Daniel's P.O.V.
It's dark.
I can't see anything.
I can't hear anything.
Is this how it feels like to be dead?
It sucks. There's absolutely nothing here, and yet I can feel some things. I can feel that it's warm here, really warm. I feel some slight shakes all around me, and... yes! I can hear something!
Seems like I'm in some sort of cave, if the sound of flowing lava is any indication. It's either that or a new volcano has surfaced close to us. US?! Alex! I've got to get up and find him!
Grrrrrr….. Come on! I can't feel my body! Nothing at all, like I wouldn't have one anymore! AM I GOING CRAZY!?
Ok, ok. Calm down, deep breaths…
Good, I'm somewhat better now. First thing first, eyes. Try to open your eyes.
Arrrrggh! I can't even feel them, let alone open them! And th- wait. I can hear some voices. They're kind of muffled, but I can make out what they're saying:
"Are the newbies ready yet? The Diamonds are getting impatient, you know."
That was a gruff voice, but definitely a woman. Probably a very big build to have such a voice. And there's someone else:
"Don't stress me! You know as well as me that these things require time! If the incubation is requiring more then we expected, what am I supposed to do?"
This one was quite squealing, but another woman. Quite smaller build than the last one, if I'm not fucking it up.
Here goes Big: "I don't care! Speed it up somehow! It's your job to respect the deadlines! The harvest is in two days, I hope the new gems will be ready, or I'll have to shatter you."
And Small again: "Fine, fine. I'll see what I can do, but stop shouting."
Now I can hear two sets of steps: a heavy set and an almost imperceptible one.
Well, they're gone. Let's see what I've got from this: seems like some group called "the diamonds" need some gems, or something, and they need them within two days time for something called the "harvest", but I didn't get the part with the shattering. I guess I would know more if I could manage to GET. THE. HELL. OUT.
SOME TIME LATER~~~~~~~~~
Well, still stuck, but I can feel I'm pretty close to breaking out. Just one last push…
POP
Annnd I fell on my face, of course. Just my luck. Oh, well, let's see where am I.
Not what I was expecting at all, that's for damn sure. I seem to be in some sort of canyon. Probably an artificial one, judging from all the machines around, the wiring and all the people seemingly working here. There's also a lava fall nearby, guess that's what made that noise. What strikes the eye, tough, is the incredible multitude of holes in the walls, like a fuckload of tombs, and now that I notice, there's also one where I was a while ago. What is this place? Some sort of…. Nope, can't think of anything even close to this. Giving myself a once over, I find that most of my clothes are the same, except for my jacket, which became long enough to reach my knees and became completely black, same as my shoes, which became boots. While it's certainly weird, I'm definitely looking badass now, and I also just noticed that I have some pretty visible muscles on me. Not ripping, but it's quite nice.
Ok, that was good and all, but back to my main goals: finding Alex and maybe some answers about this place. After all, he's bound to be here, somewhere. I mean, we were together, so whoever put me there must have taken Alex too.
I could go to the right side of the canyon: it seems pretty bustling with people, if the sound of voices is any indication; but then they could take me for an intruder, and throw me out, or way worse. Guess I'll go towards left, and keep my fingers crossed.
I've been walking here for a while, and the only things I've found are silence, more person-shaped holes and these weird machines: they look like tripods, but have a drill between their legs, a purplish crystal on top and are fucking EVERYWHERE!
Ok, seems like I've hit the end of this side. Guess the only thing left to do is to turn around and try with the lively side of this ravine, or whatever you want to call it.
I'm close to where I started, but I had to stop. Why, you ask? Well, there's someone over there, and guess what? It's Small! Well, both figuratively and literally, since she's pretty much of a midget. From here I guess she's like, what 4 ft. and half, five feet at most? The odd thing is that her skin is completely green! You got it! Fucking GREEN! No, calm down, I'm freaking out again. Calm down!
I'm fine now. But she doesn't seem like it. Actually, it looks like she's panicking over something. Shall I listen in? I shall.
"-where could that gem be gone? It hadn't emerged yet, when I checked on it last time! How could it happen? Yellow Diamond will crush my gem for this! I've got to find it! If she knows that Lazarus 2 has escaped, we'll all be at her mercy! If she has any that is! I did say that project Lazarus was stupid, but..."
And on that note she just stormed off. From what I understand, this woman was working on this 'project Lazarus' and one of the experiments, I guess? Has disappeared. Why do I have a hunch that this matters with me?
If I'm right, and I hope I am, for the sake of the plan, there must be at least another Lazarus, and with some luck, that might be Alex. I'm hoping quite a lot, but that's the best I have.
While following this damned lady, I had to hide many times to avoid being spotted by either her, or other people passing by, or gems, as they seem to call themselves. Call me weird, but I don't think they are humans. I mean, each and every one of them seems to have some sort of gemstone stuck in some part of their body, some the forehead, others the chest and so on and forth. One had a ruby In their fucking eye goddammit! And don't get me started on the colors. I never saw so much color in one place! It's like a fucking rainbow in here!
From the way they interacted with each other, I noticed a certain hierarchy going on here: there's these people called pearls, which seem to be the lowest class, nothing more than servants (definitely keeping this one in mind for later); then there's the peridots, the woman I'm following seems to be one of them, they're technicians and general working class; then there's the quartzes, tall, bulky, soldiers I suppose, that are quite full of themselves and treat others like shit. Over them seems to be these Diamonds, with their courts. I would suppose they're nobles of sorts.
And while I took my time explaining to you this, we've gotten somewhere. It's a big door, supposedly to grant access also to the quartzes. Nonetheless, the peridot I've followed is opening this door, and I'm trying to understand how to.
Seems there's some code, but I couldn't understand it, so I did the last thing I could think of: I ran like hell was on my heels and jumped in just as the door was closing. I fell right on top of the peridot, which got stunned by the blow, and I took the chance to look around me to assess the situation: fortunately we seemed the only ones to be in the room, so I rose the peridot to her feet by the hem of her suit and slammed her face into the wall. She was out in one hit, luckily, so I put her onto one of the chairs in the rooms and used my belt to keep her in place. Next thing, I went to one of the computers in the room to try and find something about this place, like a map, some recent logs, or anything that could show me where the hell was Alex, if he was here at all.
When suddenly, problem! This computer seemed to require a password, and even then it was in a language I couldn't make heads nor tails out of. So of course, I did the next best thing: I waited for the peridot to wake up, so I could convince her to do it for me. Not best plan, but I really didn't have any better idea.
I'm starting to get seriously worried. She doesn't seem to be waking up, and has also stopped breathing! What if- no wait, she's waking up. What. The. Fuck.
She's looking around, and she just spotted me.
"What do you want from me? Let me go already you idiot! Do you have any idea who am I? A- Mmmffff! Mmffff!"
Sorry, but I had to close her mouth, she just talks too damn much!
"Let's get one thing clear: I don't care. All I want is some answers. If you do that, I'll let you go. Capiche?"
She started looking at me with a scrutinizing gaze, mixed with pure rage, but she seems to be calming down. When I think it's safe, I slowly remove my hand from her mouth. She still stares at me, then says:
"Well, then. What do you want to know?"
"Firstly: what is this place and why did I wake up here?"
"Did you say you just woke up here? Then you must be Lazarus 2! Thank the Diamonds I found you! If the guards would have, you wouldn't even be alive yet! I must-"
"You must answer my fucking question already!"
"Ok, ok. Geez. This is the Kindergarten, and you woke up here because you were planted here, of course."
"Planted? Do I look like a seed to you?"
"I mean your gem was planted, then it took energy from the surrounding ground and you woke up. Simple as that. But did you seriously tie me up just to know how you were made?"
"That's not what I was going for. And still, I'm even more confused. What gem?"
"The one that lets you have a physical form, you idiot. If I had to suppose, it's on your chest. Now let me go already!"
Well, she seems to be right. I have some sort of crystal stuck in my chest, right in front of my heart, I suppose. Why am I not even freaking out? Oh, right. Alex first, then panic. By the way, it is a grayish black with an octagonal cut. Not bad, actually. Still, I'm not done.
"I still have some questions: what is project Lazarus and how am I part of it?"
"That is classified information you-" SLAM! Table, meet peridot's face. Peridot's face, meet table. Hope you'll go along well.
"I'll ask again. What. Is. Project. Lazarus?"
"Fine, fine. I'll tell you, but stop slamming me around! This project was cordoned by the three Diamonds, in order to create more powerful gems, to destroy the remnants of the Rebellion on Earth!"
"Still doesn't tell me why am I part of this."
"You are the second gem produced with the Lazarus specifics! We took the energies of dead beings and forced them in gems, so they could gain a bigger amount of power while incubating, and thus making them stronger that an average quartz solider! That's all I can tell! Really!
I took a second to think this over: if I was actually dead and returned to life, and I was the second, then they have obliviously made another one, and if that is the case, I've got to find them. I looked back at the peridot, who was currently staring at me in fear. Not that I blame her. After all, I'm two times her size, and could kill her easily. Plus I've been told I'm really scary when mad, and now I'm seething with both anger and worry. Where is that other Lazarus? Are they even Alex? I don't know, but I have to find out.
"Final questions: how many Lazarus are out there and where can I find them?"
"There's only one other gem like you, and is still in incubation. The spot is across the canyon from your hole. Now let me go already!"
Ok, then. I'm pretty much set here. The only thing I have to do is to go and find this gem. But first, I can't just let her go like this, she would alert the guards and I would be totally fucked. So I resorted to the last option I had. I grabbed her head one last time and slammed her on my knee. I'll admit, it hurt, but at least she's out cold. Bitch is really thick headed. I took my belt back and put her carefully in some sort of closet that was in here.
Finally, after much hiding and sneaking, I got back to my hole. Now, I'll just hide and… wait. Was that hole there before? Oh shit oh shit oh shit he popped out too!
Now, let's see… there's some footprints here, and they're going to the deserted part of this Kindergarten, luckily for me. So, let's move it. I've been running for a couple minutes and.. YES! There he is! It's actually Alex! Or at least, he looks like him. His hoodie is still white, but with some yellow details here and there, but everything else is the same. He's turning around and… OH MY GOD! It's actually him!
"Alex, buddy, you have no fucking idea how worried I was! I just popped out of the ground and didn't see you, so I started looking around, and interrogated someone, and seems like we're part of a project, and we died, and, and… who cares, I'm just glad I found you!"
Alex just stayed in my arms, dumbfounded for a couple seconds, before hugging me back and saying:
"You went trough a load of stuff, haven't you? Just how long was I in there?"
"I don't know, but I guess I woke up an hour and half or so before you. Anyway, we should move it. I'll explain later, but we should move it right fucking now."
And so we started walking to the end of the ravine, then we used the holes in the walls to climb, tough they were too far between each other, and so I had to carry Alex on my back, until we hit ground level and took a minute to look around and catch our breath. Mainly I for the last part, but still.
"Ehm, Daniel?"
*Huff* "Yeah, what?"
"Where did you say we are again?"
"As of place, we just left the Kindergarten, but regions, I have no idea."
"Then you should look at that."
I then raised my head, but what I saw I wasn't ready for. A huge tower was a couple hundred yards away from us. It was completely made of what looked like some sort of crystal, with a huge light blue beam shooting from the top.
I turned to Alex and said:
"Alex, we aren't in Kansas anymore. Probably not even Earth anymore."
"On that I agree. I really think we should find some answers. And I mean more than what we know already."
"Well, then. Let's get moving. And keep your eyes and ears open for anyone around. We don't know what are they going to do to us if they will find us."
And so we started marching, unaware that the guards were already on our tracks.
