An information anomaly... I felt it not as a surge of knowledge, but as a weight. Millions of pages, millions of stories, destinies, discoveries, and misconceptions—all of it pressed down, creating an almost tangible field of mental noise. I shuddered, pulling my hoodie tighter around me. I needed to quickly find what I came for and get out of here. This place was too alive for a dead archive. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it was all just a self-hypnosis effect; this place was just too oppressive.
Shining a flashlight on the wooden, some damp, bookcases—of which there were many—and the room itself being quite large, I began to spot the flowers of the Ghost Orchid. According to the information packet loaded into my memory, it looks like a regular orchid, only white and faintly glowing in the dark, so I wouldn't miss it if I spotted it.
Alas, having gone through the entire rather large archive about three times, looking into every dark corner, under every shelf, into every crack in the stone walls, I still found nothing.
Failure. The very first location—and it was empty. A slight pang of disappointment stabbed somewhere inside, but I immediately suppressed it. What did I expect? That a magical flower would grow in the most prominent spot with a sign that read "Take me"? That would have been too simple. Analyze, think. In any case, this isn't a failure, but a calibration. And as sad as it is, this is precisely why I chose five locations instead of one. There's no point in wasting any more time here; let's continue the search.
Having left first the archives and then the library dungeon itself, naturally returning the locks to their proper place thanks to the inventory that adapted to my needs, I moved on to the next location: an abandoned metro line beneath the Brooklyn Bridge—City Hall station. According to rumors and urban legends, seven construction workers mysteriously disappeared during its construction. Some desperate enthusiasts have visited the site, including on video, and noted that, in general, unlike most underground metro lines, breathing here is easier and freer. Naturally, there were many explanations for this, but for me the aura of mystery, enigma, and "magic" was most important.
Having reached the right station and confirmed that there were no curious people here, and even if there were, they clearly had no time for me, I headed toward the unused maintenance tunnels, passing several types of obstacles along the way and descending lower and lower again. To avoid obstacles, I used the good old tactic of misusing equipment.
After about half an hour of walking down, I found myself on the legendary unfinished subway line, and began eagerly shining my flashlight on everything within my reach and even beyond.
I walked slowly along the rusty, slime-covered rails. Water dripped monotonously from the ceiling, and each drop's plop on a puddle echoed in the hollow silence, creating the illusion of footsteps behind me. I tried not to think about it. The bright beam of the flashlight revealed graffiti by long-vanished artists, piles of trash, and what looked like a huge nest woven from rags and wire. I walked around it in a wide arc.
The atmosphere here was completely different from the library. There, there was the weight of knowledge; here, the weight of oblivion. The smell of mold, damp concrete, and ozone mingled with a barely perceptible whiff of decay, making you want to breathe only occasionally. Every sound, even the quietest, seemed out of place and loud here. I felt like a stranger, intruding into a long-abandoned realm where its own, unknown laws operated. The silence wasn't soothing; it was tense, ringing, like a taut string, ready to snap at any careless movement. I walked, trying to step as quietly as possible, as if afraid to awaken something slumbering in these tunnels.
Suddenly, far ahead in the tunnel, I heard the scraping of metal. I froze, instantly turning off my flashlight and pressing myself against the damp wall. My heart pounded somewhere in my throat. The scraping sound came again, closer, and was joined by someone's heavy, raspy breathing. It didn't sound like an animal. I held my breath, trying to turn to stone. Who could it be? A homeless person? A worker? Or one of those urban-legend "moles"? What seemed like an eternity passed. The breathing and scraping faded until they died away completely. I waited another five minutes before daring to turn on the flashlight again. My hands were shaking slightly. It was a sobering reminder: I wasn't in a computer game, where locations are empty until the player arrives. This was a real, living world, and its dark corners could hide very real dangers that don't require superpowers.
It was already one in the morning, and I couldn't spend more than an hour on this branch; fortunately it wasn't very large. But alas, even periodically turning off the flashlight to remain in absolute darkness and thus search for the faintly glowing flowers, I still couldn't find them. Fortunately, there were no more unexpected, frightening encounters.
Let's move on.
Having emerged—naturally having replaced all the locks and fences—I walked south toward Bowling Green, the financial district, which was empty at night, making the walk through it especially atmospheric. But it wasn't the district that interested me, but the park in that area, the oldest park in New York City and a place rumored to be the site of Lenape Native American ceremonies and rituals.
The transition was dramatic. From the claustrophobic, oppressive underground, I emerged into the vastness of a concrete jungle. The skyscrapers of the Financial District, dark and silent at this hour, resembled gigantic, sleeping titans. There was no bustle of Hell's Kitchen here, not even the occasional passerby. Only me, the echoing sound of my footsteps, and the wind blowing between the glass and concrete structures. This emptiness was eerie in its own way, but after the experience in the tunnel, it felt like a breath of fresh air. I walked with my head up, gazing at the distant stars barely visible through the city's light pollution, feeling like a speck of dust in this vast, frozen world.