Alyce Lydell's Arc

Chapter 2 of 10

Alyce needed to learn how to break chains without making noise. She pulled wire cutters from her jacket and tested them against a rusted fence near the garage. The metal snapped with a sharp crack that echoed down the empty street. Too loud. She tried again, wrapping cloth around the blade. Better. The sound muffled to a dull click. She practiced three more times until her hands stopped shaking. Tomorrow she would face the real chains at the subway entrance, and she couldn't afford to alert the Dream Wardens. Her search for ancient truths depended on staying hidden. But breaking in was only half the problem. She needed to know what she was looking for once she got inside those forbidden tunnels. Ancient truths meant old records, documents, anything that existed before the Dream Wardens took control. Alyce walked twelve blocks into the decayed district, searching for a place that might hold that kind of information. She found it behind a row of collapsed buildings. An abandoned library stood wrapped in shadows and rust. Cracked concrete steps led to a metal door that hung loose on bent hinges. A faint magenta glow leaked through broken windows above. She pushed inside and dust filled her lungs. Rows of shelves lined the walls, most empty but some still held books with cracked spines. She pulled one down and opened it. The pages showed maps of Dreamland from decades ago, with zones marked that didn't exist on any current maps. This was exactly what she needed. She spent the next hour searching shelves and filling her bag with everything that looked old enough to matter. Now she had tools to break chains and knowledge to guide her search. The subway entrance was waiting. Back at the garage, Alyce spread the stolen books across a metal workbench. She needed light to read them properly, but the building had no power. She dragged a metal storage box inside from the alley behind the garage. Inside sat six car batteries wired together with frayed cables and corroded terminals. The whole setup glowed faint magenta in the dim light. She hauled it up the stairs and connected it to a lamp she'd found in a corner. The bulb flickered, then held steady. Now she could study the maps and documents late into the night. She also rigged up a simple alarm system near the garage entrance using exposed wiring and a bell from an old bicycle. Weeds had grown through the mechanism, but it still worked when she tested it. If anyone approached while she was inside, she would hear them coming. She sat at the workbench and opened the oldest book from the library. The first page showed a diagram of tunnels beneath Dreamland, deeper than anything she'd seen before. Notes in faded ink described chambers that held objects from before the Dream Wardens existed. This was what she'd been searching for. Proof that Dreamland had a history the wardens wanted buried. Tomorrow she would break into that subway entrance and follow these maps down into the dark. But tonight, she had everything she needed. A hidden base. Power for her equipment. Security to warn her of danger. And knowledge that would guide her to the ancient truths waiting below.