SILENCE | ATEEZ

4 | Lost Vestiges

Countless screens pop up from the distinct wall, showing the progressions of each group of newbies. There's a lot of things happening, and neither of the newbies know that they are being watched in real time by the governors. Every one of their movements within the walls of Astral Ruins are monitored closely. Following the schedule, the newbies are either now in their designated sections for meetings or the training centre.

Since it's only the first day of their training, the president grant them the leisure time of the day to get used to their group mates, only little did the newbies know their leisure time wouldn't last that long.

Seonghwa takes a sip of his favourite coffee choice of the day, before handing it to the woman on his side. The woman didn't bother to take it, instead she just let him be. Her eyes are roving around a specific area of the screen in front of them. She moves forward to click on information of a particular location in Astral Ruins.

The screen goes into loading and within milliseconds later, every information about the new batch of newbies fill in the screen. Her fingers glide on the screen with ease, scrolling through each piece of the content of the first page thoroughly. For now, the number of people they have taken in is 400 in total. She admits all of the newbies attendance before finally taking a seat beside the president.

"You look troubled," Seonghwa says as he brings the cup back to his lips, blowing it slowly and offers it to her for the second time. Same response as before, she doesn't take it from him. Her eyes are still particularly glued to the screen in front of them.

"What is it, Saera?" He asks again, she notices a slight change in his tone.

"How much longer do we have to keep doing this?" Saera grits her teeth as she pretends to be more interested in the information of the newbies instead of turning to face the president directly. She feels some sense of guilt, but she couldn't lie to herself any longer.

Working for VESTRA is already one thing, but keeping up with Seonghwa's rule is another burden on her shoulders. Her head hangs low down, as she let out another sigh. Seonghwa could see that Saera is getting impatient, and her mind is already way too far drifting off the motive on why he had established VESTRA in the first place. He looks away, his hand goes to hold his identification card that hangs down on his chest.

"Tell me, what's the sole motive of VESTRA?" he says, as he takes another sip of the coffee.

Saera's hand goes to the side of her head, massaging it slowly.

There he goes again.

"You don't have to remind me that every single time I bring this topic up, president. Let's just be honest with each other. None of your experiments have been working and each day that passes, a lot of people are still dying! There's a real situation out there Seonghwa, and I don't know how you have the guts to just sit on your chair while sipping your stupid coffee like nothing happened!"

"I am only trying my best!"

"Which one is your best? Sitting down here sipping coffee? Or maybe laying down on your bed while reading those stupid books?" Saera's tone rises each sentence that slips out from her mouth. Her heart is burning, and she knows it too well that her voice doesn't matter to Seonghwa one bit. No matter how much she tries to convince him, not a single thing would change his mind.

"I know it doesn't feel like it but I'm doing this for the good of the future! For you! For everyone!"

It feels like she is betting on a losing game. A feeling that she knows nothing is ever going to change in a way she wants it to be, and that she has no choice but to accept the way it will be. Her heart sank empty as she felt nothing but rage and despair. Saera knows she has no power in changing how things should be in VESTRA. Her opinion always finds its way to the drain, or only passes by like the wind during summer breeze.