[ WP ] for generations humans have lived in connected buildings , never going outside . After getting lost one day you find a door labeled EXIT .

This is becoming pretty long! 
 
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 I live in the City of Northern Light. It ’ s about twice the size of Little Cleveland, half the size of Lex, and a small dot compared to New Atlantis. In school they told us it ’ s supposed to be one of the oldest cities in the country. It ’ s the oldest I know of. 
 
 It has a over a million people, 50 schools and universities combined, 14 Halo department stores, and a lot more. Best of all though, it has an abandoned school from over 100 years ago that me and my buddies sneak into every Saturday. Nobody knows it, but the sewer that runs through the town and under Aurora Park has a connection to it. We sneak in through a manhole in the park and leave whenever we want. 
 
 The school is called Alexandra ’ s School of Engineering and it used to be some sort of hub of technology before the world around us was built. I can ’ t imagine what things would have been like before Northern Light existed, but I imagine it was not very interesting and maybe it was dark without the city ’ s lights. 
 
 Usually my buddy Julius and I spent an hour hoverboarding up and down the old engineering hill where all of the graduate students built their models. Its like a monument and it ’ s better than any terrain park I ’ ve ever seen outside, back in Northern Light. 
 
 The school itself was like a giant domed colosseum of buildings. There were a few lights up on top that were still on, giving the place the feel of about 8 PM in Northern Light, the time when they dim the city lights. 
 
 Somedays our group goes exploring instead. We often don ’ t venture too far into anywhere since there aren ’ t very many functional lights left and it can get a little spooky. On Halloween of this year our friend Casey was turning 15 and he told us he would go deeper into the school than we ’ d ever been. He wasn ’ t going to be afraid anymore. 
 
 He had a perfect setup too. There was a cam on his helmet for streaming to us, thanks to the signal boosters he would drop along the way. He had a Neverdie™ light built for tunneling companies ( a light supposedly so efficient that as long as you are moving some every hour, will never die ). He would ride his hoverboard along, going through every hallway he could find and if he ever got lost he had his VR goggles set up to guide him back along the trail of virtual breadcrumbs. The whole thing was perfect. We were finally going to get to see the parts of the school we were too afraid to go to before. 
 
 Well that was the plan anyways. Unfortunately, fearless Mikey K. joined us that day and he rarely let anyone get the better of him. He had already talked about joining Casey, and then Julius went ahead and dared him to ride along. So Mikey went too with no more than the usual gear we carry, which is just a phone ( a phone which doesn ’ t even get reception in the depths of the school without signal boosters ). 
 
 Five minutes into their endeavor Casey had already ditched Mikey and was exploring everything we always wanted to see. We mostly forgot about Mikey since we couldn ’ t take our eye off of the stream, but every once in a while one of us got a bad feeling and asked, “ Do you think Mikey ’ s okay? ” 
 
 Nobody ever responded and we just kept watching. After two hours, Casey was back out in front of the school and we couldn ’ t stop talking about all of the things we ’ d seen. He ’ d found tons of old tech for us to play with and even an old mechanical laptop with its ancient charging cable. 
 
 After the initial excitement died down a bit Casey looked around for Mikey. 
 
 “ Where ’ s Mikey at, guys? ” he asked. “ I figured he ’ d run back out right away after I ditched him. ” 
 
 “ He never came out. ” Julius said. “ I don ’ t think anybody knows what to do. ” 
 
 “ Shit, guys! ” he yelled. “ Are you kidding? What are you doing, we have to find him! ” 
 
 “ Yeah, ” I said, “ but we don ’ t have all the gear. You ’ re the only one prepared enough to go. ” 
 
 “ Are you kidding me? We ’ ll just go in pairs, we aren ’ t leaving Mikey in there. God, sounds like you guys already gave up on him. ” 
 
 And that was the last of that conversation. We paired up and trekked inside. 
 
 I went with Julius, Casey went with his little brother, and our other buddies Pete and Suds paired up as well. Unfortunately, there wasn ’ t any good way for us to stay connected. Each group took two of Casey ’ s boosters, but if we really split up it would be hard to get very far and keep connected. 
 
 After half an hour of searching with Julius he told me he had to take a whiz. We ’ d been to several rooms Casey hadn ’ t and had a wing left that nobody had been too before. We also didn ’ t end up having any connection to any of the others. The plan was to meet back out front after an hour just in case. 
 
 The part of the school we were in was the structure that contained the buildings for most of the classes and offices. There were various creepy courtyards full of mostly decayed plants, locker rooms, and gyms with equipment that must have been for keeping fit. Thanks to modern science, most of our gyms are just for practicing sports since working out became an antiquated, obsolete way of staying healthy. All in all, it was quite the interesting place for a bunch of teenage guys to explore. 
 
 Well, while Julius was taking a piss I went off for a bit just to look around and found an old courtyard similar to the others. I told him I ’ d be right back, and fully intended to be. 
 
 I went inside and saw the same dead plants with their withered leaves, untouched by time. After a moment, I saw a hole in the ground by an old dead tree. I leaned in to take a peek with my phone light, intending to digitally map the room and get out. My phone signal wasn ’ t very good though and it was taking a lot longer than normal to get the mapping app working. Soon enough I felt the ground below me begin to shift and before I could sit myself up, the floor had caved in. I hit the ground hard.
