"I wanted to explore on my own. I found a missing piece on the map and decided to go exploring. I was sure it was a big city. Now we can draw that piece in together. How did you know I was here?" I squinted my eyes suspiciously.
"Well, it wasn't too hard, you circled that piece of the map with a bold line.", grinned my friend. "Your father could have seen it, not just me. You should be more careful next time."
"Okay. I took you for a Darker, to be honest. I was scared at first. You snuck up on me. " I admitted it quietly.
"Well, at least you are cautious. Next time I'll yell to warn you. ", chuckled he.
"If you do that, I'll kill you myself, before something else does." I threatened quite seriously.
"What could be better than threatening each other with death? You are my bestest of the friends." He smiled, moving a little closer. I used to like Drake a lot when we were children, but after that passed, I never saw him as anything else but a friend.
"So, shall we move on? You got your gun? I think we're on the verge of the greatest discovery of our settlement. If we find a city from before the disaster, we'll become great discoverers!", I said admiringly.
"Don't put too much hope into it, although I have no doubt we will. I brought a blaster. That's enough, isn't it? " He moved in a little more, and I leaned away. "Hopefully the blaster wouldn't be of any use at all and we wouldn't meet any Darkers along the way."
I tucked the dagger into the sheath at my side, feeling a little calmer, like I was protected. But that doesn't change the fact that we need to be cautiously quiet. If we're spotted, a blaster won't help. We quietly continue to make our way onward, occasionally conversing. We reach the seashore, but then we find a small round building that has been destroyed by time.
"I was sure everything was wiped out by disaster and time, but look at this! Oh, my God, it's so tall! Let's go inside, see if there's anything interesting. " Drake pulled me inside by the arm without waiting for my consent. There was no doorway left, so we climbed over the wall.
Drake supported me by the waist for a soft landing and I immediately pulled his hands away so this touch wouldn't last too obscenely long. We looked back. There was a tree growing inside, letting its branches out, thick grass soaked in the radiation brought by the asteroids, and also...
"Jesus Christ..." I said, knowing full well that I didn't believe in the name of the one I called. Inside were huge rusty mechanisms. Or rather, the remnants of them. The big rusty gear was half destroyed and sticking out of the ground, and smaller gears were scattered around. Levers and stuff were half missing and half rotted away.
"Do you see that?" Drake gasped in surprise. He walked over to one of the metal squiggles and put his hands on it. "What is it?" I opened my eyes wider and started to walk around the perimeter of the circular building. "I have a hunch. Look over there." The friend pointed to the circle, from which iron parts were sticking out. "If I'm not mistaken, there was a lamp there. I mean, it's a lighthouse! A mechanical lighthouse that was lit by a big gear mechanism and worked by the revolutions of this big... Thing. This thing was turned by people and energy was generated to light the bulb. The glass had rotted away by now, but the bulb was on this particular piece you see.", said he admiringly.
YOU ARE READING
Let There Be Darkness
Fantasy"No. I don't want to," I answered. Our conversation didn't go well, because I wanted to be silent, and he wanted to talk. It seemed to me that it had become even lighter around, although the night was only deepening. It couldn't be dawn already, cou...
