Chapter Text
This is not how you anticipated your solo backpacking expedition to end. You were completely off course, wandering through the Alps for days on end, and supplies were dwindling. You could barely feel your own body.
You're practically crawling now. Your body aches, and despite it being the month of August, you're growing cold. You're delirious, the high altitude and thin air has made it nearly impossible to think. You've managed to get yourself to a lower altitude, but not before the effects of the strenuous conditions bore down upon you. You can barely make anything out. The map you had been using had turned out to be completely outdated, and had led you astray, much to your horror upon discovery. You don't even remember where you'd picked it up from. You don't remember much of anything right now.
Despite the ragged shape you're in, one thing is keeping you going, though, a beacon of hope, albeit small. The power lines. You had to rub your eyes several times to make sure they weren't another hallucination, another trick of your mind. But no, there they stood, the black wires stark against the blue sky and the treeline. Even in your disoriented and fragile state, you knew one thing to be true. Where there were power lines, there was civilization. You could hear them humming. Sending electrical currents somewhere. And you were determined to find that somewhere.
You drag yourself over the hills, the sun slipping, day fading before your very eyes. Only the adrenaline keeps you moving now. You clear a particularly large hill, and over the peak, you can see straight down into a valley.
Your heart leaps. You blink several times, dizzy with exhaustion, hoping with everything in you that this is real.
In the valley below sits a massive satellite array. In the center of the array sits a large gray concrete building. You have to keep going. Your backpack seems to be growing heavier, despite having ditched several supplies out of necessity hours ago. You'd kept all the food you could, which wasn't much. A few foraged roots. Despite the aching in your body, the growing heaviness, you trudge on. You cautiously climb down the hillside, crouching low to center yourself. It was steep, and your balance wasn't great due to the state of your body. You press on.
The flood of relief that washes over you as you finally make it all the way down the hill is refreshing. It strengthens you, if only for a moment. You keep trekking, and think that your feet must be reduced to liquid in your boots by now.
The air is thicker here. Easier to breathe. You inhale deeply. There are birds. For the first time in days, you're able to notice small details about your surroundings. Your brain had been in survival mode for around a week.
As you near the building, though, your heart sinks. Your stomach drops. It's old.
It's littered with trash.
It seems abandoned.
This can't be right. The power lines were humming. There had to be someone around.
You feel yourself growing dizzy again, like all of the sudden, the blue sky is opening up, the trees growing larger, taller around you, the world beginning to swallow you whole.
You collapse to your hands and knees on the asphalt of the parking lot. You can't continue on any further.
You weren't expecting to wake up again. When you do, to your surprise, all you can see is light. This must be it, the afterlife. You follow the light with your eyes, squinting, before realizing that the light isn't guiding you into death. It's no metaphorical light, at all, actually. It's the beam of a flashlight, being shined directly into your face.
You can hear a voice, sounding far away and incomprehensible. You can hear blood rushing in your head. You're beginning to come to.
All of the sudden, things become clear. Your eyes snap open wide, and the voice becomes coherent. Whoever is speaking is speaking to you. And in English. Something you can understand.
“Are you awake? Hello? Can you hear me?”
You zero in on where the voice is coming from, your eyes adjusting to the dark despite the flashlight being shined into your face. You squint and turn your head away. A reaction to the light. The voice apologizes and shines the light down on the pavement instead. You look in its direction again.
The voice belongs to a man, probably around the same age as you. He has dark and shaggy hair, grown out. Most of him looks shaggy, if you're honest with yourself. He wears rounded glasses, and behind them you can see dark circles beneath his eyes. You groan, trying desperately to communicate.
He understands this and attempts to help you to your feet, grabbing you by one limp arm and propping you up so that you can use him as a crutch. He's scrawny, but much stronger than he looks.
“Let's… get you inside,” he murmurs, still unsure whether or not you can understand what he's saying.
Through your delirium, you begin to make out your surroundings. He's leading you through a set of heavy metal doors, into a barren, concrete building. You don't try to fight. You don't sense any ill will from him. You're just relieved that you're getting help. Once inside, he drags you down a hallway with five doors, you think, and a vending machine in the far corner. You make notes of everything you can. He leads you through the only door on the left hand side, and props you up so that you're sitting against something.. cold.. metal.. a row of lockers. You can't do anything but huff, trying desperately to thank him. Your head lolls to one side as he drapes an emergency blanket around your shoulders. The mylar crinkles. It's not comfortable, but it's warm. You sigh in relief before briefly passing out again.
When you come to next, you're greeted by the feeling of something tugging at your arm. Your eyes snap open again. You don't know how long it's been. It's still dark, you can see through the large windows on the other side of the room. It's the man from earlier, trying to assess your arms for any major wounds or injuries. You don't pull away. You take in the room around you, now. There's a large console in the very center of the room, and not much else. A map hangs on the wall, a radar console sits blinking to the left of the larger machine, and some other assorted furniture and machines sit around the room. You furrow your brows, trying to make sense of what this large machine could be. For the first time in weeks, you speak actual words to another human being.
“... Thank you,” your voice comes out weak and far away. You barely even recognize it.
The man just nods and continues assessing you for injuries. He rolls up one of your sleeves. He's already taken your jacket and tossed it aside. Next to you, he's placed a metal water bottle and a thermos.
“You’ve got a deep cut here,” he says, drawing your attention to the wound on the outside of your upper arm. You wince. You're beginning to be able to feel your body again, and the sensations you feel are not pleasant.
He nods, wincing in empathy.
“That's going to need to be dealt with soon,”
You nod.
“Can you understand me? You speak English?” He asks, hopeful.
“Yes,” you nod.
A look of relief washes over him. That will make it much easier to communicate.
“I'm sorry. I didn't introduce myself. Kel. I'm Kel,”
For the first time since he started speaking to you, you realize that he speaks with some sort of accent. Not Swedish, not German.. not Austrian even. You try to piece it together in your muddled head.
He extends his hand to you, and you shake it.
“Thank you. When I got here.. I.. thought this place was abandoned..” That's the most you could stand to say, your head pounding.
He smiles wryly.
“Might as well be, I'm the only one up here, anyway,”
Irish. You think to yourself. It's an Irish accent.
You smile and laugh, a painful, wheezing laugh.
“You have no idea how glad I am to see another human being,” you say.
He sighs in relief.
“Me too,” He sits criss-cross in front of you, evidently getting comfortable enough to stay and chat for a while.
“Can I ask what brought you all the way out here?” He seems puzzled. You're just as confused.
“A faulty map,” you reply, in better spirits now that you aren’t actively dying.
“How's that?” He chuckles slightly.
“I wish I knew. I lost my course days ago. I thought for sure I was dead,”
He nods solemnly.
“Right. Well.. you're not, which is the good news. The bad news is that you're heavily injured and in need of rest,”
You groan, feeling every bit of it. You knew you would need to rest for a while, but what you didn't know was where you could do that, or even where you were in the first place.
“Can I ask you something, Kel?”
He nods.
“Where the hell am I?”
Kel laughs. “In the general sense, this is Dunkeltaler Forest. And it's huge. We're right in the center of it, Alpha Root Base for the Alpen Signal Observatorium.”
You blink, not really able to process all of this information quite yet.
“Ah, it's… it's a satellite array? And an
observatorium?”
“Right. Smart one, you are,” he says jokingly.
You smile and try to laugh.
“I'm on death's door, cut me some slack…”
He just smiles and continues, handing you the bottle of water as he talks.
“Drink that. Yes. It's a satellite array. I stay up here all by my lonesome and process all of the signals that come in from god knows where,”
You take the water and drink, not about to argue when you're so dehydrated. You finish the whole thing in seconds.
“Jesus,” he murmurs, handing you the thermos next.
“There's soup in here, hope you're hungry,”
You nod, eagerly drinking from the thermos and burning your mouth. You don't care. You're starving. The warmth of the soup floods through you, you're relieved to finally feel something in your stomach. You try to pace yourself, not wanting to lose what little you had. You're beginning to feel better, regaining at least a bit of strength.
“Thank you,” you offer him a grateful smile. He nods and lifts your arm again to inspect it. You let him. He begins to dab at the wound carefully with clean water, and you wince, trying not to flinch. He cleans the wound and continues speaking.
“I suppose we've both got questions for each other, then, haven't we?”
You nod.
“I'll ask mine then. What were you doing out there all alone? Were you with a group, and is there anyone else out there still?”
You shake your head. “No. It was just me. I've been backpacking like this for a long time, I've got years of experience under my belt. I guess I overestimated myself this time,” you cringe as you admit that you'd made a mistake going alone, “I like to travel by myself. I like being alone out in the wilds, there's something I find grounding about it, I guess. I like to explore. I need it, really.”
Kel nods, seemingly understanding a desire for exploration, a desire to know things.
“You get to know yourself better out there. You get to know the world better. As dangerous as it can be… it's even more breathtaking,” you muse, lost in thought now. It really had been breathtaking before your wrong turn. It was one of the only times in life you ever felt true peace.
“Hm. Yeah. I understand. Don't you think it was a bit reckless though? I mean, especially here.”
You sigh. You'd gotten that before. You hated to admit it. It was reckless.
“...Yes. It was reckless. No matter how prepared I was. Part of me always knew that. But… the other part won me over.”
Kel nods again, it seems that your expeditions mean a lot to you.
“Now, here are my questions,” you say, trying to change the topic, “Why are you out here all alone? Isn't it a bit reckless for you to be here all alone?”
Kel pauses bandaging your wound for a moment and then continues.
“I don't know. I can't tell you why they sent me here alone. I really don't know. It is reckless… but it’s all a part of the job, I suppose,”
You both go quiet. It seems you've struck a nerve. You try to smooth it over.
“Well… in any case… it's good to see another person,”
Kel nods, giving a small smile.
“You've no idea,”
Once your wound is as taken care of as it can be, you exhale in relief. Your body has returned to a normal enough temperature, and you remove the mylar blanket from your shoulders, folding it and setting it next to your backpack. Kel gets to his feet and offers a hand. You stand, groaning. Your ankles are shot. Sprained, most likely, if not broken completely. You wince. Kel attempts once more to be a crutch as you enter into the barren hallway again.
You can make things out more clearly now. The fluorescent lights flicker above you, casting down upon the stark gray concrete. The two of you enter through another metal door into a stairwell. The whole building is brutalist. The staircase is made of metal, most likely industrial steel. Aside from the faded and cracked murals along the walls of the entrance to the building, there was no color. Just variations of gray. You noticed that the stairwell extended both upwards to another hallway, and downwards. The stairs leading downward gave you an odd feeling. There was no light emanating from whatever room or hall was below. For the first time since you had been brought into the base, you felt something other than relief, and it wasn’t a good feeling. You felt a strange shiver run up your spine, ignored it, and turned your eyes upwards.
The two of you ascend the staircase and trudge along the upstairs hall. The wall to your right is made of glass panes, and you can see directly out onto the roof. You could see the treeline and the hills, shrouded in darkness now. You weren’t sure what time it was, but judging by the color of the sky and the shadows cast down below, it must have been late evening. It wasn’t a bad view. The stars were shining, blazing brighter out here thanks to the lack of light pollution.
You make it to the end of the hallway and descend a small set of stairs before entering through another heavy door.
You stabilize yourself against the wall to give Kel a break, looking around and trying to get your bearings. To your left is a small kitchenette, with appliances that definitely hadn’t been updated since the building was constructed. The fridge door practically hangs off of its hinges. There’s a door on the far wall, presumably a bathroom, and a row of lockers. In the far left corner stands a bunk bed, and it seems that maybe Kel had attempted to do some decorating. Across from the bunk bed is a tattered couch and an old TV on a scuffed coffee table. The floor was interesting as well. The room was split into sections, the kitchenette having tiled floor, and the rest of the room done with some old, faded hexagonal carpet that reminded you of either a bowling alley, or your old psychiatrist’s office. You shrug off your jacket as Kel places your backpack in one of the lockers for you.
“Top bunk or bottom bunk?” He asks you, and you’re suddenly pulled back out from inside of your mind.
“Oh… either. I see you’re already set up on the bottom,” you reply.
“You’re sure? with your injuries and everything?”
You nod. You hadn’t come all this way just to stop fighting now, you supposed.
“Alright. I don’t have much to spare, unfortunately,” He says, digging through the lockers to look for spare blankets or pillows.
You make your way over to where he stands and silently pull the sleeping bag from the top of your pack, holding it out so that he can see. You had come prepared.
“Oh, right,” He grins, a bit bashfully.
“I’ll be just fine,” you reassure him.
You climb the ladder, your legs like jelly, ankles sore and spread the sleeping bag, unzipped onto the mattress. To be perfectly honest, you’re just glad to have an actual mattress to sleep on, even if it was 30-40 years old and a bit grungy. You make yourself comfortable, a sigh of relief exiting through your lips.
“You’ll be alright up there?” Kel asks, wanting to make sure you’re okay, but not wanting to overstep. He can tell you’re used to sleeping rough, to rugged expeditions. He doesn’t doubt your capability. In fact, it impresses him and frightens him a bit. You’d clawed yourself to safety on the brink of death after all, something he was getting much too familiar with out here as well.
As soon as you're settled, your eyes focus on something else on the wall. It seems to be his diploma. You read over it… PhD?... PhD in… astrophysics?? You glance over at him again. He can’t be much older than you are… maybe in his late twenties? You raise your brows, impressed.
“You… I should have been calling you Dr. this whole time?” you say, laughing slightly.
His ears turn a light shade of pink.
“Ah, that… no, no… it’s alright,”
You tilt your head, puzzled at his reaction. He seems rather sheepish about it.
“I mean, that’s impressive. You’re, what? twenty… seven? twenty eight? Am I right?”
“Something like that, yeah…” he grins shyly.
“That’s incredible,” you smile. He murmurs a quiet “thank you”.
“Really, it’s…” he clears his throat, changing the subject. Maybe he’s not quite used to being complimented like that.
“You’re sure you’re going to be comfortable up there?”
“Yes, I’m sure. You don’t need to worry about me,” you reassure him. He nods.
You give him a thumbs up and a bit of a dopey smile and watch as he goes to sit on the couch. There’s a feeling of awkwardness lingering between you. It wasn’t every day that you ended up meeting a critically injured stranger out in the middle of nowhere after complete isolation for weeks, or in his case, months on end. He hadn’t even had the privilege of seeing another human face for months. Other faces… yes, but it was the least he could do not to bring that up now. He’d have to figure out a better time to explain their… precarious situation out here to her. He didn’t know when that opportunity would arise. After all, how does one even begin to explain the things he’s seen with his own two eyes without sounding like a raging madman? The explanations would have to wait for another time. A less fragile time. Still… he’d have to tell her at some point. Better she finds out about this god-forsaken place through him than on her own.
His voice cuts through the thick silence like a knife.
“I’m sorry, I just realized… I never asked your name,”
You laugh under your breath. It had seemed unimportant up until now. But you guess that if you’ll be staying here a while, you’d better at least give him that. You tell him your name.
“Well then… It’s nice to meet you,” he says, beginning to look through a collection of DVDs and video tapes sitting beside the VCR.
That piques your interest.
“Are those movies?” you ask, and the curiosity in your voice is a little too evident.
He smiles, slightly endeared by your sudden enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I’ve managed to get my hands on quite a few,” he says, still picking through them, “You want to watch one?”
You nod and clamber down the ladder, paying little attention to your aching bones now. As much as you loved the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere, you couldn’t resist the possibility of some other form of entertainment after so long. You join him on the sofa, leaning over the coffee table to look through the pile.
Your eyes brighten at the selection. It’s mostly cheesy old Sci-Fi and Horror… your absolute favorites. Your eyes land on a familiar looking cover and you gasp dramatically, the woes of the previous hours completely gone from your mind.
“Alien, huh?” you grin.
“Ah… well, it’s a classic,” He smiles, scratching the back of his neck.
“It sure as hell is… put it in?” you ask eagerly, making up your mind on the spot.
He smiles and takes the tape from you, slotting it into the VCR.
You both begin to sink back into the sofa. You loved this movie. You’d probably seen it about a thousand and one times by now, and you could quote the entirety of it. You decided to have mercy upon Kel and save the quoting for another time.
You watch the screen, the familiar beginning sequence beginning to play. Kel glances in your direction, and catches a faint glint in your eye that hadn’t been there before. As if some spark had come back. He sighed in relief. Despite the earlier awkwardness, he began to feel a sense of ease. Mostly, he was just glad to have another human being to talk to.
Mostly. There was another part of him, though, that caught the glint in your eye. Maybe it was the result of the months of isolation, maybe it was just the way you’d expressed yourself so genuinely. Either way, he’d caught it.