The main group continued onward with their escape, following along the path The Narrator and the larger group went through. The hallways feel very small and narrowed. Their steps echoing throughout the rooms.
"Lanora! Lanora!" Dagus said, still holding her wrist, "Get ahold of yourself! Lanora!"
Meanwhile, Lanora is still getting dragged along as if hypnotized by just the appearance of that colossal figure.
Dagus snaps his fingers twice near her ears, trying to get her out of the daze.
Lanora reacted, she blinked twice and shook her head, "Wu-huh?"
"What got into you? Did that giant thing amaze you so much?" Dagus asked her, "It's 120% bigger than us, you can't just stand there and be amazed by malicious entities like that!"
"Shut up, Dagus. If it looks big and weird, it's really cool to me." She said, "Reminds me of those 'hashtag' Weirdcore images, if you think of it."
Dagus sighs and keeps running, "W-wait! Hands off, let me run by myself." Lanora asked him.
Dagus let go of Lanora's wrist, and she began to run as well.
Meanwhile, the larger group and The Narrator are in the lead. And currently, some walls around them started to collapse.
"I'm exhausted..." One person in the larger group said, "H-hey, Narrator. Can't we stop for a bit?"
The Narrator suddenly turns his head quickly around while still moving.
("No. No, do not stop.") The Narrator thought to himself.
Suddenly, he skidded midway before turning around, "Get out of the way! Move! All of you keep going!" The Narrator commanded as he began to turn and run back.
Some people are questioning his action.
"Huh? What is he doing?" | "Why is he going back?" | "No matter, he says we still have to keep running."
Axor looked back, following the group. His tailcoat flutters from the running.
("What the hell is that old man doing?") He thought to himself, then he spoke out loud, "Hey! It's dangerous going back, what are you-"
"I said keep running! I'll get back after this!" The Narrator shouted as he ran towards the tired person.
The tired person stops midway on their run, even while everything is collapsing around them. They stopped to catch some air, palm against the wall as they panted.
But then they heard The Narrator shouting at them: "No! No, don't stop! Come over here, now! Right now!"
"Huh?" The tired person said, "Narrator, what are you-"
Suddenly, the tired person sees the shadow blooming behind them, growing bigger and wider by seconds.
Before they even turned around to grasp what was about to hit them, they were crushed down by a bunch of debris. And The Narrator was just right there.
Blood splatters stain the debris and pool out beneath it, only a hand is visible after the concrete, the fingers twitching before it goes motion-silent.
("Fuck. Not again.") The Narrator thought as he continued to run, ("I could've teleported them out or I could've teleported myself to catch them. But everything is breaking down, one wrong move and I might end up somewhere else unplanned.")
("I must get them out of there.") The Narrator thought, finally getting close and kneeling down, pulling debris away, ("Everyone deserve a proper burial, I'll do it as soon as we get out of here.")
The Narrator tore into the debris, pulling it aside.
He easily moves bigger debris away with just a pull, some of them fallen off the collapsed floor.
He pulled the debris one by one, exposing more of the corpse below, the corpse of someone that never deserved this kind of end.
After pulling away more debris, he finally sees the full corpse of the crushed person.
("This much isn't bad.") The Narrator thought to himself, ("Not too much work and not too much worry.")
... The Narrator grabbed the hand of the dead person, pulling them a little closer.
Then, he said some words, voice deep, as if pleading to someone or something: "Store him."
Then, from his vision, The Narrator sees another slide of texts scrolling in his mind, a script writing something down in real-time.
> "The Narrator grabbed the hand of the fallen comrade."
> "It is a shame that they have lost their live like this."
> "They do not deserve it, but there's really no other way."
> "Fate doesn't govern over you, you govern over fate."
> "But if you were to be stay passive over it, then..."
> "Fate shall come along the way."
The corpse suddenly shines, slowly disappearing. Some faint trails of light flowed towards The Narrator.
> "... The corpse of the fallen comrade shines from his touch, and they slowly evaporate."
> "Their body stored somewhere in an endless empty space"
> "Somewhere the Narrator owns.
> "The body waits to be buried somewhere nice, somewhere better than this place."
The text stops writing itself and fades away, like a script done being write.
The Narrator then stands up slowly, turning around and then catching up to the larger group. Behind him, more of the hallways are being torn apart due to collapse.
In a way, he feels so 'at peace.'
Meanwhile, back to the main party...
They're still running along the small hallways, and they notice that it got smaller and smaller.
"It's not just me, right?" █████ said, "That everything looks like it's shrinking."
"No shit it does." Syle said, his voice sounding a bit mocking, "Where the hell are they, anyway? I feel like we're just looping around, straying away from their path."
"I'm not sure, but shouldn't it be taken into consideration that the saferoom layout changed again?" Dagus said.
Suddenly, the main party came to a halt.
"You're right, if we just keep going forward, then..." Lanora said, trailing off, "Then we'll just end up in the same place, like this."
"Yeah, sure. But think about it again, we didn't see any changes whatsoever." Syle said, "Even the tiniest thing can be noticeable."
"The saferoom probably works under something we can't understand." Dagus said.
"Wow, mind-blowing indeed." Syle said, mocking.
"If you don't have anything to say, then just shut up."
"Dude, I'm stating facts!" Syle said, "Probably quantum bullshit."
"Might be." Dagus said, "'Topological Defects' would be the best explanation if we were to think it in a... 'Quantum' perspective."
Syle scratches his head, "Look, you're a genius, yes. But I don't think we need an explanation on something right now..."
He paused for a bit, "Still, what does that mean?"
"Universe made a mistake, yada-yada. Some parts aren't settled properly." Dagus said, "We're somewhere in a 'Domain Wall', 'Cosmic Strings', 'Textures' or whatever they said, geometries trapped around. Right now, we're in a 'Dislocation' zone."
"Can we focus on trying to find a way out?!" █████ called out.
"Yes, of course. Lettuce." Dagus said.
... The group went silent, staring at Dagus.
"What? I'm just saying." Dagus said, pausing for a bit as everything went silent, "Come on, it's... 90% funny, right?"
█████ sighs, then speaks up, "Well, that's whatever. But now then, we'll have to go through there."
█████ points beside them, to another hallway, "If going forward loops us around, then going to a different path would at least get us out of... the 'Domain Wall' or whatever you call this hall."
"Isn't 'non-euclidean' already fitting?" Lanora said, "I mean, that's the most understandable. I still don't get Quantum theories and all their super small stuff."
"That, yeah, I agree. Let's just call it non-Euclidean." █████ said.
"Mhm! The Narrator himself called it that." Lanora said.
Syle and Dagus just stared at them from the opposite side.
"Yeah, still. 'Topological Defects' just sounds really good to say." Syle said.