Lore:The Dark Future

Chapter 1: The Family Line

Another sleepless night. Not that I require sleep, but it helps me to feel normal… whatever that is. I hear shuffling outside. Probably a rat scrounging for food. Good luck.

I'm sick of always having to search for a safe place to rest, though everyone's displaced these days—since the Last City fell.

I hear the noise again. Louder. Someone's near.

Before I have the chance to move, they're at the head of my cot.

I swing off of the taut fabric, grab my weapon from the floor, and then roll across the room, blasting Stasis at my assailant. They dodge it entirely, leaving my bed momentarily frozen in time. I fire off rounds, grazing their shoulder.

"Elsie! Wait!"

No one calls me that. Except her.

The attacker removes her hood. She's changed; a bit worse for wear, but it's her. My stubborn sister.

"What were you thinking, Ana?! Why did you attack me?"

"You attacked me!"

It's been years since I've seen her, after the Bombardment. Last family reunion didn't end well.

A crimson line rolls down the length of her arm. "You're wounded."

"It's nothing. I'll be fine."

"You're not fine. Where is that annoying gnat? Why isn't it fixing you?"

"I said it's nothing."

Something's up. I stare through her until she offers an explanation.

"She's… gone," Ana admits begrudgingly. "Let's leave it at that."

I'm not surprised to hear this.

"What are you doing here, Ana?"

"I need you to teach me… show me how to use Stasis, like you. You really understand how to control it. You're not corrupted… like them."

She sounds desperate. That's a bad sign.

"We've been over this. My answer remains no," I say. Ana is smart but too easily lead astray. It's a miracle she ended up how she did. I can't get involved.

"Every day, I make it by the skin of my teeth. Without the Light, without the Traveler, I'm a sitting Dreg, just waiting to be picked off."

"I have bigger concerns."

"Than family?" she asks, trying to pull my heart strings.

Won't work. I pick up my bag and head out the door.

"You're just going to leave? Fine. I'll find someone else to help me learn Stasis, so I can take down Savathûn."

Are things really so bad for her that she has this death wish?

"You know what she did, Ana. Stasis won't save you. This is a suicide mission."

"There are others out there who are tired of living in fear too. We can find them."

"Good. Go talk to them instead."

"Listen to me. We can attack with the Light and Darkness. Together."

"Or we can keep our heads low and move on."

"There's nowhere else to go! You want to run away—that's your choice. But I'm telling you we can do this," she says and holds up a satchel, pulling a drive from it. "We just need a little help."

"You… have him?" I ask in disbelief.

"What's left of him."

The Warmind. I guess he didn't vanish with Mars. There is power there, but this is still a foolish plan. Although Ana seems hell-bent on learning Stasis and, with Rasputin, she'll do it. Once she puts her mind to something, there's no stopping her.

I always thought the best way to protect her was to stay away from her. If I push her away now, can I really say I'm doing it for her?

"Only trouble is, he's stuck on this drive…" she says knowingly. "He could use a new vessel."

Ana smiles at me coyly. She knows exactly what to do and just how to bait me. I cast out a million second thoughts.

I can't let my sister get herself killed.

"Lead the way."

Chapter 2: Itinerant Mendicant

"Stay ready. We don't know what's in there," I say to Ana, standing in front of the entrance to the Deep Stone Crypt.

We make our way through the war-torn lab. Eramis's siege before the Bombardment sure left its mark on the place. She found Darkness here and helped spread it like a plague on the world. Clovis almost did the same in his time.

"If I remember right, we have a long drop ahead of us. You better hang on to me," I say.

She wraps her arms over my shoulders, and it's the first time I've been close to a person in over 100 years. I can smell a trace of sodium tallowate. But only a trace. She hasn't bathed for a few days. She squeezes tight. I forgot what this felt like. My body produces a fleeting sensation of warmth.

I move down the elevator shaft. We land as quietly as possible, remaining still. It's dead down here, but the power is on. Someone must have been here… or still is.

As we make our way through the eviscerated research center, I notice Ana taking it all in. She seems almost familiar with the space.

"Clovis was an animal, sure. But what he discovered and built is absolutely incredible," she breathes.

Never heard her speak so highly of the old man. She forgets that I was there. Doesn't realize the hand he played in our future, even centuries ago.

"This way!" she calls out, running ahead. After walking through several corridors, we come to a familiar dead end. It's still there. Clarity Control. I dreaded seeing this again. Practically a standing testament to all the bad that Clovis did.

I want to get away from it, but Ana's fixated. "Hey, you ready? We need to keep going," I say.

She snaps back to reality. "Sorry."

Finally, we find it. The place where Exos were born. Ana covers her nose as we're greeted with a rotten smell. Slowly, we turn the corner and see a decomposing corpse desperately clinging to a lever on a console. "The Drifter…," Ana says. Hard to tell how long he's been here. We pry his hand from the console and carry him out of the room to try and purge the stench.

"What do you think he was doing here?" I ask.

"Most likely the same thing we are," Ana says, plugging in her drive. "But he failed. Probably for the best. He doesn't deserve another chance."

It's depressing, seeing him like that. All alone down here…

Ana works the console. "Uploading now. Should be out of here soon. Grab that lever."

I pull down, and a latch opens, releasing radiolarian fluid into an empty pool nearby. I catch Ana staring at the spot where we found the Drifter's body.

"You ever think about what we could have done differently?" she poses.

All the time.

"Not really," I answer.

"So much of this death and destruction stems back to us, to our family. I know Clovis was responsible for a lot. He had a hand in bringing the Darkness to this world."

"How do you know that?" I ask.

"I found a journal the last time I was here. It's old, and half the pages were torn out, but it had a lot of information about him that was salvageable."

Of course, she's been here before. Clearly, she's not telling me the whole truth.

"What else was in it?" I ask.

"Outside of the redacted memos and experiments, there were stories and recollections of our family. It's all from his perspective, so he was never the villain. But still, maybe he wasn't as bad as we thought. He seemed to care about us, in his way."

"Really?"

"He did some good, Elsie."

"I was there, Ana. I saw the things he did. He was delusional. Of course, he was never the villain in his own story."

We sit for a while and wait in silence.

The pool begins to bubble. Ana jumps to her feet as a sleek metal hand emerges from the fluid. Slowly, the Exo rises. Silky liquid drips from the tendrils that conjoin the parts. Eventually, it takes its first steps out of the pool.

"Red?" Ana asks timidly.

Its head turns. Glowing eyes of scarlet meet ours, and it speaks… Russian.

"Welcome back, old friend," Ana says.

We're in business.