"Ah… that's good then." Alex muttered in relief. Knowing that no one could hunt and kill another person for their card put Alex at ease.
Although something the officer said drew his attention.
'I keep hearing of the fates. What are the fates?'
He was about to ask when another person suddenly emerged from the gray gate behind him, causing him to turn around.
It was a young girl in her late teens with beautiful green eyes and long, disheveled blonde hair. Her ivory skin was flawless and pale, making the blood splattered across her face stand out even more. But it was not just her face that was stained. Even her entire body was drenched in red, and her clothes were nothing more than blood-soaked rags.
The young girl looked really shaken up, and when she saw the hall filled with people, she took a cautious step back, as if she expected one of them to lunge at her.
One of the female officers on standby noticed and walked over, carrying a large black shawl. She draped it over the girl's shoulders and gently guided her away from the gate.
'What the hell did she go through on that mountain to look like that.'
Just then, the male officer spoke snapping Alex's gaze back to him.
"Come on, Alex. It's been a long day for you as well, so let's get you tidied up and settled in."
'…settled in?'
For some reason, that rang bells in his head.
Alex started following him as the man began walking. He really needed a shower and a change of clothes. Once he caught up, the officer looked at him and spoke again.
"By the way, Alex, you can call me Steve. I'm going to be your guide for the next week, and during that time, I'll try to teach you everything I can about who we are. I know you have many questions, but you're going to have to set them aside until tomorrow. You'll get most of your answers then. In the meantime, you just need to rest. After all you've been through, you deserve it."
'Of course I deserve it!'
The duo walked on until they reached an elevator. Steve tapped a glowing console on the wall, and when they got in, he pressed a button marked with a symbol that didn't look like any floor number Alex had ever seen.
As the elevator began its ascent, Alex looked at Steve and asked a question that had been on his mind from the very beginning.
"Where are we?"
Steve blinked, then chuckled. "Oh yeah. I forgot to mention the obvious. We are currently at one of the many gray gate centers around the world. It's here that we receive the thousands of people who survived the trial of ascension that takes place once every year."
"Oh…" Alex trailed off as he processed that. "I didn't know we had places like this on earth."
Steve gave him a sympathetic look and shook his head. "No, Alex. We are not on earth."
Alex froze.
'What?!'
He snapped his head toward Steve and gave him a dark look. "What do you mean by that?"
Steve exhaled and repeated, "I meant what I said. We are not on earth. So, you need to forget about your life and past there. We are now in a different world now. And this world is called The Pantheon."
It was quiet after he spoke as Alex's thoughts immediately began to race.
'What did he mean by a different world? Didn't the card say that we would return to our world when we finished the trial?'
He was still following that train of thought when he suddenly remembered the gnawing feeling he had felt just before he crossed the gate.
'Wait…'
It was then that everything clicked for him.
'The card… the voices… they never said that we would return to earth. They said that we would move on to our world. If this is the world for Ascendants, then it means that we have indeed moved on to our world.'
All the bells that had been ringing in Alex's head finally made sense.
'Why didn't I notice this earlier? …Does this mean we can't go back to earth?'
At that moment, the elevator door slid open and Steve stepped out. Then he turned and gestured for Alex to follow. "Like I said earlier. Your questions will all be answered tomorrow. All you need to do for now is rest."
Alex stared at him in silence.
After a moment, he exhaled and stepped out of the elevator.
Since he would get his answers tomorrow, he decided to set it aside for now and just… rest.
Together, they continued along a long hallway. There were many doors along the left and the right making it look like a high-end hotel.
A few seconds of awkward silence passed, and then Steve stopped at a door to the right. The door to the room had a gray plate engraved with the characters M20 in black.
"This will be your room for the next few days. Everything will be provided for you, so just ring if you need anything or are not satisfied with something."
Steve then raised a hand, and a grey card suddenly materialized between his fingers, after which he extended it to Alex. "Here's your room card."
Alex took the card and studied it. It was a plain, rectangular piece of plastic with the same simple engraving in black: M20.
After studying it, he looked at Steve and asked, "How did you that?"
"What?"
"Summoning the card out of nowhere like that."
"Oh, that." Steve chucked and rubbed his index finger under his nose. "I didn't summon it out of nowhere. I summoned it from my soul."
He paused, then pointed a finger at Alex's chest. "Right now, you probably only have two cards dwelling within your soul. One is your Soul Card, which contains everything about your authority. The other is your Insignia, which is your tool of power. If you want to summon them, all you need to do is reach into your soul, feel the card you want to manifest, and call it out."
'...reach into my soul... feel the card... call it out. No idea how to that, but got it.'
Alex nodded.
Steve smiled, then muttered, "Anyway, someone will be bringing you dinner later so open the door when you hear a knock. I'll be back in the morning to pick you up for your orientation."
Alex nodded again.