“Warning, system meltdown no longer avoidable. Create a backup?” Asked a distorted female voice seemingly out of nowhere. Red lights were flashing in an otherwise pitch-black room with some echoes of what sounded like machinery or clockwork, mechanical movements working in a pattern. This was followed by an answer from yet another female voice, this time their voiced sounded clear so It was safe to say they were not the same person. “It’s fine. We are not needed anymore- well, I am not needed at least.” She spoke with fulfillment in her voice, without a single hint of regret. “Understood. Calculating time remaining until complete shutdown.” A floating screen appeared in the middle of that space, illuminating the surrounding area, and revealing someone sitting in front of it, with their legs crossed, their hands rested just a little behind their waist, where the ground would have been. “Time remaining: eight hours.” The screen lit up brighter than before, showing an eight-hour timer in a dark green color. The person suddenly let out a sigh then proceeded to lay down while looking up, their face was now fully visible. Undoubtfully a girl with a slim body, long dark hair, and colorless eyes. “Question, would you like to listen to a story?” a question mark was formed on the screen. The girl returned to her previous position and looked up at the screen with a surprised expression. “A story?” she asked the faceless and distorted female voice, to which they responded: “Yes, it’s a story that you have heard many times before. You would like me to read it?” The girl took a deep breath and slowly stood up. “Okay. Read it to me.”

The flashing red lights and the noises of machinery ceased as the few colors in the room slowly began to move and circle around the girl. “Very well.” Confirmed the strange female voice: “In this fictional world there is a race of intelligent beings called humans, these people established the concept of rights and equality to ensure that everyone is handled equally and have the same opportunities, but somewhere along the way they started to disagree with the same principles they had created, they declared war on their own kin and destroyed the peaceful lives of many innocent people. However, among all the bloodshed there was a group of people hidden away deep underground, dreaming about one day being able to walk alongside their supposed enemies and live a happy life on the surface. They created a secret society known to nobody else but themselves and started calling their residents ‘Stars’. Shortly thereafter many of them made families of their own and named them after gemstones. This is how the three families came to be, they were called the Amber, Agate, and Celestine family.” The colors surrounding the girl came together to form the crests of the three families. “But even they soon began having issues with each other: physical fights and theft became a common occurrence in the small society, the leaders of the three families knew this could not go on like this, so each of them invested whatever resources they could into a way to stop all fighting, but eventually they concluded that only power and might could halt all conflicts. Many years passed and more wars had been fought when this society resurfaced, bringing with them a new technology, one that the world had never seen before: a portable device resembling a gemstone, able to store tremendous amounts of energy inside it, and with this came the promise of a better, more advanced technological future. They used this power to try and convince the countries from the surface to cooperate with them in creating a world where everyone is united, but they refused. Instead, they ordered the assassination of everyone belonging to this secret society: men, women, children, and the elderly. They were told to spare nobody, of course the ones called ‘Stars’ did not just accept this as their fate, they took the very same powers they created for the sake of peace and used it to slaughter their opponents. This was a victory to their kind, some even thought this was the only way to a truly peaceful life. The three families however, recognized the true meaning and price of that what they called peace.”

The girl who remained silent during the story interrupted the explanation with a question that had been bugging her for a while, “Say Rift, you told this was a fictional story and all, but is this really the case?” the female voice whom the girl called Rift, hesitated to answer to her question. “Would you prefer to experience this story for yourself?” A computer terminal appeared in front of the girl, ‘Attempt a connection to the outside? Y/N’ was written in the window. She felt an uneasy feeling and suddenly began feeling nervous, something she never felt before. “Yes, please do.” But she finally gathered the courage to accept the proposal. “Very well, consider this my final gift to you.” All the colors in the room slowly started fading away as the girl collapsed and disappeared into thin air, sirens started going off in the distance for a short while until nothing else could be heard. Another terminal appeared out of nowhere ‘>> Thank you for everything.’ And disappeared not long after.