The Key is inert.
Mark Ozark. He seems reassured.
Mike "the Hawk" Murphy. His face is like stone.
“I’ll take it.” Says Murphy. Mark reacts with shock.
“What do you mean you’ll take it? That’s insane! She hardly gave any details!”
“...To be honest with you kid, I don’t see that I have much of a choice here.” Murphy readies his bayonet. “You said we have to go to your heart? Lead the way.”
The Machine opens a passageway into a new dark hallway. You walk in, letting Murphy take the lead.
You eventually ask Murphy about his background, who exactly he is and how he got wrapped up in this. He tells you that he was once an army man in one of the last great cities. His city was wiped out, but he escaped. All he knew were weapons, so he became a traveling mercenary. After some time, he happened upon Snowbird when it had just been built. He had always been ambitious, so he tried to set up an army there, but it was run by hippies who disliked him. When he met Fred, he hatched a new plan to start a cult using Fred’s beliefs, thinking Fred was merely delusional. However, he soon found out that Fred was right about everything, that there really was a thing beneath the earth, and his whole understanding of the world was changed. He became an evangelist because he believed that it was the only way to avoid being killed by the TBTE, but when he finally saw it and it didn’t care about humans at all, he quickly went back to his old cynical worldview, just with an added mysticism.
As you walk, you hear more of the eerie song from earlier.
“Born of the waves when
the light poured in this endless rain.
Watch your mind because
you 're still trapped in my reflection.”
You realize this time that it’s coming from the wires, which vibrate ever so slightly to transmit the sound. It’s really quite quiet, but the acoustics of the room amplify it and cause it to echo strangely. Your idle reflections on this sound are interrupted when, without warning, a person slams into you. You both fall to the ground, but the other person gets up quickly and races down a narrow hallway you didn’t even see. She calls out to you: “Come on! Quick!”
You all look at each other and shrug.
