A musty smell hit them like a concrete wall. It was a mixture of stale, moldy air, and rusty metal. Like a hundred times of the smell of 1880 coins. The pungent stench was also accompanied by a wave of dust, forcing them to take a step back, coughing and wheezing, shutting their eyes tight to keep the dust out. If only humans could shut their ears too.

As the dust settled, they all whipped out their torches to survey the mess before them. Jiyong guided his torch from left to right slowly, trying to take in all he could in that brief moment of awe and terror. All his life he had wondered what secrets this greyish, almost black factory skeleton held. And all his life he never dreamed he would find out. But here he was, standing before a complex web of machines, wooden parts rotting away as mold thrived on every inch of the vicinity. He in a deep breath and regretted immediately. He spluttered and gagged until he was sure his throat wouldn't grow mouldy, as the others watched on with smirks on their faces. "Seriously," Taeyang shook his head.

After calming down Jiyong continued shining the torch up the second level. On the outside the factory did not look big, only slightly wider than a bungalow or a mansion. But when he stood inside he felt like just another dust particle amongst the many others, too tiny to even get out of the factory. Slowly they made their way up the winding stairs on each side of the factory, keeping their hands away from the greenish railings. They shined their torches on the once-magnificent metal structure in the middle as they advanced upwards.

It was hard to describe. Only a mechanic would know how it worked. It looked like a series of machines all joined together, tubes dangling. Their were a few pipes hanging over a belt-like mess which was covered in random bits of brownish red and grey-white. He supposed the items or goods would drop out of the pipes onto the conveyer belt which then led to some big metal box. Maybe it was the packaging machine? Jiyong really didn't know much about automatons or electronics.

His eyes followed the pipes up to something that looked like it could crush a person to bits. There were razor-sharp jagged blades dangling over a flat metal platform covered in the same random things. Except there was much more white here. It seemed powdery. Jiyong wondered what the factory manufactured. Just then he spotted some odd-looking white thing that was stuck on the blades. Something like how bits of a peanut would get stuck on your teeth. He took a few more steps up to go closer and leaned over the railing slightly to get a better look at it. His face moved closer and closer and his eyebrows became increasingly knitted as he tried to figure out what it was. It looked so familiar, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

He knew he was close to the answer, he knew it was at the back of his mind, he knew he would have thought of it and fitted the puzzle pieces together. But he heard the door slam shut right then, and his mind went blank.