasn't just a faint vibration anymore... It was like a the pulse of a drum being beaten at a parade ground. Every few hours, he caught his reflection in the steel walls, lips moving in sync with something that wasn't him
He told himself it was exhaustion. Now that he thought about it, he had been telling himself a lot of things lately.
On the seventh morning, a summons came.
Cadet Arata. Report to Lower Sector 4 – Resonance Field Maintenance.
Wanuy looked at him with concern, "What did you do?"
"What do I know, the people at the academy don't know anything, how am I supposed to be aware of what i did..." Arata said as he put on his uniform shoes, and slipped on the priestess necklace, the only thing tat comforted him.
"Calm down, man. Didn't get any sleep again?"
Arata didn't answer that, and just left the dormitory. Outside the tower he found Flora wandering about.
"Afternoon, Flora, today is a off, why aren't you resting?"
"Oh, i was just passing by, I like to go sit by the river, it helps calm me down. Also Professor Neil has given quite the assignment, was just airing myself out." Flora said as she looked at Arata, She seemed to have notice the eye bags underneath his eyes. "Not getting enough sleep?"
"Ehhh, leave that topic alone. Also, I have to go now, you must have heard the summons?"
"Oh... yeah. Please go and be safe" Flora said as she gave way to him.
The resonance Fields, were anything but fields, these military people had given opposite names to everything. The Resonance fields was a cover up name for the veinworks. They were deep below the mountain. The only way to reach "Feilds" was the elevator.
The elevator descended through stone and steel, the light shifting from white to red as he passed through successive security rings. Each level carried more heat, more vibration. By the time the doors opened, Arata's teeth were rattling.
...
The Veinworks stretched before him. It was a colossal tunnel system carved below the earth's surface.The walls weren't solid rock, they shimmered faintly, pulsing with red light. It were the veins, he was standing in a tunnel system of veins. Machinery clung to the walls like parasites, their cables burrowing into the glow.
As he was lost in the wonder's of the earth, a voice startled him, "You're the replacement from Neil's class, right?"
A man stepped out from behind a stabiliser pillar. Half his face was replaced by metal plating. His uniform bore the insignia of the Ground Resonance Corps.
"Sergeant Miran," he said. "You'll follow my lead. There can be some questions, but no touching anything that hums."
"Everything Hums down here" Arata said as he looke to the ceiling od the tunnel he was standing in. There was no water on the ceilings. This deep down there was no water.
"Exactly, so keep your hands to yourself, and follow me, maybe you will learn something" The Sergeant said, as he now took the lead.
The task was supposedly simple, they had to check the conduit flow along the east section and report anomalies. But the deeper they went, the stranger the tunnels became. The walls no longer looked Carved, but instead they looked like they had grown.
Fine filaments of crystalline matter extended from the Veins, weaving together like capillaries, making new pathways.Occasionally, one of them pulsed, and the floor vibrated with a sound that wasn't quite the mechanical hum of the machines.
Miran walked without hesitation, boots crunching over mineral dust. "You'll get used to it," he said. "The Veins breathe every few hours. The Nerds call it Pressure equalisation."
"Equalisation" Arata repeated, watching the slow rise and fall of the wall beside him. "That's what you call it?"
"What else would it be?"
Taking a breath?? Arata had a though but didn't share.
By midday, the temperature had risen to unbearable levels. Sweat dripped into his eyes, mixing with the red dust that coated everything.
At one point, his hand brushed against the wall. It was warm a tad bit too warm. And under his palm there was the faintest movement. It was not vibration due to the Hum, it was quite literally A twitch.
He jerked his hand back. "The wall just—"
"Don't say it" Miran cut him off. "The walls don't move. You're just light-headed."
"I felt it—"
"I said drop it."
The older man's voice carried a tremor that believed his own denial, but Arata didn't press further. But as they walked on, he noticed that Miran's hand never left the hilt of his weapon.
Could something Attack us here? Best not say such things.
They reached the far end of the maintenance path it was obvious as a the way further was sealed by a massive gate of obsidian glass. Runes flickered along its surface, mapping pressure readings in real time. The glass was dark except for a single glowing vein that pulsed once every few seconds, and that vein was behind it.
"OK rookie time to learn something, This right here is the Deep Barrier. It is the only thing keeping the growth of the veins in check under the Academy" The soldier said as he started jotting down the readings and checking for anomalies.
"What is behind the gate" Arata asked him.
"Behind it? The Primary Vein, but we don't go past this point."
"Why?"
"It's the orders. You were in active duty before... you know how the military works." The sergeant said as he turned around with the pad now completely filled with jargon of numbers. "Let's go now"
Arata stared at the gate. The pulse of the vein behind it matched his heartbeat exactly. The moment he noticed, his chest tightened.
An syncopated echo behind his eyes, made him all most fall down.
You're close.
Miran caught him before he fell down. "You alright?"
"Yeah" Arata lied. "Just dizzy and strained."
"That's normal for he first timers, it's the lack of Oxygen."
They made camp at the checkpoint for the night. The lights dimmed automatically to simulate dusk, though no real sky existed here. Arata set up rations and heat canisters.
Miran gave orders between mouthfuls of food. "Rotation shifts every two hours. If the wall hums, you hum back. Keeps it calm."
Arata frowned. "Keeps what calm?"
"Don't ask questions you're not ready to hear answers to."
He doesn't know the answer. He is just following orders.
Arata's first shift wasn't that stressful, the vein's were silent, there was no humming for the major part of the shift. It did kick in at the end but was short lived.
At the second shift, the hum returned It was louder but slower like the deep exhale of a sleeping beast. The wall nearest him rippled. Fine cracks spread along its surface, leaking faint red light, it was pulsing the exact same way as the Deep Barrier.
He reached toward it, unable to stop himself. The light flared stronger, the hum became deeper. For a moment, he saw through the stone there were tunnels spiralling downward, arteries converging around something massive and alive.
He felt his blood move not metaphorically, not as energy. Just Blood. It surged through him like the tide, The sensation of Adreanline was running through through Arata's body.
Come lower, brother.
"Stop" Miran shouted.
He gasped and stumbled backward, snapping the vision. The light faded. His heartbeat calmed down.
"You touched the wall, didn't you?" Miran whispered.
"I—It was calling—" Arata couldn't form words, the sensation was still leaving his body.
Before Arata could properly answer, the ground shifted beneath them. A deep crack thundered through the tunnel. the machines on the walls went hay wire. the vein's along the walls started glowing violently, not pulsing this time just glowing.
"Why are they not pulsing anymore" Arata shouted in mayhem of noises.
Then they were pulsing in rapid rhythm like an accelerated heartbeat of a kid when he sees something he reaaly wants.
I take it back, go back to glowing Arata thought too himself.
"Containment field, now!" Miran barked. Arata scrambled, slamming stabilizer rods into the floor.
Arata watched in horror as the wall convulsed, pushing outward like muscle flexing under skin. As he planted the last Stabilising rod, it stopped altogether.
In one single moment, there was just silence.