Chapter 2: The Surface is Habitable?

"There is a glimmer of hope after all."

An undetermined amount of time passed. In the cold silence, Akikta strained to get his eyes open. He figured he was unconscious for at least a few hours. Akikta wasn't sure what had happened at first, as everything was still being processed in his head. He sat up and, through his peripheral vision, caught sight of the door to his best friend's opened pod. Suddenly, he remembered everything.

There was a brief pause. A still silence filled the dimly lit room. It only remained for a few short seconds, as hard sobbing soon replaced the silence. Tears streamed down his face as the reality of everything hit Akikta like a heavy freighter. He wasn't in a nightmare. This was real. His friends and family were all gone. His home had fallen into a state of disrepair and was now a mere shadow of what it once was. The fact that he was now alone... was real. The only thing to comfort him was an unemotional AI.

Akikta cried for a long while. Long enough to where his throat got coarse with pain from crying so hard. Eventually, he consciously tried to keep himself from producing more tears. Nothing would bring back the life he once knew, no matter how hard he sobbed. Akikta wished he had never gotten into that damn pod.

It took five minutes, but he calmed himself down to just sniffles. He struggled to breathe properly as every inhale would be sharp and irregular. Akikta got up and made his way back to the balcony, where he dropped the mask, it now being the last thing he had of his grandfather. After taking the mask in his arms, Akikta wasn't even sure what to say. So much changed drastically, and the change was very abrupt to him. The memory of him hugging his brother and grandfather felt like it had happened only an hour ago. He looked up at the projected sky, longing to see the real version of it. After all, there was nothing for him down in Alterna. Not anymore.

"Wait." Akikta's voice cracked, his throat still recovering from the sobbing session. A thought crossed his mind, something he should've thought to ask before he fainted from unconsciousness. "W-who launched The Spirit Lifter the second time?" Akikta turned to face a nearby camera, specifically asking O.R.C.A since he was sure no one was in the control room to monitor the cameras. Actually, Akikta was certain this camera specifically had stopped functioning entirely.

"Mr. Grizz." O.R.C.A responded as if Akikta was supposed to know who that was. He blinked a few times before responding.

"Mr. Grizz? Like...as in a grizzly bear?" Akikta said slowly, unsure of how to process what O.R.C.A just said. He wasn't even sure if he fully believed O.R.C.A. He read of bears in those encyclopedias in the Alterna database, but they were said to have gone extinct along with most other land animals years before even Akikta was born.

"Well, he is a bear."

Akikta was seventy percent certain O.R.C.A was malfunctioning now. "Y'know what? Forget that last part," Akikta said before he turned and allowed his back to face the nonfunctional camera. He looked off at Alterna once more. He could see all the different sites from here, and now that he's looked at them more intently, he could tell someone had been through this ruined land. "The only type of animals we have down here are sea creatures, and we primarily use them for food. Man, I could go for some calamari right about now...or maybe some crab cakes?" Akikta said out loud; he had a habit of speaking his inner thoughts. He shook his head, knowing there was a better time and place for food. "Wait, ok. So, if an animal from outside Alterna came in here, that means the surface is habitable again! Right?!"

"More or less." O.R.C.A responded half-assedly, but it was a response Akikta will take. If the surface was habitable again, then there was hope. He won't have to sit in the confinements of a decaying prison. He may not have the best survival skills, but Akikta was sure he'd make it out on the surface. If a bear could, he totally could. That was his way of reasoning, anyway.

Akikta looked down at the mask one last time before flipping it around and putting it on. His grandfather's voice echoed throughout his mind, reminding him that the Great Spirit would protect him whenever he wore the mask. If bears didn't actually go extinct, Akikta would need its protection.

He would go through a few ruined corridors and down plenty of cracked flights of stairs to get to the first site, Future Utopia Island. The name was now ironic, as it looked more like a future wasteland. At least the moai statues still looked surprisingly the same.

Akikta took this time to survey his surroundings, having a slight glimmer of hope that someone else was still down here with him. It was then he noticed a small piece of the projection was broken. He didn't know how he missed it the first time, but now that he was closer, he could tell something had fallen through the projection, breaking through it instantly. He just didn't know what.

Akikta moved forward but didn't get very far, as something else of interest caught his eye. It was a camp of some sort. Someone had decided to set up shop in these ruins, but the camp looked vacant. The campsite itself was in good condition, so they must've departed not that long ago. He picked up the first item he saw, which was a yellow plushie of... Well, to be honest, Akikta didn't know what the plushie was supposed to be. From the little fins, he assumed it was supposed to be a fish. But this was unlike any fish he's seen. Its eyes looked too cartoonish, its lips were as big as a blobfish's, and its overall body proportions didn't match a fish's. It looked like something an AI would generate if it had a minimal concept of what a fish looked like. He realized he probably shouldn't touch or move anything else if whoever set up this camp came back, so he set the plushie back down.

The next item of interest was a statue carved out of what Akikta assumed was wood. The statue was small, in the shape of what he recognized as a bear. In its mouth was a more accurate depiction of a fish, and sticking out of it was a radio antenna, though nothing was playing, and there didn't seem to be any buttons to where Akikta could play music.

The empty campsite didn't chill Akikta out as much as the sight of a ruined Alterna did. While the camp did intrigue him, it wasn't enough to make him stay behind and linger. He wanted to get out of Alterna ASAP.

Through memory and a series of other passages, Akikta navigated himself through the ruined dome, resting here and there as his legs grew tired from the trek. At the end, he came across a complete wreck. His eyes widened. He was sure he had gone in the right direction. Even in the state of disrepair Alterna was in, it hadn't deteriorated to where Akikta could recognize nothing. What was supposed to be a large area with many platforms leading up to the large hatch was instead a large area with a bunch of wreckage.

Something came through here and destroyed practically everything. Akikta looked up to see even the hatch itself had been destroyed. But he could also see light, a small glimpse of freedom. As much as he wanted, he couldn't jump out toward the light. The sunlight was just out of his reach. Akikta gritted his teeth in anger and frustration. He was going to have to find another way out of Alterna.