Chapter 51 – Detours Exist for a Reason

Blinding light filled the chamber. I shielded my eyes, hoping Yuri and Luna were safe.

—Click.

The clock hands aligned perfectly at 12.

—THUD!

A deep tremor resonated through the chamber. The hands began to rotate clockwise.

—Rattle…

A grinding sound, something massive shifting below.

I lowered my arm, and my breath caught in my throat.

The floor was splitting open.

The giant clock face divided, its center spiraling open, revealing—

a bottomless abyss.

And within it, a cylindrical staircase descending into darkness. The central column sank slowly, a rhythmic, mechanical motion.

“A way down…?”

Yuri stepped forward, a mixture of excitement and trepidation in her voice. “Is it… really a path to the 11th floor?”

Luna’s hand gripped my sleeve. “Noah… can we really go down?”

I gazed into the opening. The staircase continued its descent, an invitation into the unknown.

Could we turn back?

No. There was no time for doubt. Without tickets, we needed to explore this path.

I stepped onto the staircase. “Let’s go.”

Click, clack.

Our footsteps echoed on the descending stairs, the only sound in the vast emptiness.

Slowly, cautiously, we followed the spiral.

Then, the central column brightened.

“What’s happening?” Yuri murmured.

Suddenly, the solid column vanished.

Replaced by an expanse of water.

We stopped, transfixed.

Not just water, but—

a sea of silence.

An underwater world, filled with the detritus of ages.

Sunken ruins and distorted architecture lay tangled beneath the shimmering surface.

Crumbled temples, collapsed skyscrapers—remnants of a civilization lost to time.

A sanctuary, once a place of worship, now a haven for colossal fish.

Massive, broken pillars jutted from the sand. A vast, domed structure, its side torn open, lay silent in the abyss. Faint shadows flickered through the ruins, their forms indistinct.

Where did this world begin? Where did this sea lead?

Light filtered through the water, illuminating gold-etched patterns on the ruined walls. Symbols of a forgotten authority? Or the beliefs of a vanished civilization? Lost to time, their meaning unknown.

“…This is…” Yuri breathed, stepping closer, her voice a mix of awe and wonder. “A city… under the sea.”

Luna inhaled sharply. “Is this… what it’s always been like here?”

No. This wasn’t just a sunken city. Artifacts from different eras lay jumbled together.

A place where time had collapsed. Or perhaps, where time had sunk.

I gripped the stair’s handrail. We stood suspended between worlds, the scale of the submerged landscape overwhelming.

Words failed us.

In the profound silence, we gazed down at the sunken world.

The staircase continued its descent, a path to an underwater sanctuary. A ruined city slept beneath the shimmering waves.

This seemed like the answer. A way down, without a train or a ticket.

They had rejected the train and chosen this path.

And now, we stood before it.

Had the tickets even been necessary?

“This seems… right,” Yuri murmured, her gaze fixed on the submerged ruins. The underwater city held a mystical, seductive allure, as though whispering secrets.

Luna nodded slowly. “It’s… amazing. But…” she hesitated, then tugged my sleeve. “Are we sure about this, Noah?”

I looked down at the staircase again. The sea was beautiful, the ruined city serene in its watery embrace. But—

detours existed for a reason.

If this was the path chosen by the religious group, they must have had their reasons.

But they had vanished.

Why?

What had consumed them?

Where had they gone?

Descending further, we reached a new level. Not just underwater ruins—

I stopped.

The air was colder, the silence broken by the drip of water.

A place long forgotten. A place holding truths we needed to confront.

Familiar patterns adorned the walls. The clock face motif from the chamber above.

I touched the wall, my fingers tracing the rough surface. Crumbling dust coated my hand.

Waterlogged papers littered the floor. Records of some kind. I picked one up.

[Record – The Choice of Those Remaining]

“We didn’t board the train. We believed that was freedom.”

“But rejecting the train wasn’t enough. We needed a new path. We created one.”

“We set the clock, opened the door, and went beyond.”

I looked up from the record. So they hadn’t simply remained. They’d actively sought their own way down.

But then—what about the pendant and the clock hands?

I scanned the floor, then realized—this place had been occupied.

A damp patch on the floor. Shredded fabric. Deeply scored handprints in the stone.

“…They opened this door,” Yuri said, her gaze fixed on the record, “but… there’s no record of what came after.”

“Exactly.”

I turned the page.

[Record – The Secret of the Clock]

“We set the time. The door opened. But what we saw…”

The record ended abruptly.

“But what we saw…”

Nothing.

I bit my lip, staring at the pendant.

Not just an ornament. I’d assumed it was a religious artifact.

But it was a key. A key to a detour, a different departure.

I traced the pendant’s surface with my fingertip.

This was their “key.” The way to open this detour.

“The pendant was the key…” I murmured.

Yuri and Luna looked at the pendant in my hand.

“So if we set the clock with this, we can go down too?” Luna asked.

“Yes. But…” I looked back at the unfinished record. “But what we saw…”

I pressed my hand against the paper. What had become of them?

Had they reached the 11th floor? Or had they been lost here?

There was no way to know.

This was a detour.

And detours existed for a reason.

I closed my hand around the pendant.

Was this truly a key for us?

Or an invitation into an unknown darkness?

One thing was certain: we had to choose.

I took a deep breath, my gaze returning to the pendant.

As I reached to gather the scattered papers, a small, torn fragment caught my eye. It was smaller than the others, ripped roughly.

I picked it up.

The paper was damp, the ink blurred, but a few words remained legible.

“But we hesitated again, unable to choose.”

“We didn’t know if those who had gone before, after setting the pendant, had truly made it through.”

My breath hitched. At the very bottom, a final, faded sentence:

“This isn’t it. This path isn’t safe either.”

And beneath that, faint yet distinct—

one last line.

“We ran away again.”

I reread the words, and the truth became clear.

Some of those who came here had hesitated. They’d opened the door, but hadn’t crossed the threshold.

That’s why we’d found the pendant and the clock hands.

I tightened my grip on the pendant, its surface cold and smooth.

These weren’t mere remnants. They were the legacy of an unfinished choice.

I looked at Yuri and Luna. “Can we make this choice?”

They remained silent, but in that silence, I knew they shared my thoughts.

Before us lay an untaken path. A choice left undone.

And we were the ones who had inherited it.

Could we—

“Could we choose not to run away?”