Wonderful Insane World
Chapter 172: The Sleeping Thing

Chapter 172: The Sleeping Thing

The next day, the sky was veiled in a dirty yellow haze. A murky light bathed the camp, as if the world had been whitewashed in lye. The time had come.

Dylan had slipped out of his cot well before dawn, silent, leaving the other workers snoring in their sweat. He’d taken care to close the canvas flap behind him, and stepped into the dry morning mist, the bandages around his torso slightly tightened. The stigma pulsed softly, but he ignored it. For now, at least.

He paused for a few moments behind the north hangar—his usual post. From there, he could see the preparations for the convoy: three transport carts covered in green tarps, one loaded with metal crates, the other two meant for passengers and equipment. A handful of soldiers moved briskly, arms full, tension on their faces. A few workers added cables, secured wheels, checked the horses. Everything felt improvised, rushed, almost desperate.

He didn’t have much time.

If he wanted to board, he had to disappear inside one of the vehicles without being noticed—or be noticed just enough to not seem invisible.

He already knew which one.

The second cart. The one in the center.

The one with the most frequent comings and goings. The one being filled with black crates marked with an unfamiliar triangular symbol. The one the escort leader—a thin man with a sharp gaze—kept checking over and over again.

Dylan tightened the straps of his canvas sack. Inside: a few tools, two bottles of water, a forged pass he’d copied the day before from one the guards had tossed aside during a break, and most importantly, a small anima gem—almost drained, but enough to replenish his energy in case of emergency.

He started walking.

At a steady pace. Like a young laborer sent to fetch a part or deliver a box.

No one looked at him.

He walked alongside the row of carts, passed a guard who ignored him, climbed up the side of the central cart and slipped in through the back under the tarp. Inside, it was dark and stifling. Crates took up half the space, the rest left open—probably for reinforcements.

He squeezed between two crates, behind a poorly tied curtain of canvas. His breathing slowed. He waited.

A few seconds later, the escort leader climbed in, barked an order, closed the tarp. Wheels creaked. The engine groaned. The convoy began to move.

Dylan smiled in the shadows. He was in.

The ride was long.

Hours of jolts, sharp turns, bumps that made your head bang against the metal. He didn’t move. Not a sound. Not a breath. His whole body turned to stillness.

Now and then, he caught snippets of conversation. A soldier said the silo wasn’t just a storage site. That there had been something else once. A "sealed inner chamber." Others mentioned strange creatures spotted near the center’s perimeter. Inhuman sounds at night. A vibration, barely audible, that climbed through your feet.

"Maybe the silo’s alive," one had said, half-joking.

No one had laughed.

When the convoy finally stopped, the sun was high.

Dylan waited another ten, maybe fifteen minutes... as long as he could.

Then, slowly, he emerged from his hiding place.

The camp was rudimentary. A few tents hastily pitched, cables running to a console powered by a generator. And farther off, a hatch in the ground. Circular. A massive metal lid, rusted with time. Surrounded by standing stones, like an ancient circle. The silo.

Dylan didn’t go near it.

He moved the other way, circling the crates, passing by a toolshed. There, he found a partially pinned map, half-covered by a medkit. He glanced at it for a second—just long enough to burn it into memory. The tunnel network sprawled beneath the entire northern zone.

Perfect.

He hadn’t come here for nothing.

A soldier approached, suspicious look on his face. Dylan held up a wrench.

"Got told to fix the axle on the wheels. It’s rattling too much."

The soldier stared at him for a second, then gave a vague nod and walked away.

In the end, he wasn’t discovered. Or not yet.

He pretended to tinker for a few more minutes, his hands feigning work while his eyes tracked every movement. A group of soldiers descended into the silo—helmeted, armed. They clearly hadn’t been given much info, judging by their hesitation. The escort leader, meanwhile, prowled around the perimeter like a nervous dog.

Dylan waited for him to disappear behind a container.

Then he slipped to the silo’s entrance.

In the space of a heartbeat.

And descended.

Inside, the air reeked of dead metal. Dust and salt. It was colder. The walls—circular—were streaked with black marks, like old claw scratches. The tunnel spiraled downward, slowly, until it opened into a round chamber. Empty.

But not entirely.

At the center stood a structure. Like a pillar. Massive. It emitted a barely perceptible vibration. Dylan felt his stigma respond beneath the bandages. A pulse. Not violent. But real.

He stepped closer. Slowly.

The pillar was made of a material he didn’t recognize. Something between stone and metal, laced with symbols. He placed a hand on its surface. A chill crept up his arm.

"Something lived in there."

He didn’t get time to think further.

Footsteps echoed in the tunnel. Voices.

He backed away, slipped into a side alcove. Three soldiers walked past, weapons raised, eyes scanning. Their faces were stern—but not calm.

"You feel that?" one muttered.

The other nodded. "Like... the room’s watching us."

They kept going.

Dylan stepped back out of the shadows.

He’d seen enough.

What they were exploring wasn’t a silo. It was a threshold. To something else. Something still breathing—in the rock, in the silence.

He had to leave.

To warn them.

To—

A stronger vibration rippled through the ground. Subtle, but distinct. Like a deep inhale. The symbols on the pillar lit up faintly. Dylan stepped back.

Something’s waking.

Not yet.

Not today.

But soon.

He turned around, climbing the stairs two at a time. At the surface, the wind had risen. Soldiers shouted, scrambled for cables. A storm was coming, bringing with it the red sand of the border desert.

Perfect. In the chaos, he could vanish.

He moved toward the truck, became Daan again. The mute kid. The bandaged one. The kind everyone forgets.

But this time, he didn’t look back.

He knew what he’d seen.

He had seen. He had understood. He had to disappear.

But in missions like this, it’s never as simple as just "turning back."

Dylan slipped under the tarp of the cart like a shadow returning to its lair. No one saw him, no one called his name—or the name he was using. Everyone else was too busy wrestling the wind, tying down tents that threatened to fly off. A soldier barked an order half-swallowed by the sand. A rope snapped. A tarp tore.

Perfect chaos.

He dove back between the crates. Took the same position as that morning. Back against the wood. Knees to his chest. Closed his eyes. And began to review everything again.

The pillar. The halo around the symbols. The vibration. The soldiers’ uneasy eyes.

There was something down there. Something Pilaf, Martissant—or maybe both—were either trying to awaken or desperately contain.

And him... he was just a kid hiding in a cart full of crates.

The return took two hours. The sky darkened, the horses grew restless, and the escort leader screamed orders like a dying man trying to keep a rickety parade alive. On another day, it might’ve been funny. But not today.

By the time they returned to base, daylight was already fading. A golden light fell across groaning sheet metal and exhausted faces.

Dylan slipped from his hiding spot just before the final halt. He jumped down silently, into the dust. Soft landing. Controlled.

No one saw him.

He walked straight to the storage area, with the slightly hurried step of a kid sent to fetch or deliver something. He even mumbled a curse—just enough to make it real.

Once in the darkest corner of the north hangar, he exhaled. Hard. Long.

His body was trembling. From tension. From leftover adrenaline.

He’d survived.

But more than that: he’d understood.

And now, he had to pass the info on.

But to whom?

Truthfully, Dylan had been thinking about it the whole time.

Every step through the dust, every tool he moved, every quiet moment under the tarp—they were all haunted by the same question: How do I warn Gael?

No messengers. Too risky. No beast couriers either—too easy to track.

But did he even need to do it himself?

There was Alka.

They had come together, after all. Two shadows with two faces. She had blended into the supply crew from day one, hair tied back, quiet gaze, clipboard in hand.

Just another quartermaster among many. Invisible in the dance of logistics. She counted stocks, handled rations, delivered reports to section chiefs—and listened, always.

Alka didn’t need to move to know everything. The camp was her web. Every list she altered, every ration she "lost," every crate she let linger opened doors inside the system. She’d probably already seen the movement toward the silo. She likely had names.

And more importantly, she had a channel.

She was the link to Gael.

Dylan left the storage area at a slow pace, the gait of a kid broken by the day, shoulders slightly hunched. He didn’t take the direct paths. He went through the delivery corridors, past the water tanks, then skirted the food depot, all the way to the small inventory office by the west wall of the main hangar. A tin box, dimly lit, clinging to the edge of the structure.

He knocked three times. Once. Twice. Pause. Then one final knock.

An old code. Theirs.

Alka’s voice came through the door, barely audible:

"It’s closed."

Dylan opened it anyway.

Inside, Alka was alone. A messy pile of papers before her, her face still painted with deliberate fatigue, a quartermaster’s shirt buttoned to the neck.

When she saw him, she raised an eyebrow—no smile.

"You lost, or did you find something really ugly?"

He closed the door behind him.

"Both."