After the gathering was over, Crystal led us back to our rooms. Now? Well now I'm busy laying on my new incredibly soft bed. At least I am in my head. Unfortuneately, I'm stuck with this Nia chick. The one from the gathering that ended probably over an hour ago. Crystal- of course- got to stay back in her rooms, mean while I'm currently walking up a bunch of stairs, even though there's a perfectly fine and working tunnel that no doubt leads to where we're going. Given, I am still a little shaken from my last tunnel trip, and it seems like the tunnels here tend to drop you out of the ceiling rather than on your feet and forwards like in Milyn. I have no idea why anyone would want to fall from more than 15 feet in the air to the floor, but hey, I'm not an architect. What do I know. I wonder how I can weasle my way out of whatever this stupid introduction thing. She's probably gonna give me a tour. I internally scream. This is so stupid. We finally reach the top of the stair case and Nia holds open the door icon for me. I go through and she follows. The icon closes behind us. I look around and see a bunch of door icons all along the wall with holograms proclaiming the room names, info and description, circulating. The hallway we're in is white, with pretty much zero dirt visable. One hologram declares that a tunnel is overhead, and so I step to the side. I glance up, but as usual, I can't tell where the tunnel opening would be.
"I'm sure you must be wondering why you're here." I almost shake my head. No, I'm not really wondering at all. The only thing I'm wondering about is if I can leave and if so then what's in it for me if I decide to stay? "Well, I don't usually do this, but seeing as you're new to Aitmil and the whole Sapphire versus Diamonds dynamic, I figured you could use a little explaining." Oh. Okay. I guess what's keeping me here is answers. I see. "Basically I just need you to understand what your purpose here is. I'm going to explain what the role of a Sapphire truely is. You now know that Sapphires and Diamonds are paired up. Do you know why?"
"No. I figured it was just to make a friend or something." Nia laughs, her sparkling blue hair caskading down her back.
"No, love. You're supposed to protect Crystal. Your diamond. For the rest of your days here on the Alkina, you will be protecting Crystal with you life." I start.
"Why does she need protecting? There's not exactly any kind of threat to even protect from. The rebelion was crushed practically of it's own accord." A grim looks settles on Nia's face, and a cold feeling runs down my spine.
"There's something you need to see." She gently takes me by the arm and leads me into a room. She pushes a button and suddenly we're in a sim. I'm on the south pier. There's a celebration happening and the music is blasting. "Emmy, this is last year. May 17th." I furrow my eyebrows. That's 15 days before Charlie's death. "You were here." I whip my head around to look at Nia.
"No I wasn't. There wasn't even a party on the South Pier on May 17th. We skipped the Celebration that year because of a factory explosion." Nia purses her lips, shaking her head.
"No, Emberlyn. That day, the rebels bombed the Alkina. This day was wiped from everyone's memories except for the Sapphires." The ground shakes. "Even the Diamonds don't remember it. This sim is classified." I can see bombs being dropped from the sky and the ground shakes. People scream in the background but Nia doesn't pay it any attention, remaining passive. "Which brings me to my last point. Crystal can't know about this."
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"Hey, Crystal? Are there cameras in here?"
ns 15.158.61.19da2
