Chapter Text
Museum of New Liberio
Year 929
-“Kids, quiet” – Elio could still hear Mr. Zu's voice in the distance. His classmates followed the professor to the next gallery: a temporary exhibition about weather and the science behind it. Considering that he wasn't exactly interested in a detailed explanation of why or how clouds formed, he decided that wandering on his own might be a good idea. And thanks to the chaos of the rest of the class, Mr. Zu couldn't notice his brief absence.
Elio kept walking through the dark rooms of the museum to the post-rumbling section, occasionally stopping by to read a museum label or watch an illuminated artifact, until a small sign caught his attention. Post-rumbling archaeology - audiovisual room, he read . The audiovisual part got him. He was always in the mood for a movie.
Behind a heavy curtain that served as a door, the room was empty. It was very small and very dark, except for a soft light in the back, right next to a projector. It only has four seats, all of them facing the front wall. Elio carefully walked to the light to realize there was a red buttom and a label next to it. Faced with the impossibility of resisting a red button, he decided to postpone reading the label, and pressed it.
The projector started working immediately. The bright light made him squint. The front wall was covered by what seemed like an old film strip trying to adjust. He realized it was the digitalization of an old movie.
After sitting in one of the seats, Elio saw the first scenes, all of them black and white. It was a scenery with a jungle and small mountains in the distance. The sound of birds filled the little room.
There was a cut.
And then there was the hushed voice of a woman accompanying the hectic moves of the camera.
- “ Hurry, Levi! Film this! ”
Another cut. And a woman in her forties, probably; the same one who spoke before. She was dressed in a dirty shirt with rolled sleeves, light pants and boots. She also was wearing glasses, an eyepatch and a funny rounded hat. She reminded him of the characters of one of his comics.
- “ Right next to me”- she started with a low voice, while squatting next to a bush - “we can see what is one of the most interesting species of amphibians out there. This little friend is part of the family Dendrobatidae”. Then the woman signed to the camera to get closer. Right in the middle part of the bush, there was a small frog, slowly zoomed in camera. “ You might not see it, but this frog has a vibrant blue color”, she said excitedly. - “ it serves as a warning to predators, because its skin is covered in glands of very poisonous alkaloids”.
The camera went out of focus abruptly.
- “ Of what?!” - a low male voice said. It was from the cameramen. Now the camera was filming the ground, but the voices were perfectly audible.
- “ Don’t worry. I’m carrying my gloves. Now we just need to get you in my jar…”
- “No way we’re bringing that. In the plane. With us”, he said with a panicking voice. “We are not here to collect anim-”
There was another cut.
The scenery has changed completely. Now it was the landscape of a desert. Then another cut, and a closeup with a man in it. He had black hair and a big scar covering his eye and part of his face. He was wearing a shirt and was seated in the sand watching in the distance. His eye, then, looked into the camera.
- “ What are you doing, four eyes?”
- “Filming you”, a female voice said behind the camera.
- “You’re wasting our film rolls”
- “But you look beautiful under the golden hour light”, she answered.
- “Idiot”, he said softly before looking into the sunset again.
- “ Oh, what is this? Is Levi Ackerman blushing on camera?”, the woman said, while the camera zoomed in the face of the men.
- “Shut up”, he answered just before looking into the camera again and briefly smiling.
Cut.
Now there was a waterfall. And the same woman standing in front of it with her feet in the water. Her voice was loud now, trying to be heard over the sound of the impact of the water. “ It’s amazing how the rivers have regained their previous flow! Thanks to erosion, buried artifacts like this one can come to the surface”, she added, showing a kind of metal teapot. “ This kettle was used by the Cohyak people. The Cohyaks have settled in these lands since…”
Elio knew that. He had learned about the nation of Cohyak in school last year. As well as many other disappeared nations.
Another cut and now a small plane could be seen. A third male voice is heard behind the camera. " One second! ", the man walks in front of the camera and adjusts something on the lens. He is a black man in his 40s or 50s. " Ready! " he says, and disappears again, possibly behind the camera. The man who was in the desert, the first cameraman, walks towards the plane, limping slightly. The woman with the eyepatch follows behind him. They both stand in front of the plane, facing the camera. He places his hand on her waist and stands straight and firm, while she waves effusively at the camera.
The voice says " cut ", but the image does not stop, on the contrary, whoever is recording silently zooms in on the couple, who, believing that they are not being recorded, give each other a soft kiss.
“Elio!”, a call coming from the hallway outside the room makes him jump in surprise. The boy stands up quickly and draws the heavy curtain. There is one of his classmates “Here you are! Hurry up! Mr. Zu is asking about you, it's time to go!"
Elio took one last quick glance at the screen, then at the label he couldn't read, and finally gestured for his classmate to run off with him.
The sound of a woman's laughter faded away as the children fled.