As Zrelekai pointed the flashlight toward a window, his heart began to beat really fast.
"Are these… robots?" whispered Zrelekai. In front of him, there were countless robotic creatures. 'I've read about them in one of the books… creatures made by humans in the old world…' thought Zrelekai as he stood with his mouth open, unable to speak.
'But I never thought I'd see one… I've never understood them.'
Zrelekai looked at the robots by moving the flashlight and realized that they were completely rusted and ruined. 'For how long have they been here?' thought Zrelekai, confused, but soon enough he shook his head.
'For how long have I been here?' Zrelekai turned his body and pointed the flashlight around. "What even is this place…" he whispered. Not far from him, there was a black desk, completely ruined and broken.
"What's inside there?" Zrelekai carefully kneeled near a small drawer under the desk. Before opening it, Zrelekai let out a big gulp, scared that he might find something strange, but what he saw made him let out a sigh of relief.
Inside the drawer, there were only old wires. 'Were these used with electric circuits?' thought Zrelekai at the sight of the objects. As he grabbed one of them in his hands, he realized that they were still intact.
'Maybe I could try to use them… but,' Zrelekai glanced around again and now he gulped in fear, '…but now I need to find a way to go out.' Zrelekai moved his flashlight again, searching for an exit, but something else caught his eye.
"Are these books?" he almost shouted at the sight of the books inside a huge bookshelf. Zrelekai rushed toward them. As he ran, a small rock in the middle made him lose his balance.
"Ahhh!!!" he shouted as his body crashed against the bookshelf. While Zrelekai touched his head after the bump, the books on the bookcase began to shake, and an old brown book fell on top of Zrelekai's head.
"Ouch!" Caught by surprise, Zrelekai let out a soft moan. 'What was that?' he thought, confused. Soon enough, his eyes were caught by the book that had fallen down.
"What's this?" whispered Zrelekai, confused, as he grabbed the book in his hands. "This doesn't even have a title…" Zrelekai's attention was captured by this book, and without caring about anything else, he began to read this small book.
"First day, year 2055," said Zrelekai as he began to read it out loud. 'Is this a diary?' he thought as he began to read everything carefully.
"First day of the creation of this laboratory. We've been able to create this thanks to the help of our allies and the enemies. Even if they have satellites telling them everything, luckily they haven't spotted this place yet. I've decided to keep this diary so in case I die, my sons will have something left by their father."
'Shit, I can't continue…' Zrelekai realized that the ink continuing through this page had disappeared, and it was impossible to read.
'Still, what is he talking about? A war?' he thought, confused. 'As far as I know, there shouldn't have been any war in this old world…' Zrelekai began to flip through other pages, and as he read words like death, killing enemy soldiers, and war, he realized that this was true. 'I should keep reading…'
"Day 89, year 2055." Zrelekai was able to find this page after countless ones in which the ink couldn't be read perfectly.
"We've created the robots! Finally, having all of these robots, the enemy can't do anything anymore against us. Each of them has multiple rifles and they all have three hands… the best part is that they have internal sensors and they can shoot in less than a second! We're really going to win this war and create a perfect world."
As Zrelekai read these words out loud, he suddenly stopped reading and looked at the darkness in front of him. "Perfect world?" he whispered.
"My power is what can bring about a perfect world… but they want to take it with war?" Confused, Zrelekai kept reading the pages.
Zrelekai's fingers trembled as he quickly flipped through several more damaged pages, his flashlight beam shaking against the yellowed paper until the faded ink became legible once again.
"Day 214, year 2056," Zrelekai read, his voice echoing softly in the hollow, pitch-black room.
"The peaceful protests failed. The negotiations failed. We thought that by simply inventing clean energy, replicable food, and medicine, the corrupt leaders of the old nations would willingly step down and let us build a paradise. We were fools. They don't want a perfect world; they want control. They bombed our surface facility yesterday. My youngest brother didn't make it out. It is clear to me now: you cannot build a sanctuary on rotten foundations. Before you can create something beautiful, you must completely burn away the old system that oppresses it."
Zrelekai stopped reading for a moment as his breathing quickened. 'Burn away the old system?' Confused, Zrelekai remained still for a moment as his mind raced through countless thoughts. 'The king asked me to make more meat for the people inside… while the Alterids died outside the walls… and the same could have happened to me…' Zrelekai's stomach tightened at this thought.
He hurriedly turned the page, his eyes hungrily scanning the next readable entry.
"Day 410, year 2057," Zrelekai whispered, the ink here sharp and aggressive, as if written in a frantic rush.
"Creation alone is a passive, defenseless act. It is a sheep waiting for the slaughter. If you only possess the power to make things, the vultures of the world will simply enslave you and force you to create for 'them'. A true creator must also be a destroyer. War is not the enemy of a perfect world; it is the violent, necessary labor pain before its birth. We are launching the automated robot vanguard tonight. We will erase their cities, we will shatter their armies, and only when the ground is entirely cleared of their corruption will we use our technology to build the ultimate paradise from the ashes."
Zrelekai slowly lowered the book, the flashlight slipping slightly in his hand as he stared blankly out the window toward the silent army of rusted robots.
"A true creator must also be a destroyer…" Zrelekai repeated these words multiple times as he got up and walked back toward the huge window. As he looked at the robots, whispering these words to himself, they soon fused together with his soul.
'I've felt miserable my entire life… my perfect power is only a tool for these people… to feed the king… to help the children… to help the old people…' Looking at the robots in front of him, Zrelekai bit down on his lower lip.
'And creating stuff over stuff isn't the right solution… this doesn't bring me to perfection,' he thought angrily. As he bit his lip harder, it started to bleed, but the diary was showing him the missing piece of the puzzle. 'If I keep creating things passively, someone else will arrive and take it away… or worse, they might exploit me.' Zrelekai angrily threw a punch toward the glass, sending a small shudder through the entire window.
'The diary is right,' Zrelekai thought, his eyes widening in the dark as a radical, dangerous shift took hold of his mind. 'My power can bring back the perfection of the old world... but my power alone is just a tool for others to exploit. To truly build a paradise where I can experiment forever without anyone stopping me... Karyuz, the kings, the weak humans who hold me back... they all need to be cleared away first. A war is necessary to purge the weakness.'
With a sudden surge of dark inspiration, Zrelekai clutched the title-less brown diary tightly against his chest, no longer afraid of the dark room, but eager to find his way out so he could begin his new work.
'I can't remain here any longer… I need to go out… and practice learning all these things.' Zrelekai spotted a small door he hadn't noticed before. 'I hope the exit is here… or else I'll have to create it myself…' Zrelekai then began to walk toward this old black hallway.
After no less than ten minutes, Zrelekai finally arrived inside another room. "What's this place?" The area changed drastically. Now the walls were no longer black like the other room and hallway he was in some minutes ago; now everything was yellow, and not far from him there was a small switch.
'I found one of these in that laboratory too, but it didn't work.' Zrelekai walked toward it and was about to press it. 'From what I was able to read in an old book, these switches turn on all the lights… let's hope this works.' Zrelekai pressed the switch, and at first, some lights turned on, but most of them lasted only for a second and broke down immediately.
"What is this place…" Zrelekai looked around, confused. 'Wait, I read something about this in the diary…' he thought as he began to flip through the pages again until he reached day 5.
"We've created a huge yellow room for our soldiers and our allies. This room is extremely huge; it almost feels like a labyrinth if you don't have a map," Zrelekai read out loud.
"Oh, then this is what this map was created for…" Zrelekai remembered seeing this weird drawing left on one of the pages. 'Here is the entrance to the black laboratories…' Zrelekai pointed his finger exactly to his position and then moved it toward the place where the exit was located.
"And I need to go there… let's go." Zrelekai, still with the diary open in his hands, began to walk around this weird yellow room.
'Is this under Karyuz?' thought Zrelekai, confused. 'Who knows… but it surely feels… amazing…' he thought, unable to believe that such a thing could exist. This huge room was nothing Zrelekai had ever seen or could even imagine.
'Were there more soldiers than the ones I saw in that laboratory?' thought Zrelekai. 'This place would be able to contain countless numbers of them… even more than the ones I saw in that black room?' he questioned himself. As he glanced around, he realized that the walls were extremely ruined; some of them were destroyed, and on others, there were cobwebs.
'You probably loved this place… right?' Zrelekai looked directly at the diary, referring to the person who had written it. Before speaking again, he let out a deep breath.
'I don't know how your war ended, but I'm sure you believed it was the right path… and I'll finish your ideas. I promise I'll be able to give life to them… and give life to the world you dreamed so much about.' With that, Zrelekai finally reached the exit. In front of him, there was a huge ladder.
The ladder was completely ruined, and as Zrelekai touched it, some of the wood it was made of broke apart.
'Let's create a new one…' Without the slightest issue, Zrelekai was able to create a new ladder that replaced the old one.
As he began to climb it, he looked below him for a moment. 'I'll give new life to this place… I promise it,' he thought. Zrelekai then turned back and kept going toward the end of the ladder.
"Is this an opening?" whispered Zrelekai. The moment he reached the end of the ladder, there was what looked to be a trapdoor. "Damn… it's so hard, I can't open it." Zrelekai tried to push it with all his strength, but it didn't work.
"Argh, fuck off!" Zrelekai grabbed the pistol and, with all his strength, shot multiple bullets into the trapdoor.
"I'm not hearing any sound… any people from the top… maybe it will randomly lead out into the desert?" he whispered the moment he finished shooting all the bullets. Now, with just a gentle touch, he was able to move the trapdoor away and reveal the secret passage.
"It's dark… what's there?" Zrelekai came out of the yellow room and arrived inside this place. As he turned on the flashlight, he immediately recognized it.
'A desk with a piece of meat on it… a weird piece of meat on the ground… a table…' Zrelekai couldn't believe his eyes. As he rushed toward the window to open it, he realized, first, that it was night, and second, that in front of him was the exact square he saw every day.
Zrelekai, with the flashlight still in his hands, placed his hand over his face and began to laugh hysterically.
"Are we for real? I've always had such a beautiful place under my laboratory… and I didn't know it?" Still laughing, Zrelekai reached the ladder again. "This makes things easier." With a serious face, he looked at the entrance to the yellow room right below him, and laughed weirdly again.