Goal of the day: 1168 words. Written: 1173.
"What did I know?" - I asked Akmens.
- Hmm? Antonio interjected, brushing small pieces of crystal from my back and pants.
- You knew that only you could hear me... - Akmuos answered as if embarrassed, at the same time pulling away from the wounds a little.
“What?? How could I know THAT!?”
- Oh. Antonio exclaimed when he realized who he was talking to. "Come on, Gil, follow me."
- Pala, what?? - I rolled my eyes at the Stone.
"Gile, let's go," Antonio called in a worried voice and held out his hand to me somewhere out of sight. He didn't seem to really hear what Naoki was saying.
"What???"
I turned to Antonio. I don't know, maybe I was hoping for an explanation. But I obviously didn't get it, and judging by the look on my face, I wouldn't have.
"Well wait, I'll figure it out..."
I straightened up and walked towards him, ignoring Antonio's hand. He turned and we started walking back towards the entrance door of the rocket.
He opened these the same way he had closed them earlier, with the push of a button and the door opened. It turns out that the rocket had landed on a piece of water and stood motionless there, and its door, opening downward again, became like a bridge to the edge of the white water pool.
On it stood a long-haired, dreadlocked girl in an all-white suit trimmed with yellow stripes, and behind her stood six neatly dressed men in similar white uniforms, only without the stripes.
- Where are we? - I asked the question out loud, which probably should have occurred to me a little earlier.
"God is holy. I should probably stop trying to figure things out. I guess he will answer that he will explain later."
- You are at the headquarters of our Gang, the invincible YYY! Antonio said, surprising me, turning around. And then he waved his hand towards the door bridge. "After you, dear."
"Dear?"
I had no other options and no one gave them to me. So I walked across the bridge outside.
This one moved under my feet, but otherwise remained firmly on the surface of the water. This one felt pretty solid and tight. Maybe not even very water. The same impression was made by its strange solid and opaque grayness. Or it constituted an illusion of immense depth.
A few hairs stood up on his neck. If it's really a very deep pool, I didn't want to stand over it on such a flimsy bridge. That depth was frightening.
However, soon I was safe and dry on the shore, standing in front of the dreadlocked girl and her six uniformed guards or people performing an unknown function.
"I wonder if they are human or just other creatures in human form. I don't know what to expect anymore."
Antonio immediately came to me and stood next to me.
"Welcome back, Tony." - said the Girl in a soft voice and smiled a little:
- It seems to me that you won't be able to come back to Miestan for a long time, right?
Antonio nodded.
- True. I wonder how I ever made it back in one piece. And it's only because of her," he waved his hand slightly at me.
I looked at Antonio and then at the Girl.
- Who are you? - not knowing how to respond better, I squeezed Naoki harder again. This one clung to the wounds again, but they seemed to be already healed.
"And you didn't tell her?" - the Girl raised her eyebrow. The men behind her still didn't even move. Absolutely.
- I said, but it's obvious that she doesn't remember enough. Antonio breathed. And then he turned to me and said:
"You don't remember anything here at all, do you?" Me? Elm trees?
I shook my head.
- No, nothing... Who is Elm?
"Elm is me," the Girl tapped her chest with her finger.
"Elm, an interesting name. Reminds me of pits, huh.”
"Something funny?" - she raised an eyebrow, probably hearing how I blew more air after that thought.
- No no. - I shook my head. - I seriously don't remember anything. Absolutely.
"Well, we'll tell you what to do," Antonio interjected. And then, turning to Elm, he added:
"I have to take her to the med station, she's bleeding."
I touched my forehead with my finger. She was really bloody. Only my eyebrows must have held back the blood - good things those eyebrows are for stopping blood and sweat.
- I noticed. - Elm said not very surprised. - Then, after your visit, immediately come to the Babkiu King's Hall.
"Babki King's hall? Whose is that? What is that?"
"Certainly," Antonio nodded firmly.
Elm then turned and marched down the bank to the other side of the pool towards the gate there. The six personas following her followed just as neatly.
This gave me an opportunity to look around more widely. Turns out we were in the middle of a giant cylindrical building, at the bottom of the cylinder. And our rocket landed in the water here, or whatever it was, and stopped like that. In places, several shallow reflective puddles were still visible on the floor. There was nothing visible at the top of the cylinder - only a clear already evening and yellowish sky, but it was neither cold nor felt any wind.
"Impressive."
"Let's go," Antonio told me, adjusting his guitar strap a bit and walking forward. Just like the first time I met him, he didn't even look at me and walked boldly, as if he knew who would follow him.
"He already knows I'm going to follow, doesn't he?"
I didn't do anything crazy though and just followed him. My eyebrows didn't help anymore and I felt streams of warm liquid blood falling down my nose. I brushed them away with my free hand, but they wouldn't stop.
"Can I put Naoki on the wound?"
Following Antonio, I lifted Naoki to my forehead and held her close. He somehow turned and hugged the wound. I seem to have cut a whole oblong cut on my head.
"Thank you," said Stone quietly.
I just nodded my head, not wanting to draw Antonio's attention again with my comments. Am I seriously the only one who heard the Stone?
He led me to the exit of our landing pad and into a corridor of some sort. Before leaving, I looked around - just like at the beginning, we were the only ones. The rocket was left to float with the hatch open in the middle of a giant pool, probably as round as a cylinder.
"It's strange, you'd think there'd be people here..."
However, we stepped into the white, again perfectly clean, corridor and I put it out of my mind. After a while, I removed the Stone from his forehead, and he sighed sadly.
"Here," said Antonio, opening one of many white doors barely visible in the wall.
"Somehow all the buildings I've been in are so similar inside... Only the colors are different..."
I went inside. We found ourselves in a tidy laboratory, somewhat similar to the one I was in when I left Gabrielle's office, only whiter.
- Saul! - shouted Antonio, inviting someone, - I have a patient for you. Urgent order!
A plump, balding man stepped out from behind the further partition.
- M? - he raised an eyebrow. - Ah, you see how!
He walked around the metal tables with the obscure devices and walked over to me.
"And you're covered in blood," he said.
"Come on, it's news..."
"Wow, news," I said sarcastically.
Saul laughed.
- Come here, - he said and I followed him.
Sitting me down on a short, round swivel chair, he pulled a damp piece of cloth from a drawer and began to wipe my forehead as if I were a small child.
"Oh, miss, you know, you have interesting wounds," he said to me. And then, turning to Antonio, he continued:
- How did she injure herself so that all the blood managed to escape from her wound and dry up? Fell into a vacuum hole temporarily?
Saul laughed, and his mouth smelled like old eggs.
“Fueeeah. Well, what about the wounds?"
"Mhm, you're welcome," Naoki said to someone who doesn't know.
"Oh exactly... Naoki, is he still healing??"
Saulius pressed his finger on my wound several times. I had it implanted a little, but the pain was minor. Maybe because I cut myself in such a place.
"There's nothing to treat here, miss," he told me, lifting my face with his thick fingers.
"Do not touch me!"
I shook off his fingers. Somehow I didn't want him to touch me. And he touched. Auch
- Mmm, interesting... - muttered Antonio, who came and looked at my forehead, as if my forehead were a museum!
Saul took a new clean cloth and continued to clean my forehead. Then she wiped a little and rubbed my cheeks and put the cloth in my hands.
"Here, clean," he said, and turning away, he started to walk back past the tables, probably to his curtain.
„??”