Returning to the moment when Sarah was about to reach the end of the ladder.
When she reaches the bottom of the hole, she comes across a cement floor and a tunnel similar to a mine, however without rails, with wooden pillars on the sides and beams above. There are pairs of lanterns, one on each side, and they are turned off. A story that her father once told comes to her mind. In the past, this region where they live was a mining zone that the nobles of Ônia used to search for riches, however mysteriously they abandoned it out of nowhere.
She wonders about the possibility that her father found one of the tunnels, and why he would keep it a secret. A feeling of anxiety mixed with sadness takes over her, an adventure right beneath her house that she could have had long ago presents itself.
As she walks through the tunnel, LED lamps turn on in a bright pink tone in the corners up above, and then turn off after being left behind. After walking for about fifty meters, she reaches the end of the tunnel where no more LEDs light up, only a short darkness before opening into another one, now transverse, being four times larger.
Looking more closely ahead, there are other tunnels similar to the one she is in. Each one with numbers above, 125, 127, 129. Up above, red lights on the sides give a strange and heavy atmosphere.
Then a voice coming from the left emerges from the depths.
With a slight step back while crouching, she hides in the shadow of the small tunnel she just came out of. Soon a young dark-skinned man, together with a man apparently older, also dark-skinned with beard and graying hair, cross from one side to the other.
"Today you can choose as many as you want! After all, it is your birthday!" The gray-haired man exclaims while raising his arm and waving it. Both are dressed in branded formal clothes.
They move away until they disappear from sight. Sarah begins to walk cautiously in the same direction. She looks back and notices the number 128 above the tunnel where she was. Walking stealthily, she goes from tunnel to tunnel hiding in their darkness. 132, 134, 136, she continues for about seven minutes, and the more she advances, a small light at the end of the large tunnel becomes bigger.
After tunnel 479 there is a grand portal, then she approaches it.
Her eyes widen at what she sees.
After the portal, there is a gigantic rounded hall. In front of her and downward, a wide staircase descends in a straight line alternating several small steps with a large one, this pattern seems to repeat until the end. Down there, at the center of everything, a pillar as wide as a round building, all gray, rises imposingly. As her gaze runs along it, Sarah's head goes from a downward diagonal position to an upward diagonal until she sees the ceiling. The pillar merges with the dome-shaped rounded ceiling.
On the sides of the staircase, cement walls rise and accompany the descent along the small steps and stop at the larger one, then return after the large step, thus this pattern repeats until the end. The walls bend and continue to the left, disappearing behind the previous wall, the same repeats on the right side and along the entire staircase.
When turning her gaze to the left side trying to see what is beyond the gray wall, she notices that the walls are part of cement blocks that run circularly throughout the place like a ring. There are small rooms inside them, because further ahead on the other side of the hall, it is possible to observe small windows and doors side by side like bedrooms.
There are several layers of these rings, each one below the other, rings divided by staircases like the one she is on, which also lead to the central pillar. At the top of the staircases there are also portals, the first to her left has the number 3 drawn very large above it. The second has the number 4.
Running her eyes across the rings and passing by the pillar, then after it to her right, a new portal now with the number 6, then another one, now the number 7. From there on she can no longer see, because the cement wall blocks her view. Looking in panorama, she realizes that the place resembles a rounded stadium, where in the stands there are rooms. And in the place of the field, the large pillar.
Returning her eyes to the stairs, she notices someone down there coming in her direction. She hides again, now deeper in a small tunnel. A large man with dark skin, wearing a black suit and short hair, reaches the portal and stands there like a statue.
Forty minutes have passed since she hid. He has not moved a single centimeter from his position. Crouched in the corner almost falling asleep, Sarah suddenly hears a voice.
"Hey Fernando, how are you?" A short white man with brown hair asks.
Then the guard opens a smile.
"Long time Luiz! Everything is great with me. And you?" He responds with another question.
"I am well!" Luiz answers. "If you are at portal one it means that..."
"Yes, I am the chief of the guards now!"
"Congratulations my friend!"
"Did you come to have fun today?" The guard asks.
"Of course, today I will make up for lost time!"
"Follow me, please!"
"Man that is cool! Now you are the chief guard!" The man exclaims smiling as his voice fades while they descend the flights of stairs.
The two go down the staircase and Sarah sees the opportunity to enter the hall, or return to her tunnel, again she lets herself be carried by curiosity and crosses the portal, quickly descending the first flight of small steps. When looking back, she sees the portal she just passed, it has the number 1 above it. When she looks to the sides of the stairs to see up close what is beyond the walls.
Confirming her assumption, a sequence of doors and windows with bars. On each door there is a number and a letter, on the first door to the left there is the letter F and the number 01, on the next F and the number 02, then F 03, F 04.
There are more doors and windows, however she cannot see their numbering. When she looks to the right, it is the same thing, a door with the letter F and the number 48, on the other F 47, then F 46. Descending to the second flight of stairs, there the letter E appears now, with more numbers. Another flight, D, another, C, then she quickly reasons that if she goes down to the end the alphabet decreases until the letter A.
She descends another flight of stairs, enters the row B on the right, tries to open a door and fails. Tries another and nothing, another and again nothing. She runs to the end of that block and looks up through the stairs, then she sees the number 8 above the portal. She climbs two flights of stairs until reaching row D.
Entering to the left, the first door is D 35, when she tries to open the door, she realizes it is already opening. A quick run begins toward the staircase in an attempt to hide behind the wall. A bearded and fat man comes out of the room, he closes the door and walks to the other side. An opportunity presents itself and she runs to see what is behind it.
When opening it, darkness takes over her sight, searching along the walls near the entrance, she finds a small rounded core attached to the wall. While closing the door, she presses the core. On the ceiling, a lamp illuminates the environment with a weak white light. The clarity reveals a sink, a mirror and a toilet on the left in front of her.
There is also a small table in the right corner beside her. In front of the table, there is a bed with its feet fixed to the ground and a ring attached to one of them, and attached to the ring there is a chain, which piles up for several centimeters until it rises and goes under a completely white blanket.