The air in Lumière smelled of resignation and withered flowers. A strange, suffocating combination. It wasn't the sweet, vibrant scent of the jasmines or roses that adorned the balconies of the Upper Town in better times, but rather that of petals fallen on the asphalt, trampled by hurried feet and weary souls. Tomorrow, the Painter would awaken. Tomorrow, she would paint the thirty-third. And then, those of us who were still breathing, having reached that age, would simply stop. We would turn into smoke, a fleeting memory that would vanish with the wind, just as my parents did when the Painter painted the twenty-seventh, or my sister Sophie when she reached the age of thirty.
My heart beat with an irregular cadence, a dull drumming against my ribs that seemed to want to escape my own body before the Painter could claim it. Twenty-nine years old. That was my age. I had… we have… four more years. Four years to live, to love, to laugh… or to try to break this cursed cycle. Expedition 33. That was our name, our purpose, the madness we had clung to when all logical hope had been extinguished.
I looked around the training yard, or what was left of it. The tiles were cracked, the small garden overgrown. Still, Gustave moved with surprising grace despite the heavy, makeshift training armor he wore. His wooden sword whistled through the air as he practiced thrusts, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was 32. Tomorrow, if we stayed, he would be one of the first to leave. That thought—that simple, immutable truth—made my stomach churn.
"Gustave," I said, my voice sounding a little more brittle than I intended.
He stopped, lowering his gun, his blue eyes meeting mine. There was an intensity in them that always struck me, a mix of steely determination and an ancient sadness that seemed rooted deep within him. "Yes, []?"
"Just... making sure you're still here," I replied with a weak smile. It was an old joke between us, a way to ward off the fear that surrounded us. "Tomorrow is the day."
He nodded, his jaw tensing. "I know. Are you ready?"
The question echoed in the silence. Was I ready to leave the only 'home' I knew, however decayed it was? Ready to venture into the fractured lands beyond Lumière's walls, infested with nightmarish creatures and unknown dangers? Ready to face the Painter herself, a mythical figure who had dictated the fate of our people for decades?
"As ready as one can be for a suicide mission," I admitted frankly. There was no point in sugarcoating it. We all knew what we were up against. Most of the previous expeditions never returned. Their numbers vanished into the monolith, and they faded from existence somewhere far away and forgotten.
Maelle approached us, wiping her hands with an oily cloth. She was always checking the equipment, making sure our precious few weapons were in the best possible condition. Her face, usually smeared with grease or dirt, displayed an unusual seriousness. "The supplies are ready. It's not much, but it should serve us for a while."
Maelle was our expert on all things mechanical and practical. If something broke in the middle of nowhere, she'd be the one to try to fix it. She was 28, a year younger than me. She was also on the Painter's waiting list.
"Good work, Maelle," Gustave said, putting away his wooden sword. "We'll need every advantage we can get."
Lune and Sciel entered the courtyard, their footsteps echoing on the broken flagstones. Lune shouldered her longbow, her eyes constantly scanning the surroundings as if already searching for threats. She was our tracker, silent and observant. Sciel, her robes slightly worn, carried a heavy tome under her arm; our scholar, the one trying to decipher the few, fragmentary ancient texts that spoke of the Painter and the Monolith. Lune was twenty-seven. Sciel was thirty-one. We were all bound by the same sentence of impending death.
"The eastern gates are less heavily guarded tonight," Lune reported in her calm but firm voice. "We could try to leave before dawn. We'd avoid the panic of the official farewell."
"Do you think they won't notice?" Sciel asked, adjusting his glasses on his nose. "Leaving the city secretly... it's almost like deserting."
"We didn't desert," Gustave chimed in authoritatively. "We were trying to save them. Them and those who come after them. Panic would only make our escape more difficult. Lune is right."
I looked at each of them: Gustave, the natural leader and the most directly threatened; Maelle, the pragmatic and essential; Lune, the silent watcher; Sciel, the well of knowledge and history. And me... what was I to this expedition? Perhaps the storyteller, the one who observed and felt the weight of our mission intensely. My skill... my 'talent,' if it could be called that in such a bleak world, lay more in my perception and my ability to react instinctively. In the heat of combat, while others relied on brute force or strategy, I felt the rhythm of the engagement, an intuition that told me when to strike, when to move, when to dodge at just the right moment. It was a feeling rather than a thought, a kind of macabre dance with death. (Here, in a subtle way, I introduce the idea of real-time combat mechanics—intuition, rhythm, dodging.)
The plan was set. Set out under the cover of night. Head east, into the unknown, following the vague directions found in Sciel's texts. Search for answers. Search for a way to break the cycle.
The weight of the mission hung over us, heavy as the storm clouds that sometimes covered Lumière's perpetually gray sky. We weren't heroes. We were a desperate group, fleeing certain death with the tiny hope that our escape would serve something greater than ourselves.
We prepared in silence, each grappling with our own fears and resolutions. The creak of straps as we tightened our backpacks, the metallic clink of the few weapons we carried, the soft sound of fabric rubbing together. Small noises in the great silence of our last night in Lumière.
"Once we're outside," Maelle began, her voice low, "we must be efficient. Unexpected encounters can be fatal. Remember what we practiced: identify the threat, assess its movements... and if it's a wandering Ferocious, aim for the bright spots on its joints." (Another subtle reference to the gameplay guide: identifying enemies and weak spots.)
Gustave nodded. "Maelle is right. The outside world doesn't forgive indecision. We'll move quickly, but cautiously. Lune, you'll lead the way. Sciel, you'll stay in the center with Maelle; we'll bring up the rear."
I nodded, my hand gripping the handle of my weapon. A simple sword, well-balanced. It didn't have the mystical edge of the blades of legend, but it was mine, an extension of my will in combat. I felt its familiar weight, a strange comfort in the midst of uncertainty.
Night fell upon Lumière, bringing with it a chill that pierced our bones. We didn't know if we would last days, weeks, or months. But we did know one thing: for us, there was no turning back. Tomorrow, the number would be thirty-three. And Expedition 33 would be far beyond the walls that had protected us, and at the same time, condemned us.
Maelle's flashlight cast a flickering light as we slipped through the back alleys, heading toward the east gate. The scent of wilted flowers grew stronger here, almost unbearable. Or perhaps it was just the scent of the end.