Higher Than The Sun - Part 4

Kyushu was massive—far larger than the entire city of Under D.C.—a truth Esther had come to realize after nearly an hour of walking inland from the harbor. The four of them followed Ivan, the astronomer, their flashlights cutting thin beams through the heavy dark, illuminating mossy hillsides and the occasional glint of dew on the grass.

At first, the strange landscapes—the rolling hills, the moss-laden plains, and even the sight of grazing bison—had held her fascination. But that wonder had long since faded. Past the first thirty minutes, even the soft glow of firefly lamps scattered along the path dwindled, leaving the world a dull, formless gray. Her legs ached from the constant uphill trek, and the weight of each step pressed into her bones.

"How much farther?" Will grumbled from the back of the group, his voice edged with impatience. He wasn't doing much better than she was.

"That's the third time you've asked," Sonia sighed, not even turning her head.

"I know, I know, but—" Will's words stumbled over themselves, as if he was scrambling for an excuse. "If we go much farther, we'll lose radio contact with the Washington. We're already pushing it."

"This isn't the first time the captain's sent us ashore to cool our heads," Sonia countered. "And there's never been an emergency call. Ever."

"Yeah, but..." Will's voice lowered, laced with unease. "I don't know. I just—have a bad feeling about this."

"Oh, come on," Sonia shot back, her energy unshaken. "You really don't want to see someone create a sun with your own eyes? Don't you want to know if all the myths, all the legends from those ancient religions, were telling the truth?"

She turned to Esther for backup.

But Esther hesitated.

Because, truthfully, she wasn't sure what to believe.

The thought had been gnawing at her since the moment she'd met Ivan. Was he just some eccentric drifter? A fraud? Or was there even a sliver of truth in what he claimed?

Astronomy was... fringe. Outdated. In modern society, it was a relic—half science, half myth. She had only ever studied it in passing, treating it as little more than an offshoot of old religious texts. But Ivan—he knew things. Real things. His knowledge aligned with what little she had read. And that was what intrigued her.

Still, claiming he could create a sun?

That was something else entirely.

Her gaze flicked to Ivan's silhouette—his figure barely visible at the crest of the next rise, far enough ahead that he couldn't hear them.

"Honestly?" she said, voice low. "If it was actually possible to create a sun, someone would've done it already. Long ago."

Sonia blinked, caught off guard. "Huh. You seemed pretty invested when you were grilling him earlier."

"I was," Esther admitted. "I've never met a real astronomer before. And his knowledge checks out—it matches what I've read. I'm just... skeptical. I want to see how he thinks he's going to do it."

"After all this walking, he better not be leading us out here just to flip on a giant light bulb." Will muttered, he gave Esther a sideways glance, his brow furrowed in thought. "Can I ask something? Do you guys actually believe the sun ever existed? I mean—like, for real?"

"There are ancient records, myths, religious texts—tons of them—talking about the sun. Even the way we keep time in Revachol is based on the old world's solar cycle. Day and night—people used to live by it. Work during the daylight hours, sleep when it set. It shaped everything." Esther recited the explanation like she'd done a dozen times before—usually when debating with her father.

"Maybe we only split day and night so we'd all work and sleep at the same routine," Will muttered, half to himself, as they trudged uphill.

Sonia snorted. "You know, I've wondered about that too." She flicked her flashlight toward Esther. "Remember those people on the moving island?"

Esther frowned, trying to recall. "You mean the ones who used to be Solaris priests? The ones who almost sacrificed us?"

"Exactly." Sonia's grin widened. "Solaris worshiped the sun, right? Believed it was some god floating above the world, shining its light down on the old Earth. Everyone in the Sunless World knows the sun once lit up the sky, but... has anyone actually seen it? Or even knows what it looked like?"

Will scratched the back of his head. "You've got a point. When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me stories about the old world. I always imagined the sun as this massive anglerfish—you know, the ones with a glowing lure? Except it was frozen on the top of the world's highest mountain, shining down on everyone."

Sonia immediately jumped in. "Oh, please! Your mom pulled the same trick on you as the whole 'snow' thing, didn't she? The sun wasn't some giant frozen fish. It was a huge firefly lantern—like the ones in the cities, but way bigger!"

Esther, listening to them bicker, couldn't help but feel a pang of disbelief. She often forgot how rare the old-world texts her father had left her were—how little people truly knew. Knowledge, it seemed, was as scarce as sunlight.

"Actually," Esther spoke up, "it was a star."

Both Will and Sonia turned to her as if she'd just sprouted a second head.

"A what now?" Will asked, blinking.

"A star," she repeated, patiently. "It's an astronomical term. A star is a massive sphere of plasma that glows because of something called nuclear fusion."

Blank stares.

She sighed. "Okay, okay—imagine a giant glowing egg."

Both of them regarded her with a hint of skepticism. "How do you know that?" Sonia asked.

"I once saw illustrations in an astronomy textbook from the old world. The Solaris priests must have studied it too, because their mythology closely parallels the tales in those texts."

Will, however, wasn't done. "Hold on—you're telling me the sun was a glowing egg floating in the sky?"

"I didn't say it was an egg. I said it's like one," Esther grumbled.

"But it floated?" he pressed.

"No, no! The old world itself was kind of like an egg too—just one that didn't glow. In the old texts, it's called a 'planet.' The sun and the planet were near each other, so people could look up and see it in the sky."

Will's brow furrowed even deeper, trying to make sense of it all, while Sonia bit her lip to hold back a laugh.

"So, you're saying the old world was shaped like an egg?" Will squinted at Esther, his face twisted in disbelief. "Then how the hell did people live on it without sliding off the edge?"

Sonia snorted. "Now I get why they called astronomy useless at school."

Esther opened her mouth to find a better metaphor—anything other than an egg—but before she could speak, Ivan's voice echoed back through the darkness in his thick Soviet accent.

"We've arrived!"

Esther barely had time to process the words before Sonia darted ahead, laughing under her breath. Esther followed quickly, with Will trailing behind—still muttering about eggs and gravity—and Rain, silent as ever, brought up the rear.

They climbed the last steep ridge, their flashlights dancing across stone, until the land flattened out into a jagged cliffside—a sheer rock face towering above them. Sharp stone spires jutted out from the mountainside, their edges polished smooth and glinting like blades, carved over eons by wind and time. The peak of the mountain disappeared into the darkness above, swallowed by the endless void.

Ivan stood at the cliff's edge, raising his lantern high. Its soft glow painted a wide arc over the ground, illuminating an immense hollow—a gaping black maw beneath the mountain.

"A cave?" Sonia's earlier amusement drained from her voice, replaced by a note of caution.

Will swallowed hard. "That's not a cave," he muttered, peering into the abyss. "That's a damn monster's mouth."

The hollow was enormous—wide and tall enough to fit the Washington in it whole.

"Ta-Da! The laboratory I mentioned is deep inside," Ivan replied, barely containing his excitement. He either didn't notice—or didn't care—that the others had frozen in place. Without hesitation, he strode into the darkness, his lantern casting long shadows behind him.

"Stay close!" he called.

The others didn't move right away. Esther's eyes lingered on Ivan's retreating form, the light of his lantern throwing his silhouette onto the rocky walls, the shadow stretching toward them like a long, skeletal hand.

"Okay, I'm sure of it now," Will whispered. "He's leading us here to murder us all then hide our bodies inside that cave."

"Shut up," Sonia hissed back, though her voice had dropped several decibels. "A secret lab in a cave sounds exactly like where someone would build something like this. And anyway, we've got Rain—Mr. Samurai himself."

"And we've come this far," Esther agreed, matching Sonia's hushed tone. "Two votes for going in. Rain?"

She turned toward the boy, only to realize he was already watching her. His deep violet eyes flicked away as if she'd caught him doing something he shouldn't.

"If he wanted to kill us," Rain finally spoke, his voice calm and flat, "he wouldn't need to cook up a crazy story about making a sun. There are easier ways to trick us into following him."

Sonia smirked. "Three votes for 'keep going.' One for 'panic and run.'"

"Hey!" Will snapped. "It's caution, not cowardice!" But he didn't hesitate to jog after them.

And with that, they followed Ivan into the black.

The ground and walls of the cave were thick with dust and moss. Jagged stones jutted from the rough walls, their edges scarred and fractured as if struck by immense force. The ceiling and floor, however, were bare—no stalactites, no stalagmites—just an eerie, hollow vastness.

Every step sent clouds of dust spiraling upward, forcing them to pull their collars over their mouths to avoid choking on the thick, choking air.

"You're thinking what I'm thinking, right?" Sonia asked, sweeping her flashlight along the stone walls, its pale beam revealing deep grooves and scratch marks. "This cave—someone dug it out."

Will scoffed. "So? Every government dug tunnels to expand their cities. Standard protocol."

Esther shook her head. "No, look at the moss, the cobwebs—this place has been abandoned for decades, maybe longer. It wasn't for urban expansion. And the rock formations don't match what you'd find in a mining site either."

Will frowned. "Then what are you suggesting?"

Esther didn't answer. Instead, an unsettling familiarity crawled into her mind, like a memory she couldn't quite catch. The rough-cut walls, the hollow air—she'd seen a place like this before.

And then—

"Here it is…" Ivan declared from the front, lifting the firefly lantern high above his head. Its amber glow spilled across the darkness, illuminating the vast wall ahead.

Esther's breath hitched in her throat.

So did Sonia's.

Before them, embedded in the cavern wall, loomed a colossal metal door—smooth, industrial, and shining coldly beneath the flickering light. Its sheer size dwarfed them all, spanning the entire width of the cave's mouth. The most prominent feature of that door was the large letters inscribed across the center of the steel surface. Esther now recognized that the writing was in Soviet script.

But it wasn't the door's immensity that froze Esther in place.

Her heart raced.

Not because of the door's size—nor its stark, mechanical presence.

But because she had seen this exact door before.

Back when she had first left Under D.C.—at what she thought was a routine shipyard checkpoint. The same door. The same insignia. It was the place where she and Sonia had first followed Holland into what was supposed to be a decoy mission, meant to flush out the soviet spy aboard the Washington.

Yet here it was again.

Impossible.

"Impressive, right?" Ivan's voice rang with pride, oblivious to their shock. "This is it—the research center I've been telling you about. It's right through here."

Will let out a strangled whisper. "Okay... I'm officially ready to believe the whole 'building a sun' thing."

Esther's eyes narrowed.

"But how do you know there's a research center behind that door?" she demanded. "You've never been inside, have you?"

Ivan turned back to them, his face a mask of mild surprise—like someone who had just remembered an important detail they had somehow overlooked.

"No, no," he corrected quickly. "I didn't mean it is a research center." He adjusted his square-framed glasses, his beard shifting slightly as he spoke. "We just... call it that."

Esther's brow furrowed, the weight of unspoken questions pressing against her thoughts.

Seeing her expression, Ivan continued.

"Fifty years ago, during the peak of the Soviet Empire's reign, they seized control of nearly all the islands across the open seas, turning them into colonial territories. It was during this time—when their power was at its height—that the empire supposedly built these so-called 'research centers' as a countermeasure against any threat of rebellion."

Sonia's voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy air. "What kind of research requires an entire facility just to keep enemies in check?"

Esther understood the question perfectly.

Because she and Sonia had seen what lay within a place just like this before.

The cavernous halls. The endless rows of torpedo-like objects, shrouded in shadow.

Ivan answered as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "Weapons research, of course." He paused only briefly before adding, almost casually, "More specifically—nuclear weapons."

The words sent a violent shudder down Esther's spine.

Nuclear weapons.

A relic of the old world. A weapon of such catastrophic power that legend claimed it could wipe entire cities off the map. Some even believed that nuclear fire had been the catalyst that ended the old world itself, erasing its civilizations in a storm of light and fury.

Many nations in the Sunless World boasted that they had rediscovered this technology, that they held the power to summon fire from the heavens. But no one had ever seen it used—not in war, not in demonstrations. No proof.

Just words.

It was easier, after all, to wield the threat of annihilation than the weapon itself.

But now—

The thought that those dark, metallic objects they had walked past in that long-abandoned facility were nuclear warheads…

Esther felt her skin crawl.

"You're saying..." she hesitated, barely able to force the words out, "you want to use nuclear weapons to create a sun?"

Ivan tilted his head, as if surprised by her reaction. "Why not? You already know that the sun generates its light and heat through nuclear fusion—the very same reaction that occurs in nuclear weapons." He exhaled, running a hand through his hair, looking suddenly exhausted. "Once I realized this connection, I dedicated my life to finding these research centers, searching for a way to bring light back to our world. And now, here we are."

He gestured toward the massive metal door before them.

"But none of it matters," he said bitterly. "No amount of theory, no years of research, will mean anything—not unless we can open that door."

Will let out a low whistle, staring up at the colossal structure. "When you said you needed help opening a door, I was picturing something... smaller." His voice was almost lost in the vastness of the cave. "I don't think even the entire population of Kyushu could budge this thing."

Ivan lowered the firefly lantern in his hand, slowly removing his glasses. His deep brown eyes fixed on the door—gazing at it not with frustration, but with something close to reverence.

"All over the Sunless World, people speak of the sun as myth, as legend, as a god in stories long forgotten. They dismiss astronomy as mere superstition—dusty words scribbled in ancient books, written by men who died long before their time. Not because it was proven false."

His voice dropped, quiet but heavy.

"But because it is too difficult to imagine."

His fingers tightened around the lantern's handle.

"It is too difficult to grasp the idea that we are standing on a floating rock, drifting through an endless, infinite void. It is too difficult to believe that once—long ago—our world was filled with light and warmth, with skies that stretched into eternity, with hopes far greater than what we now dare to dream."

Esther studied his face—the weariness in his features, the sorrow etched deep in his voice.

And she understood.

Because there had been a time, not long ago, when she would have doubted, too.

Before she had stepped beyond the walls of Under D.C.

Before she had seen creatures so massive that entire civilizations mistook them for islands.

Before she had seen a whale that could speak—not with words, but with thoughts.

Before she had sailed through darkness in search of things she never believed could exist.

All because she had never seen them with her own eyes.

"I've read countless old-world history books," Ivan continued, his voice steady once more. "Do you know how they first proved that the Earth was round? They measured the angle of the sun's rays in two different cities. The shadows didn't match. And from that alone, they understood—without ever needing to leave their planet."

He inhaled deeply, as if steadying himself.

"The day I learned that nuclear fusion was the mechanism that powered the sun," he said, his eyes burning with quiet conviction, "I knew. This was my life's purpose. This was the key to bringing light back to the world."

Sliding his glasses back into place, he turned to face them—his voice calm, but his expression fierce.

"I don't need people to believe that I can recreate the sun."

His fingers curled into a fist.

"I only need them to see that it is possible. That it is worth trying. That even if no one has done it before, it doesn't mean it cannot be done."

He smiled faintly, but there was no arrogance in it—only a certainty so strong that it felt unshakable.

"That, after all, is what science truly is, isn't it?"

Ivan offered them a sad, wistful smile. "You're the first people who actually listened—the first to let me bring you here, to see this, my gateway to possibility. That's enough for me." He exhaled softly, as though years of loneliness had been lifted, if only for a moment. "Maybe one day, when your generation grows older, when the world changes again, astronomy will be more than just a forgotten myth. Maybe then, someone will come here—not to see what's inside as a weapon of destruction, but as hope for humanity."

His voice echoed into the cavern's hollow vastness, but no one spoke.

He turned, his steps soft against the dusty stone, heading back toward the cave's exit. Halfway there, he glanced back at them, his silhouette thin against the cold metal of the sealed door.

"I'm sorry for wasting your time with my nonsense," he added, his voice softer now, hollow with resignation.

"It's not nonsense," Sonia's voice cut through the heavy stillness.

Esther blinked, surprised, as Sonia walked past her, moving toward the wall adjacent to the massive steel door. She ran her fingers across the rough surface, as if searching for something.

"Esther, remember when we first left Under D.C., and we found that old Soviet outpost?" Sonia called over her shoulder.

"Of course," Esther replied, her curiosity piqued. "Why?"

"You remember how you tried to pull that lever next to the control panel by the door?" Sonia crouched down, scanning the wall with her flashlight. "Well, maybe this door has one too."

Esther's mind raced. "You're right! If the control panel's still intact, maybe we can open it!"

"Wait, you've seen a door like this before?" Will asked, completely bewildered.

"It's a long story," Esther muttered, waving off his confusion before turning back to Ivan. "When you found this place, did you ever see a control panel? Something that might trigger the door?"

Ivan scratched at his beard, brow furrowing. "Not that I noticed. But... I wasn't exactly looking for one." His voice shifted—hope creeping back in as he stepped closer, his eyes catching a glint of light from Sonia's flashlight. "I assumed it couldn't be opened from the outside. I never thought—"

"Then let's find it!" Will jumped in, now clearly invested. "I wanna see what's behind that door too!"

They scattered immediately, flashlights sweeping over jagged stone and metal as they combed the cavern walls. Esther felt the energy shift—a weightless excitement stirring through the group. Even Rain, who had been stoic and quiet through most of the journey, crouched low, methodically running his hand across the rock face, his sharp eyes searching every crevice.

"Anything yet, Esther?" Sonia called from the far left side of the door, her voice bouncing off the stone.

"Nothing so far! But it's gotta be close, right? I mean, why build a door this massive if you don't give a way to open it?" Esther shouted back, her flashlight cutting across jagged rock along the right wall.

Will, ever the impatient one, slammed his fist against the wall. A dull thud echoed—followed by a sudden cascade of dust and stone fragments from above.

Cough!

"Dammit!" Will waved the dust out of his face as a thick cloud engulfed him."This side's just rock and more rock!"

"I haven't found anything either," Ivan admitted, lifting the firefly lantern higher, its amber glow stretching further across the rough cavern walls. "If there really was a control panel out here, I should've noticed it the first time I explored this place."

Esther let out a long sigh, stepping back from the stone wall. Her flashlight beam flickered over the uneven rock, but there was nothing—just jagged edges and layers of dust. Both sides of the massive steel door were the same. Bare. Unremarkable.

No control panel. No switch. Nothing.

"Maybe it's designed to only open from the inside," Will offered, wiping dust off his hands. "That'd explain why there's no panel out here."

Esther pursed her lips, her thumb and forefinger resting thoughtfully on her chin—a habit she always had when she was deep in thought.

"Ivan," she began, her voice calm but focused, "you said the Soviets built this place as a safeguard, right? In case their colonies got taken back?"

"That's right," Ivan replied, lowering his lantern slightly. "Why?"

"Okay, so think about this—if you didn't want enemies to get inside, what would you do?"

Ivan tilted his head, gazing up at the cavern ceiling as if the answer might be carved into the stone. "Seal off the entrance, I guess?"

She shook her head. "But if they wanted to leave the possibility open for their own people to reclaim it in the future? What then?"

A beat of silence stretched between them.

Sonia's eyes narrowed as realization dawned. "If it were me…" she began, her voice slow, deliberate, "…I'd hide—"

She stopped mid-sentence and turned sharply toward Will.

Will's eyes widened in alarm. "Hide me? Is that what you're saying?" he blurted out, flustered under her sudden gaze.

"No, you idiot! Hide the control panel!" Sonia snapped, rolling her eyes. "Back when you smacked the wall earlier—didn't a bunch of rocks fall?"

Will blinked, then slowly nodded. "Yeah… but so what?"

Ivan stepped closer, his brow furrowed. "What are you getting at?"

"It means," Sonia declared, "they probably collapsed part of the wall to hide the control panel behind it!"

Esther's heart raced as the realization hit. "Of course! That has to be it! The control panel's buried behind the rockfall!"

Will threw his hands up in exasperation. "Okay, but what now? You want us to dig through the entire wall just to find it?"

Esther didn't answer. Instead, she stepped toward the rough cavern wall, the massive steel door looming beside her.

"I remember," she murmured, fingers trailing the jagged cracks in the stone, "the control panel we found at that old Soviet base—it was on the right side of the door."

She scanned the wall with her flashlight, the beam skimming over rough stone until—

Her fingertips grazed something smooth.

Esther's breath caught. She leaned in, the light flickering over the narrow crevice where the rock had crumbled. A gleam of metal glinted in the shadows.

Without wasting a second, she bent down and heaved a large stone into both hands.

Please don't let this whole tunnel come down on me, she silently prayed, before slamming the rock hard against the wall.

The brittle limestone cracked with a violent snap, sending shards and dust cascading in thick clouds. Coughing, Esther tossed the stone aside and dug her fingers into the fractured edges, trying to wrench the debris free.

But the slab was wedged tight.

"Move aside," a calm voice spoke behind her.

A hand grasped her shoulder, gently tugging her to the side.

It was Rain.

Without a word, he unsheathed his sword in one smooth motion, sliding the blade deep into the crevice. Muscles tensed in his arms as he used the weapon as a lever, forcing it downward with practiced strength.

With a final groan of strained rock, the large stone chunk broke loose and toppled out of the wall.

A hollow, black opening gaped where the stone had been.

They all crowded in, Ivan lifting his lantern high, its golden light streaming into the void.

The beam caught on something inside—metal, cold and smooth.

Esther leaned in and there it was.

A control panel.

A lever jutted out, half-buried in dust. Next to it, a faded screen flickered weakly, its edges rimmed with grime, and below it, a number pad, waiting.

"It's real," Ivan whispered in awe, his voice nearly lost in the cavern's hollow silence. "The control panel's really here."

Sonia let out a triumphant breath, then turned toward Esther, grinning wide.

"You found it," she said, gesturing dramatically at the exposed controls. "The honor's all yours."

Esther returned Sonia's smile before reaching through the jagged crack in the wall. Her fingers curled around the cold, dust-coated lever, and with a deep breath, she yanked it down.

The cavern echoed with a metallic groan, the sound reverberating through the hollow space. The lever clunked hard into place, the final click sharp and decisive.

Esther braced herself—waiting for the colossal steel door to screech open.

But nothing happened.

The door remained unmoved.

A beat of awkward silence followed. Then, with a metallic snap, the lever sprang back into its original position.

"…Well, that was anticlimactic," Will muttered, glancing around. "Shouldn't something have happened?"

"Look—at the control panel!" Ivan shouted, his voice filled with sudden excitement.

Esther whipped around.

The once-dead display was now glowing faintly.

On the dusty screen, four empty slots blinked, accompanied by three glowing letters beneath them:

_ _ _ _ kHz

"What... is that?" Ivan asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

Esther shook her head. "The control panel at the last base didn't have anything like this."

"That panel was busted to hell, remember?" Sonia chimed in, crouching beside her. "I bet this one's fully functional. Maybe... maybe it needs a code to open the door."

Will let out a groan, dragging both hands through his hair. "You've got to be kidding me. Opening a door has to be this complicated?"

Esther crossed her arms, her gaze still fixed on the blinking display. "It is the entrance to a weapons vault that might've helped end the old world. Seems fair they didn't want just anyone to waltz right in."

"Okay, fine," Will grumbled, "but does anyone actually know the code?"

No one answered.

The hollow stillness of the cave pressed in around them, thick with disappointment.

Will sighed heavily. "Figures. We made it all this way, and this is where it ends."

The words hung in the air, heavy and absolute.

He was right. Four empty slots and ten possible digits meant there were ten thousand possible combinations. Trying to brute-force the code—from 0000 to 9999—would be a hopeless task. And there was no guarantee the system wouldn't trigger a lockdown or some kind of security measure after too many failed attempts.

So close, Esther thought bitterly. And yet, so far.

But then—

Sonia stepped forward, moving to stand directly in front of the control panel.

Without hesitation, she reached out and began tapping four digits into the keypad. Her fingers moved with a strange certainty, smooth and deliberate, as though she weren't guessing at all.

"Sonia… what are you doing?" Esther asked, bewildered.

"You're not seriously just… guessing, are you?" Will chimed in, his voice sharp with disbelief.

Sonia didn't answer immediately. Instead, she turned slightly, her red hair catching the light as she looked over her shoulder. "I… I think I know the code," she whispered, her voice low, distant—like she was half-lost in a memory.

Esther blinked. "But that's impossible. This place was built over fifty years ago—way before you were even born."

Even Ivan, who had been quiet in stunned anticipation, spoke up, shaking his head. "The odds of that—"

But Sonia ignored him.

Her hand gripped the lever.

"There's only one way to find out," she murmured.

And she pulled it down.

The same grating metal shriek echoed through the cavern, the lever locking into place with a heavy clunk.

Esther found herself holding her breath, her heart pounding in her chest.

Everyone around her stood frozen in the thick, heavy silence, the air charged with tense anticipation as time seemed to crawl forward.

Five seconds passed.

Nothing happened.

Sonia let go of the lever. It snapped back into its original position with a jarring clang.

Will exhaled loudly, frustration spilling out with his breath. "See? Told you it wasn't gonna—"

He didn't finish, the entire cavern shuddered violently.

A deep, metallic groan echoed from somewhere beyond the stone wall, followed by the thunderous roar of ancient gears grinding into motion. The ground quaked beneath their feet. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling, swirling through the air in thick, suffocating clouds of brown, cloaking everything in a choking mist.

The steel door—silent and immovable moments ago—began to stir.

Slowly, agonizingly, it slid open.

A sliver of darkness appeared between the twin panels, growing wider and wider as the doors creaked apart. The heavy metal slabs retreated into the stone walls with a glacial pace, like the jaws of some enormous beast, stretching wide to reveal the abyss within.

The final clang of the doors locking into their open positions reverberated through the cavern like a thunderclap.

Esther lowered her arms from where she'd instinctively shielded her head, her ears still ringing. Dust particles, thick and heavy, danced in the shafts of light from their flashlights, drifting lazily through the air like tiny, weightless specters.

No one spoke.

They just stood there, frozen, staring into the darkness beyond the now-open door—silent, vast, and waiting.

Esther's pulse thundered in her ears as she glanced at the control panel.

The once-blank screen now glowed with cold, unwavering numbers:

4625 kHz

The exact code Sonia had entered.

The code that had unlocked the gateway to one of the most dangerous weapons facilities in human history.

Esther turned her wide-eyed gaze to Sonia, who stood rigid by the control panel, dust coating her freckles, her red hair damp with sweat. Her hand still hovered over the lever, trembling.

"How… how did you know the password?" Esther asked softly.

Sonia blinked, as if waking from a trance. "I—I didn't think it would actually work," she stammered, her voice thin with shock.

"What!?" Will barked out a laugh before lunging forward, grabbing Sonia by the shoulders. "That was insane!" he exclaimed, shaking her excitedly, sending another cloud of dust into the air. "I don't know how you nailed it on the first try, but that was incredible!"

Before Sonia could answer, Ivan strode over, tears welling in his wide eyes. Without a word, he wrapped both Sonia and Will in a bear hug, squeezing tightly.

"Thank you," he gasped, his voice thick with emotion. "Thank you! You opened it… you opened the door!" His face crumpled as tears rolled freely down his cheeks. "I never thought I'd live to see this day… but you—you made it happen."

His shoulders shook as he tried to choke back his sobs, but he couldn't stop smiling through the tears.

Sonia, still pinned in Ivan's bear hug, managed to break into a wide, disbelieving grin. "I… I did it, Esther! I actually did it!"

Everyone else seemed convinced Sonia had simply guessed the code—some wild stroke of impossible luck.

But Esther wasn't buying it.

One in ten thousand odds?

No.

It didn't sit right.

How had Sonia known the code?

The question itched at the back of her mind, clawing for attention, but now wasn't the time.

Instead, Esther forced a crooked smile and said, "So… anyone up for seeing what kind of giant spiders are hiding behind this door?"

Sonia let out a breathless laugh, but Will and Ivan just exchanged wide-eyed glances, neither of them looking the least bit amused.