Dust To Dust [Closed]

[Sounsyy]

When Ryanti made himself known, Sounsyy finally gave out and laid out on her back with a sigh. The spectre had gone, vanishing into the red lights of the hall. She had never seen it and her mind was now awash with peace. There was light, however dim, and Ryanti was alive. She would not die alone down in this deep, dark hell. The tune Sounsyy had hummed before when her partner was moving across the elevator reappeared in her head and she quietly hummed the rest of the tune before she heard Ryanti's footsteps approach and his voice sound awkwardly through the darkness of her closed eyes.

 

"Hey… are you alright?"

 

Sounsyy just nodded her head without words and another moment she felt Ryanti's hands loosening the ropes from her suit's harness. She opened her eyes and found the white-haired Miqo'te hovering over her. She barely understood his words when he said they should press on. It took her several moments and a confused look to rearrange the words so they sounded like the common tongue to her. They needed to move.

 

"Yeh. We've only almost died thrice in the last bell, may as well," she said with the barest hint of humor in the back of her throat. She struggled to sit up, her body protesting audibly. As she stood, she cradled her injured hand close to her chest. It was hurting her again, the bones shifting uncomfortably with each attempt at extreme physical exertion and grip strength. She couldn't help but think that she was a woefully poor candidate for this venture. Then another thought sprung into her mind.

 

"The ship came to life, and I felt it surgin' through meh fingers. Felt meh whole body clench and go limp, then I lost the pearl. I can't say if it's dead fer sure, all I can 'ear is white noise. Yers okay?"

 

She looked to him, concerned. What had happened to him in that shaft? He looked awful, she could tell even in the dim red glow. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, casting her gaze around the hallway. Then she remembered herself, "Right, movin'," she whispered as she gathered her bag and stiffly walked down the hallway back to the window. She knelt down to retrieve her fallen rifle and slung it over her shoulder. She climbed through the window and moved cautiously onto the elevator platform. It clunked beneath her feet and she felt unsteady, not because it visibly shifted, but because she knew it could ascend or descend beneath her feet at a moment's notice. She looked towards Ryanti and gave him a half-smile, "Deeper into the briny depths I guess?"

[Ryanti]

His eyes looked heavy, as if they had sunk to the back of his skull. His skin was paler than usual; a little sickly. In the dim crimson light of a long forgotten vessel that used to claim its home in the stars, Ryanti was indeed alive. Taxed, but alive. Those tired eyes were focused on her, and while his body seemed to lack energy for the moment, there was a strength of concern in those eyes as he observed Sounsyy try to help herself up.

 

He had one knee lowered to the ground. The curls of a weak smile emerged from a corner of his lips in response to her little joke. Was it true? Had that almost died three times so far? He knew there would be many more times that would happen in this place. Many more. Assuming that they would survive, of course. When one was to think in perspective, the odds were against their favor. It looked to be a very realistic scenario, dying here… entombed within the bowels of a vessel already long dead itself. Was this to be it, then? Was this place simply destined to become their coffin? Were they to be buried together here? Would they be forgotten too?

 

Ryanti’s face seemed like a ghost. It was very still as his eyes glanced upon her injured hand when she brought it up to her chest. One half of his face was illuminated by the dim flickering red light, while the other half was covered in darkness. He could tell that she was in pain. Was it because of him? Probably. She had saved his life, and hurt herself in the process. Nearly every time Sounsyy herself thought about how poor of a choice she was, Ryanti was almost always thinking about how poor of a decision he made. It was his only option though. He knew that she was supposed to come here, as he was.

 

They… had called to them both.

 

"The ship came to life, and I felt it surgin' through meh fingers. Felt meh whole body clench and go limp, then I lost the pearl. I can't say if it's dead fer sure, all I can 'ear is white noise. Yers okay?"

 

Her dialogue snapped him out of his little trance. Ryanti’s eyes moved again, this time meeting her own. The idle red lights were flickering off of her face too. The contrast stole the color away from those hazel eyes. He wondered if the concerned look on her eyes was because of him. It was then that he gently placed a hand over his left eye, lightly rubbing his eyelid with his fingertips. He did not remember the time between the ship surging in power and himself banging against the wall of the elevator. There was a gap there. He assumed it was because of the surge…

 

But something… something made the left side of his upper body tingle. He could almost hear it. The sound of the florescent lighting flickering on in full capacity. But there was no piercing white light to illuminate this hallway. The bulbs had long since shattered; the panels hanging by the thread in the hallway, tilted and dented. He could almost feel it. Like it had been sleeping… and had been awoken. Like it had one eye open now, before going back to sleep.

 

When Sounsyy whispered “Right, movin’.” Ryanti whispered to himself “Right, the pearls.”

 

He reached his fingertip into his ear as he saw the form of the Roehmerl’s Captain get up upon her feet and make her way past him. He clicked it once, twice. Nothing. Not even white noise. He could feel a warm but unwelcome feeling sinking into his stomach. He switched it on and off again. Nothing. He removed the linkpearl from his ear and shined the emergency light upon it. There was an obvious crack on it that had nearly split it in two. Were the insides broken, or simply the outside layer? Was it not working because it was broken, or because it was sapped of power? Sapped of power…

 

He unzipped a small pocket in the chest area of his suit and placed the linkpearl inside. No use in worrying about it now. As he placed the pearl inside, he realized that he had been feeling uneasy all of this time, ever since he had stripped Sounsyy of the rope. The fascination of where he was and his passion for exploring such areas had diminished. There was a feeling in his stomach not his own, a suspenseful alarm that left his neck hairs on end. He had a bad feeling about this. Something was wrong.

 

He grabbed his bag and rifle on the way back, following the woman ahead, and increasing his pace to catch up with her.

 

At least there wasn’t a chance of falling and dying now, Ryanti thought as he sat himself down upon the ledge of the broken window, watching Sounsyy take her first few steps upon the surface of the elevator. This place was more heavily lighted due to the origin of the red flashes being there. Red bulbs that were positioned around the outside rim of the elevator were flickering in idle, waiting for them to make their input.

 

He rested his back against the wall of the window in his tiny little period of rest, watching Sounsyy glance back at him with her little smile.

 

"Deeper into the briny depths I guess?"

 

“Heheh… heheh.” She could hear Ryanti make little chuckles, little laughs. Smile. Even show his teeth. One of his legs dangled back and forth upon the ledge. He looked a little better now. A little more recovered. “Into the very mouth of hell… a very bad place for a first date.”

 

He anchored his hand upon the window ledge and hopped off it with rifle in hand, slinging it over his shoulder after he landed. He rotated and tweaked his left shoulder, trying to get the blood pumping again and be a little bit of his old self. He spoked again when he flanked her on his way to the control box. “Thank you for saving me. I know it’s an obligation to, but… still.”

 

His gaze lowered a little bit to eye her injured hand again. He met that gaze with a concerned frown, and a silent sigh. That had to be his doing. “Rest that arm of yours. I’ll do all the work for now.”

 

The hand that was placed upon the strap of his rifle squeezed it tighter as a way to vent his anxiety of their impending future as he was making his way over to the control box. He could not shake off that feeling of perplexing dread, and it was beginning to worry him.

 

“What you felt was electricity.” He stated, turning his body a bit to point his finger at several of the lights flickering on and off around them as he made his way to the box. “It is a force of energy, much like fire or… cereleum. These lights here, what most would call fireless, are powered by this force. That is what you felt. What we both felt. The Allagans mastered this force eons before our peoples even worked with stone tools, though the Garleans are learning from them, much as a toddler learns from its mother.”

 

He did not want to say what he was about to say. But as he made his way to the box itself and first placed his hands on top of the device’s shape to scope it out, he knew he had to confirm to her the worst case scenario. “Our linkpearls are fried. It’s no use keeping it in your ear – we’re on our own.” He let that sink in for a moment before turning his head back to her. “But don’t lose it.”

 

Heavy breaths irritated the dust particles upon the control box when Ryanti got himself a good look at it. “Now let me see… heh, finally there’s a role within this ship that I would have done personally if I had my four man crew…ironic.”

 

His fingertips traced along the shape of it. It was a rectangular shape, short size vertical. A tug or two didn’t budge the thing; there was no way he was going to be able to access the internal components of it. Even after all these years, the cerment did not rust, did not crumble within his hands. Upon wiping the front of it a few times with his arm, he realized that this had once been operated by a touch screen, maybe even a hologram of some sort. He kept this information to himself. He would just overwhelm Sounsyy with it, so he juveniled his comments.

 

“Well it looks like it used to have a screen of some sort here. Long powered down of course.” He murmured, placing his grip upon the handle that he had pulled down from earlier. He gave it a tug, and then another, making two loud noises ring across the hallway as he tried to move it from its resting place, but it did not appear to budge. “Looks like it’s… kind of… stuck!” He said, his voice under stress as he put exertion upon the handle to try to get it to move. With one more shove, he managed to move it a little bit.

 

A shocking gasp came from his throat as another source of light appeared in the room. It was an incredibly weak source of light coming from …. The monitor! It was still working! After all these years, it was still working!

 

“Twelve’s graces...” Ryanti murmured, his eyes focused firmly upon the monitor. Any sound that would originate from this operating system was broken, and the operating system itself seemed to be in emergency mode. The only functioning screen was mostly black, with two pale white squares. One was located below the other. One had a very dim red arrow pointing up, and the other had an arrow pointing down. “Look!.... Look it’s still working! I can’t believe it! It’s been set on emergency power though… it looks like the Allagans knew their fate before this ship crashed.” That very statement sent chills up his spine. What was the story behind this ship?

 

Ryanti knew that they needed to go up. “Okay… let’s see.” Ryanti whispered to himself, though it was audible elsewhere. He looked up at where he wanted to go; up up up. When he pushed the square on the screen though, nothing happened. Another tap. Another tap. Nothing. Damn it, what was going on? Why wasn’t it moving? The young soldier looked back at the screen, tapping it a few more times.

 

Suddenly, he felt the elevator shift. The ground vibrated a little bit, and the gears began to turn as it attempted to get to where they wanted to go. But Ryanti’s ears tightened behind him as they both heard a huge squeaking noise like fingernails upon a chalkboard before the sound of the auxiliary engine failing. “Shite! ... I don’t think it has enough power to take us up!”

 

Ryanti swore underneath his breath, clenching his teeth and shaking his head as he observed a red X cross over the up arrow. It wasn’t going to work. “We’re going to have to go down.” Ryanti reported to her, closing his eyes tightly and hoping and praying that this was not going to be an inconvenience to them.

 

He bit his lip and held his breath, reaching his hand out to touch the bottom arrow. There was that feeling again. As if someone was behind him, whispering in his ear to not do it, to not push that arrow, to not go down there and see that part of the ship. But the cerment would not let him grapple, and the shaft was simply too large to climb up. He had no choice. There was never a choice. “Nyemia… please.”

 

He pressed the arrow, and momentarily after, the spires on the four corners of the elevator lifted upwards, and Ryanti walked back to the center of the elevator as the floor began to vibrate. Gears turned as the machina sprung to life, and the elevator began to descend downwards.

 

So the downward journey began. The elevator itself was enormous, the width of it spanning nearly a third of Sounsyy’s Roehmerl and it was merely an elevator albeit not any type meant for personnel. It was meant for cargo. Ryanti knew this, but… what kind of cargo?

 

The chamber itself did not disappoint in terms of scale either. Each couple of seconds they passed another floor, another stabilizer ring. There were little pieces of the wall panels that had come off, showing off the immense depth of Allagan ingenuity with brief glimpses of the wiring and inner workings of the components. The stabilizer rings each had a row of dim red lights blinking on and off. Ryanti found himself taking it all in, turning around, two and fro to glance about. It was unbelievable, the size of this ship. The sheer breathtaking scale.

 

“How is your arm?” Ryanti asked Sounsyy in a sudden, but concerned manner. He looked back at her. His expression was a mix of suspense, awe, and disciplined determination. He took a few steps towards her as the elevator began to descend. “I need to make sure you’re alright. We need to be… ready. For anything.”

[Sounsyy]

Sounsyy cradled her left hand close to her chest as Ryanti moved past her across the elevator. Though hidden completely from view beneath her wetsuit, massive bruises were spreading across the back of her hand - blood vessels giving way under the strain of the shifting bones in her damaged hand. She held her fingers outright awkwardly, as if bending them caused additional discomfort. When Ryanti thanked her, she wasn't sure exactly how to respond.

 

"Yeh've done the same fer meh, but yer welcome," she said matter-of-factly. She did not sound bitter at least. There was little more she could have done. She'd have done the same for any of her crew. Ryanti, and the other Sharlayan agents, weren't her crew, but neither were they strangers by this point. Her crew would protect them, unless she ordered them not to. But now, she had only to worry about her own protection. She shifted her rifle to an idle position, resting the barrel across her left forearm and against her chest. She would spare her hand more agony until she truly needed to again.

 

She looked away into the darkened hallway from which they came when Ryanti explained Allagan electricity to her and how it had sapped their linkpearls of life. She did not remove hers even still, either because that would require her to move her injured hand or because she held some glimmer of hope that it may once more make contact. How long had the Roehmerl been trying to reestablish contact with them? How many hours did they have left before the mission was deemed a failure, and the Sharlayans would make their rendezvous? P'welro had command, and she knew well that she would follow her orders.

 

“Look!.... Look it’s still working! I can’t believe it! It’s been set on emergency power though… it looks like the Allagans knew their fate before this ship crashed.”

 

Sounsyy moved over to Ryanti and eyed the curious screen of small dancing light. It seemed so out of place, small, white, and harmless against the sea of deep red glow and darkness they had been swallowed in. It felt very much like the belly of some great beast. Even more so as the lift groaned to life. Then the sound of fingernails on chalk as the elevator fought against the cermet. She forgot about the pain in her hand and clasped her hands over her ears quickly and would've dropped her rifle if the strap had not been secured over her shoulder.

 

"Seven hells," she breathed out in relief as the Sharlayan redirected the elevator downwards instead. The screeching died and was replaced with an almost peaceful rumble, the beast was purring. As if it had something it wanted them to see. And the two followed the beast blindly into its den.

 

“How is your arm? I need to make sure you’re alright. We need to be… ready. For anything.”

"I'll manage," she said as she recovered her dangling rifle and held it as she did before, the barrel resting over the cradled arm. She knew that would not satisfy Ryanti, so she held her hand outright, palm surface-wards and wiggled her fingers. It was truly painful, but Sounsyy set her jaw and kept it from her face. She was all aglow with the red as they deepened into the darkness. Her eyes held a strange shimmer, a burning.

 

She moved away from Ryanti back towards the edge of the elevator and watched as each red light flickered past their descent. They were like will-o'-the-wisps in the night, but... inorganic, Sounsyy thought. Truly, she began to find them almost pleasant to look upon. They were soft on the eyes and unlike most torchlights of orange flame or like the smell of burning ceruleum, these lights triggered no violent reveries. They were truly foreign to her. They reminded her not of Carteneau or of flames that consumed her homelands in Garlemald's wake.

 

"Where do you think they lead us, these... wisps?"

[Ryanti]

"I'll manage.”

 

I did not understand at the time how passionately I would rely on that statement in the trials to come.

 

The Allagan elevator vibrated the floor underneath their feet. The soft hum was a constant reminder of their descent if they were to ignore what the walls all around were telling them. The eyes of the taller young man was fixed upon the hand of the older woman in front of him. He felt a heaviness in his chest, attributing it to the stiff and unmoving air that was disturbed by the current of the elevator’s descent for the first time in many, many centuries.

 

He saw her hand; it was bathed in the red of Allagan light. He saw her individual fingers close in upon each other and open up. He eyed her back when he was done examining it. Ryanti’s expression was as still as a statue, devoid of emotion except for his brow and his eyes. They were analytical in nature, but there was an obvious skeptical nature about his demeanor. He was beginning to smarten up to her after all the time they had spent together. ‘I’ll manage’ was nothing compared to ‘I’m okay’, and Ryanti knew.

 

He did not challenge her, though. He did not demand that she unbandage her hand so that he could see it with his clear light of his own, no. He accepted her statement. Partially because he had smartened up to her, but that was not the main reason. He did so because of her eyes. When Ryanti saw what laid in her eyes, he knew he didn’t have to challenge her. There was a deep, passionate, intense burning in those eyes, and it was like the cold Allagan light bathed those eyes in fire. He needed life in her eyes, because he knew that a Sounsyy with life in her eyes –would- manage. No matter what.

 

He watched her as she moved away from him. Ryanti wiped his now dirty white locks aside and allowed her to have her moment alone. As much as he was around to try to educate her about the kind of world that used to exist – the kind of world that he lived in – he knew that sometimes she just needed to see for herself. She had known that with him. He realized that now. He remembered when he was back on the Roehmerl, in her world. Now it was the reverse. But perhaps that was just a poetic mind trying to find an irony in all of this. Neither of their worlds included the very world they were standing in right now. This world belonged to a people long gone. An era long gone.

 

"Where do you think they lead us, these... wisps?"

 

Ryanti had been pacing around the floor of the elevator in a soft walk, observing what was around him as well when he heard that comment from her. When she spoke, he glanced back over at her form again. The Allagan lighting was enshrouding her body, highlighting her shape in the soft padding darkness. She really did look good in that suit. It was almost built for her. Laura seemed more like a stand-in now.

 

She could hear the slow pace of Ryanti approaching her as he tried to figure out an answer to that question. It was rather beautifully spoken; he had never really imagined these lights in the eyes of the myths and traditions of peoples in his era. Only now was he open to think about these things in that light. His mind was further opened to interpretation at that point. A pleasant little smile with parted lips dominated his expression as he found himself beside her, watching along.

 

“I’m not sure.” He replied to her, red reflective bulbs of light emitted from his eyes in parallel with the ‘wisps’. “To our fate, perhaps. Whatever that may be.”

 

He turned his head to her not soon after, glancing at her shoulder and remembering her physical scars before eyeing her face and recalling what could be her mental ones. She looked calm and at peace in the midst of red light. It was something he had never seen before in her. But more than that, it was the first time she had seen something within his world the same way he did. Perhaps she didn’t realize how much that single statement stuck to him.

 

He placed a hand on her right shoulder. He was tender with the force, nurturing at the touch. He knew where her scars were – he had seen them when he caught her out of her Captain’s clothing, when she had mellowed in insecurity over him glancing at her. He made sure that he didn’t agitate any of those scars.

 

He didn’t think about what he was going to say next. He let his lips roam free.

 

“You’ve taken your first steps toward opening your eyes.”

 

With eyes, one sees. When they open, their mind does. It was a saying among his unit. It was his way of passing this down to her. A gesture of respect. A sign that she was on her way to being one of them, the same way a new crew hand would prove themselves part of the Captain’s family.

 

His sentimental moment was interrupted by a sudden spark that discharged from wiring on the other side of the elevator. It made a snapping sound that got his attention. Upon him turning around, the red lights ceased to continue as the elevator made its way further down. Ryanti lent his hand off of Sounsyy’s shoulder and took the steps he needed to take to get to the center of the elevator.

 

Just then, the elevator began to jolt and throttle back and forth, as if it was shaking – going down rails that had not been in active maintenance for an even longer time than the rails above it. It caused the elevator to shake a little, but not enough to throw them off balance or anything. However, the length of time they were traversing in this elevator starting to become apparent, and Ryanti held a look of concern as the area grew further and further talk.

 

“We’re still going.” Ryanti mentioned to going in a dark voice, a voice that held worry. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

 

He knew in their gut that they should have gone up. But how could they have? Even with all of Ryanti’s modern tools from his unit that contained classified technology from Sharlayan, it was still baby steps compared to Allagan cerment. There were no way they could have clawed and grappled their way up. Down was their only choice. But he still felt like he shouldn’t go down here, which they as a whole shouldn’t be here.

 

There were real hints on Ryanti’s face that something was wrong. His face was still, but his eyes still scanned. He had a gut instinct to turn on his safety light again as the last bit of Allagan red light faded away into complete darkness. Upon clicking the light on, he shined it upon the opposite side of the elevator once more.

 

Immediately, he saw what appeared to be an enormous streak of blood smeared across the side of the elevator wall as they further descended. It was blackened and calloused by age, but some spots on it were lighter shades than others. Lighter than they should have. She could hear Ryanti’s breathing intensify immensely, and he deviated his light away from the source and shined a bit of it on himself to make him visible to her.

 

“Put on your goggles. First setting. Now.”

 

It had become apparent then that they used their goggles only when they absolutely needed to. Ryanti did not hesitate.

 

Ryanti placed his flashlight back on his belt and retrieved his goggles from his chest. He slinked them onto his head, and pressed the two panels together on the side of his head until they clicked in place. He pressed the switch in the middle once, and the goggles sprung to life. Minus a green tint, they could now see in the dark with the utmost clarity. “Keep the other flashlights off.”

 

Just in case what? He didn’t want to think about it. But within moments, whether or not he wanted to think about it, he was going to have to. As he gripped his rifle strap to sling the weapon to the front of him once more, he stopped in his tracks. “W-…” Even his train of mind stopped at the sight that he was now seeing.

 

The wall in front of him, which had for their entire ride been solid Allagan cerment, had opened up into glass. Even though the glass was covered in dust, the scatter was mild enough to make out what lied out ahead of them as they descended yet even further down.

 

The area in question was enormous. Semi-circular in form, one could have easily fit Sounsyy’s vessel inside the massive chamber twenty times over. Among the outside walls, the entire inner hull was covered in derelict stasis pods. Some of the glass on the pods were broken. Others were defunct. A select few were barely flashing with operational health. Blood stains of every color, of every shape and creed, coated the entire massive area with an absolutely ominous blanket of tragedy and of the defiling of nature.

 

Even Ryanti had no idea what this meant. Horror, confusion, and panic set in his facial expression. It was so astounding to him that he didn’t even know what to think. After all that time training… and all of his previous experience of what he had seen… even with his passion for uncovering the past and of this civilization… he had seen NOTHING like this before.

 

“W-.. what the hell is this?!?” He said in a loud whisper. He frantically set his bag down, his hands shaking as he quickly unzipped the section in which he had placed his dead linkpearl. He tried in vain to activate it, pressing it up to his ear and not even bothering to use codenames. “Jonathan! Jonathan! What is this?!?” He cried out to the dead linkpearl. He didn’t even realize that his question made no sense to someone up upon the surface anyway.

 

He froze in place, having realized how he might look in front of Sounsyy right now, when he needed to be the experienced one, the one in control. So he swiftly placed it back into the backpack and sat back up on his feet. There would be a time praying it would work later. “I know nothing of this, Sounsyy. Absolutely nothing like the Allag I’ve seen.” He murmured to her as he threw his backpack over his shoulder and brought his rifle up front. “Make sure it’s set on automatic. We are taking –no- chances here.”

 

He tensed up again, walking as close as he could before he would hit the glass wall. “Hydealyn’s mercy, there’s hundreds. Thousands. Okay Ryanti… think.”

 

He backed up in a little sprint, getting behind Sounsyy but still having his barrel pointed towards the glass. In his experience with Allagan elevators, the civilization was more likely to place the door to the elevator on the same side as glass windows. This case was just like the others. “Change of plans.” He commented in a now stable, confident voice as a leader would give orders. “We’re going to get out of here as soon as possible. We need to find another elevator shaft that can take us up further than we were. Our objective is up, definitely not down here. There is nothing down here that would warrant any man or woman the right to use this kind of knowledge.”

 

He stepped in front of her, luckily having no time to contemplate what this was or… how it even came to be in the first place. It was beyond his own comprehension, and he could only imagine how Sounsyy was feeling right now. He used his voice as a clear path of reason in the midst of all the insanity. “I need you at a hundred and ten percent, Sounsyy! Be at my shoulder and watch my back!”

 

The windows had long since vanished, but he could see the frame of the chamber reveal itself as the elevator finally began to slow down. Ryanti stood deathly still with his goggles on, all of his joints locked in place as if he was prepared to spring forward at a moment’s notice. The entire elevator chamber was similar to the last one they were in, but there was no chasm underneath. This was the bottom floor of the ship. This was Allag’s hell. The place among of their worst misdeeds.

 

The door to the place, the walls… every aspect of the room they were in was unusually moist. Water droplets were dripping across some of the cerment panels, and the blue outlining on the door still lit it up. It was active. Steam exhausted from the side panels of the elevator as it rested to a standstill, and immediately the darkness was greeted by an unnerving, consistent noise without explanation or origin.

 

It felt unnaturally dark, but the goggles they were wearing began to adjust. The green tint started to fade away in favor of a more normal color spectrum, with the lighting ramped up of course. It was an aetherical quality of the goggles that Ryanti forgot to mention.

 

He took the first steps off the elevator, and headed towards the door. He visibly flinched as the door parted ways without so much of a minor hiccup, the blue lights flickering as a sign that it needed maintenance. He glanced at Sounsyy nervously, confused at the fact that these doors operated so well. But when he turned to look inside after he had made his way through the door, he was stopped again by something.

 

It was a hallway, hexagonal in nature. Side windows complimented the walls of the room. But what disturbed him was that the entire hallway was completely covered in dried blood. The light fixtures had been torn from their resting places, ripped out by force. Plenty of the side were either cracked or shattered. The occasional flickering light registered brightly in their goggles, but one could tell there were outlines of shapes, utensils, tools and tables all tossed about, broken: ransacked. The door on the other end was malfunctioning, one side of it spazzing back and forth and the lights also flickering. If this hadn't been a mission where he needed her eyes, Ryanti would have told Sounsyy to just keep her eyes focused on him. But he needed an extra pair to glance at what he couldn't, so he didn't. She had to be a big girl, and he had to be an even bigger man.

 

“Remember, we’re not defenseless.”

[Sounsyy]

Sounsyy did not pull her eyes away from the lights as they ascended into the darkness above, even when Ryanti's hand found her shoulder. He had said she was opening her eyes. The words gave her pause, rattling uncomfortably around her ears. She was sure he meant the Allagans and their ship and their magic and their wisps and power, but all Sounsyy could think about was how everything just seemed to be getting darker, the wider her eyes became.

 

And so it was in reality, Sounsyy realized, as she watched the last red wisps ascend into the blackened shaft. She blinked, and the tiny red orbs reflected in her eyes faded away, leaving nothing but darkness once more. Another shock of electricity crackled behind them and she felt Ryanti's hand leave her shoulder. Sounsyy stood stock still, she imagined she could feel the tingling current running through her fingertips again. Her hair stood on end as the whole elevator began to creak, groan, and rumble - the very air filling with static electricity. This beast was alive.

 

“We’re still going.”

 

Sounsyy finally took her eyes away from the darkness above and turned to find her Sharlayan partner. Where once was a canvas of wonder, excitement, and beauty a look of fear, anxiety, and indecision was painted there now. Sounsyy saw it before his face disappeared from view and was replaced by a blinding torchlight casting its glow towards her. She turned away from it and was met with the sight of the blood trail, staining the cermet corridor. She fell back several steps, her cry stuck within her throat. Her mouth just hung open in horror, silent as the she realized the vessel now seemed.

 

Ryanti hardly needed to say the words before she was reacting. Her soft footfalls flitted across the elevator to its center, her rifle raised in one hand while her other pulled the goggles from around her neck and clasped them over her eyes. Her left hand fumbled with the settings at first, but soon her vision became washed in green and shapes in the darkness revealed themselves. It was an odd sensation, relying only on artificial vision to navigate the darkness. Her ears swiveled madly about, trying to distinguish any sound above the elevator's drone. Her tail flicked back and forth, ensuring her balance even as she stood unsteadily on the balls of her feet. All of that was lost when the enormous chamber came into view just ahead.

 

Sounsyy felt light headed, as her vision adjusted to the depth of the room. It was like the ship had exhaled, all of the pressure venting from the shaft. The scale of the room was massive, even larger than that of the hanger bay which no light of their had been able to reach. There was power here, just enough to see what lay beyond, but more than that - there was a certain feeling here that coursed through Sounsyy. Not like that of the electricity's static, but of life. The air was wet here, she noticed as the elevator began to slow. They were nearing the bottom. She moved forwards cautiously towards one wall and reached out with her finger, letting the cermet slowly glide across her fingertip. She withdrew it to find water droplets clinging warmly to her glove. A leak, or-?

 

"“W-.. what the hell is this?!? Jonathan! Jonathan! What is this?!?"

 

Sounsyy whipped around at the sudden sound of Ryanti's panic. Her rifle had nearly come up to firing position before she saw they were still alone. She slowly lowered her rifle and approached. She said nothing. There was concern in her eyes, not that Ryanti could see, but it was there. Is meh ignorance the only thing keeping meh sane? Sounsyy let the thought ease across the back of her brain. How sane was she though really? She had been convinced earlier she had seen a ghost. Was Ryanti seeing her now too? Or were they his own?

 

"H-hey," she called softly out to him when they were no more than a yalm apart.

“I know nothing of this, Sounsyy. Absolutely nothing like the Allag I’ve seen.”

 

Sounsyy found that, as usual, she didn't have the words to say. So she said nothing, just lowered her rifle and turned back to the long window as it slid slowly by. She heard Ryanti stand and move behind her, raising his rifle at the glass. He was back. Sounsyy raised her rifle and nodded to him as he began to sound like himself once more. The plans had changed, that much was certain. Truly, everything had changed since they first stepped aboard, as soon as the ship had come alive, this was an entirely different operation. Ryanti laid out their mission and took point once more.

 

“I need you at a hundred and ten percent, Sounsyy! Be at my shoulder and watch my back!”

 

"I'm here," she affirmed his order. Her usual disdain for Ryanti when he gave orders was replaced, if only shortly, by the relief he had recovered his senses. She moved in behind him, her rifle pointed just to the right of his arm. She placed her left palm gently between his shoulder blades to show she had his back, before returning it to support her rifle's aim.

 

The blue outline of a doorframe came into view and Sounsyy closed her grip on her rifle. The air was uncomfortably moist down here, and warm. Steam erupted from the elevator's sides as they came to a halt. The rumble died, and Sounsyy ears began to ring from the sudden loss of sound. Ryanti moved forwards, with Sounsyy creeping just behind when the door slid open on its own. This caused the Lominsan to jump unexpectedly. A muffled curse followed, but Sounsyy fell back into the ready position without another sound.

 

They moved slowly into this new corridor, its sides moving up and out in strange angles the likes of which Sounsyy had not seen in any architecture she was familiar with. Ryanti's tall back hid most of what lay ahead from view, but Sounsyy turned as they moved away from the sanctuary of the elevator shaft and laid eyes on her surroundings. Everywhere she turned with the rifle barrel, she found mangled lights and cermet beams that had been ruined and stained. Broken windows to adjacent rooms flitted and flickered past as they moved. What had been living here?!

 

Behind her, in the direction where they were slowly heading, she could hear the repetitive grind and thumping of an Allagan sliding door malfunctioning open and close. It unnerved her, even more than the blood and the mangled remains of some Allagan horror gone horribly wrong. Her hand began hurting from the strength with which she gripped her rifle. Ryanti's words did little to still her nerves. His voice in the eerie corridor only compounded her anxiety as her ears flicked back.

 

"Neither were the Allagans," she reminded him bitterly. They had moved to the doorway and Sounsyy swept the area behind them one last time before turning towards Ryanti and looking at the opening and closing door beyond. "Can it be held open? Or... would it crush us?" She asked rather nervously. The doors were heavy, she knew this much from the upper levels, but she was unsure just what their purpose was? Were these some kind of Allagan trapdoors? Or did all of their doors just open and close on a whim? Strange.

[Ryanti]

Their reality was a different one now. Different than anyone else’s on the entire planet. It was impossible to imagine that someone, somewhere, right at this moment were tucking their children in bed, or haggling over an expensive item at a merchant stand. While the people above lived in their ever ongoing blissful ignorance of the events taking place here, he and his partner were alone. So far away from home. An unfathomable reality away.

 

He blinked once and remembered. It was a memory of a feeling that had only taken place moments prior, but it felt like it had been forever ago. When she had placed a palm in-between his shoulder blades, Ryanti’s diaphragm settled down as he exhaled. It was almost as if his own body was replicating the action of the beastly vessel itself, as if he was trying to match its frequency and become one with it. There was no reality to those two except one another, their mission, and their surroundings. It took leaps and bounds of mental strength to accept that. Ryanti had faltered on the elevator. With that sigh he had expelled his anxiety and his fear from having the power over him. She was a Captain, and he had looked up to her. Now he had to be her Captain, and protect her.

 

She gave him a confidence that he did not always possess alone.

 

His mind was racing, trying to make sense of the environment around him. His senses had become hyperactive. He could easily hear his breath echoing from his lips, and every step Sounsyy took. The young man could feel his heart beat with every single pulse. His movement was very orderly, as if he could strike at any moment, perched in an universal tightness as if he was on a sort of… hunt. He did not desire to become prey in this place, if the worst possible scenario was correct.

 

If there were creatures down here.

 

He did not want to think about for too long. The mental suggestions of what could have taken place down here were terrifying in essence. He could not put a finger on it, but something in the air around him, something about the way that this hallway was crushing down upon them and making him claustrophobic was wrong. It was as if they had walked in on something not meant for mortal eyes to experience in this era.

 

He had told her the world wasn’t ready. But were they?

 

"Neither were the Allagans.”

 

Her bitter reminder served him well to keep him alert. He acknowledged her comment by saying nothing, though nodding once in understanding. But the electric malfunctions abound did not hint to him that the events which took place in the rooms alongside them were because of the deeds of the Allagans themselves. Nothing about the blood splatters on the wall or the lack of skeletal remains hinted at that. None of it looked natural, at least… what Ryanti understood as natural. This scared him. But he did not show this fear to her like he did on the elevator. Fear was always at their necks, breathing down it, waiting for a singular moment of weakness to strike and render them completely defeated.

 

Ryanti finally lowered his rifle when he reached the malfunctioning door.

 

The dim blue light from the LED tracers on the door casted Ryanti’s shadow behind him as it opened and closed and grinded away upon the cerment metal. There was no telling how long the door had been like this. When he checked the bottom rungs of the right side of the door, he noticed that the paint upon the rungs had been chipped away; it was the only sign of wear and tear upon the material itself. Elements such as rust and decay rarely afflicted things of Allagan make. The material was so exotic and usually so well made that it could stand the test of eons. Yet, the door itself was misshaped – some of the LED lights were broken and electricity occasionally sparked out of the winding gears that tried to open the door, only to sense an obstruction and close it again. Over, and over, and over…

 

"Can it be held open? Or... would it crush us?"

 

Ryanti glanced over at him when he inquired that question, thinking a bit about it himself as the doors continued to try to open and close. The area they were in was dim and haunting, but his white locks reflected every last bit of light that was casted upon it, causing his face to be a bit more lit up than the rest of his body. “This door is broken.” He murmured, getting himself down upon one knee and briefly flicking at it with his hand before glancing back to the other door they had went through already, pointing towards it. “These Allagan doors, they activate via proximity. They open when you approach and close when you leave. This door, though… it’s stuck in a neverending loop of trying to fix its own problem. Which tells me there’s hope for finding areas where there is a little bit more power.”

 

He raised onto two legs again, sighing at the malfunctioning door. “At any rate, it would crush us, this door. These panels and the hydraulic gears would splatter my brain matter everywhere if I were to try to hold it open for a lovely lady like yourself.” A solemn laugh or two was briefly heard from him. He hadn’t lost his sense of humor. Or charm depending on point of view.

 

Trying to say something lighthearted in here. That was new.

 

“There is an easier way than trying to kill ourselves by opening this door or jumping through it. But you are not going to like it.” He mentioned, though while he was speaking he found himself saying these words as if he was watching himself say it versus actually say it. The reason was because he truly did dread was he about to say next. There was an objective means to an end when it came to these missions, and sometimes you had to do what you really did not feel like doing. He looked at her in the eye as he spoke, hoping his sincerity would silence the fear. “We have to try to find a way around it. And that means going into the adjacent rooms and looking for another way.”

 

And so the young man did what ended up being a familiar sight. He approached one of the broken windows to the right of him; it was almost a gateway to the first circle of hell in metaphor, as nothing awaited him by climbing that windowsill except for loose electric wires, blood splattered walls and bits of broken glass all along the floor and tables. With the butt of his rifle he began to chip away at the sharp edges on the bottom of the frame. “There is always another way.”

 

When he was happy with his glass clearing, he swiped the butt from corner to corner a few times just to make sure. Afterwords, he hopped himself over the windowsill, beckoning her to follow him with a free palm right before resting it upon the neck of his rifle. He solemnly shook his head, knowing that what he said next was a rather abrupt change of subject, but it had to be addressed then and there. “That door was not ruined by any man or woman. Nobody our size could puncture such a dent in a door like this. It isn’t natural.” He paused for a moment, acknowledging the claustrophobic feeling of the metallic walls that seemed to embrace them in a cold, dark manner. “Do you feel that? The moisture in the air? The suffocating dread in your heart? This place is haunted by the own nightmare of its past.” Another pause, a period of judgement in his mind. “Make sure your safety is off.”

 

He saw all in that room. He knew exactly what kind of feelings he was dealing with because of it. In the room he was in now, he could see the gurneys toppled over and bent, coated in a deep blackness of ancient blood. He could see beakers and surgical tools scattered amongst the broken glass upon the floor and the wiring of the ceiling lights dangling above them, making sure to avoid them in order to not be electrocuted or worse. The entire area smelled disgusting, almost like a combination of sulfur and pesticide. Old utensils and equipment were everywhere, and none of it seemed sanitary in the slightest.

 

What they were smelling was the aetherochemical leaks from the next room, although they had not reached it yet. Separating them from that room was a smaller door than the one they had encountered earlier. It was quite obvious by the make of it that it was a chase door, possibly in order to accommodate the traffic of the staff of Allagan researchers working in this sector of the vessel. The state of the door itself, along with the room they were in, was in such bad shape that Ryanti could not even come up with any hint as to what this room used to be, besides perhaps a store room of sorts.

 

 

He nudged the door with his shoulder, but it did not budge. A door that once had worked was now far from functioning itself. However, it was not like the door from before. So he nudged it again, harder. A grinding noise was heard that echoed throughout the room ahead, eventually bouncing back towards their ears. The sound was hollow and empty, but was the space behind this door equally so?

 

“Sounsyy, I need help.” He called out to her, trying to get her attention. “Or else I’m never going to get this door open.”

 

She was shorter than him but… he could use all of the brute strength that he could get, and something told him that based on what he saw of her upon her own ship he figured she could put her own shoulder to use when she needed to. Upon that third time, it in fact was the charm. One half of the chase door fell to the floor with a large, loud thud. A cloud of dust immediately emerged from the form of the fall door as Ryanti’s boots made imprints on the surface of the door, cleaning dust away from it in the shape of his soles.

 

He moved his rifle from his ready stance, not out of a constant decision, but out of awe and concern for what he was seeing in front of him.

 

The room they were in now was equally large. Light panels traced all around the room, some of them flickering in blue, some of them working still after all these years. The room had a coned ceiling, and a wide open space when it came to the floor. A hallway down the other side of the room led out of it, but Ryanti was affixed on what laid [i[pinned to the ceiling.[i/]

 

Upon the ceiling were three massive pods. Two of which were completely full of liquid and lit up by metallic lights inside of the pod that had aged with time, bathing it in a red light instead of an original blue. Those same two pods were harboring a kind of genetic construct that was an abhor to nature. Half dragon, half bird, half lion… it was impossible to tell. All that they knew were that the abominations had died long ago without the life support to keep its existence a stalemate. However, there was a third pod in the room in which the glass was broken. The liquid still rested below the pod itself, along with the various shards of glass and blood. Blood that was not a normal red, but a metallic in color, almost silver. It smelled of blood – but did not look like blood.

 

A distant noise echoed into the chamber. Perhaps it sounded like the hull of the ship struggling against the pressure of the water after being casted into a chasm so deep, so long ago… perhaps not. It was like moaning metal, the bellowing cries which reminded Ryanti of the ways in which these abominations probably struggled against the pain of merely existed. This place was haunted in its one way by the nightmareish acts of what was done here, and everything was just too still.

 

“Do you hear that?” He murmured to her. Was he speaking of the metal? … Or something else?

 

 

 

 

[Sounsyy]

“At any rate, it would crush us, this door. These panels and the hydraulic gears would splatter my brain matter everywhere if I were to try to hold it open for a lovely lady like yourself.”

 

A laugh, empty and airy as the shaft tunnel they had only just recently escaped. Sounsyy rolled her eyes unseen beneath her goggles. As inappropriately timed as Ryanti's comment was, it had replaced her nervousness temporarily. She relaxed her grip on her rifle and lowered it some as she moved to get a better view of the door, caught forever in its indecisive loop. She hoped for her own sake that this was no omen, that they themselves would not be trapped down here for the rest of their days stuck in some repeated cycle never being able to reach their destination because of faulty machinery. Twelve-damned Allagans.

 

"What a gentleman," Sounsyy breathed, and started walking slowly back down the corridor. She had begun thinking what Ryanti told her as he said it, though she hardly relished the idea after their incident in the upper levels. But even as he said the plan aloud, Sounsyy could hear him already breaking off the ancient panes of glass separating them from whatever lay adjacent.

 

Suddenly Sounsyy was taken by a wretched stench of decay isolated behind that now broken glass. She covered her nose quickly with her hand and shook her head. "Gods, is that recent?" She mumbled as she followed Ryanti to the window and through it. She scanned the room quickly with her rifle. Nothing. Nothing to suggest anything recent had been living or dying in here at least. But something had to be? The humidity was stifling, almost comparable to that of La Noscea's in the summer moons.

 

“That door was not ruined by any man or woman. Nobody our size could puncture such a dent in a door like this. It isn’t natural. Do you feel that? The moisture in the air? The suffocating dread in your heart? This place is haunted by the own nightmare of its past.”

 

"How could I not?" She said back to him quietly, "There's nothin' natural about this."

 

Sounsyy watched her partner as he made his way across the room to a small door she hadn't noticed before. His voice drifted back towards her in an echo, "Make sure your safety is off." She opened her mouth to berate him, but no vexed words came out. She closed her mouth and flipped off her weapon's safety as quietly as she could so that Ryanti would not notice. She was fuming, even as Ryanti slammed his body into the door.

 

She took a moment to look about the room. The bloodstains, the instruments, beakers that once held unknown potions and elixers. These smelled particularly offensive. Sounsyy had to keep her hand cupped over her nose as she bent over to more closely examine the refuse. Just what were the Allagans making?

 

“Sounsyy, I need help.”

 

Her ears swiveled about and she righted her posture. Ryanti didn't seem to have made much progress with the door on his own. She cast one last look at the standing beaker, stained from age, before moving to Ryanti's side.

 

"Right, on three," she said as she eased her shoulder up against the door. She breathed out the countdown before rearing back on one foot and ramming her arm and shoulder into the door much like an aldgoat would rear up to butt heads with another. The door caved in with a crash as one section of it fell away completely into a thick cloud of dust. Sounsyy moved forwards into the room with her rifle raised, ignoring the fact that her shoulder was now quite numb.

 

Sounsyy whipped about with her rifle, mentally checking off every corner of the larger room. There was light here, so much so she didn't really need the goggles. So she switched off the night vision and awaited for her eyes to adjust. Ryanti was standing still near the entrance, eyes fixed upon the ceiling. Sounsyy turned when she could see properly and fixed her rifle upwards at the three pods clinging to the ceiling.

 

The Lominsan lowered her rifle slowly, more out of disbelief than lack of concern for her safety. Her mouth opened slowly as she moved closer to the nearest pod, bathed in red glow. Some Allagan pet? Some Allagan creation?

 

"What the Hells is-"

 

A distant noise echoed into the chamber, abruptly cutting her off. Sounsyy whipped around, her rifle raised. There was only stillness, the dust they had disturbed already settling. The Captain couldn't be bothered to take another look at the chimerical creation again, her eyes focused on scanning the dark corners of the room as she slowly backed away towards Ryanti. That moaning sound of metal scraping on metal in the deep sea had become all too familiar with her, but something about this was different. It seemed almost agonized.

 

"Alright, what the Seven Hells was that?" Sounsyy stopped, her ears erect and scanning for other noises. Her whole body was tensed. "We should move, Ryanti, we should go right now. Wherever we're going, let's get there quickly."

[Sounsyy]

(oops! misclick while editing! ignore.)

[Ryanti]

 

 

 

-Four Long Eras Ago-

 

His eyes traced the image of the shock troopers racing into the door adjacent from him. He felt so unable to act. He could not. He let them go, knowing that they would meet an equal fate that he probably will at the hands of the men and women making their stand on the upper bridge. He didn’t understand how it came to this. Moisture flooded to his eyes, but he could not cry. Not now. He had to be strong – for his Captain – for his men – and for his friends.

 

How could it have come to this?

 

He reached towards the chain that held his black and purple cape that stood beside him in idleness. Unclipped, the cape tattered to the ground, his face frozen in a mixture of pain and betrayal. His lips trembled in hopelessness. The reflection of the jewelry hanging from the sides of his temple sparkled the lighting from the tears in his eyes as he stared across at who he was confronting.

 

“You’ve changed.” He told him.

 

His former best friend furrowed his brow, his face absolutely bitter. His affiliations were clear. His clothing stood in contrast to him – threading of the purest white with gold embellishment and a shoulder cape colored of the same. There was still much humanity in him, but he was burying it until a pillar of anger and righteous fury. The distant echoes of laser fire and screams of pain in the midst of infighting could be heard from the chambers ahead. The muffled screams of the chimeras trying to break out of their grand tanks above them added fuel to his fire.

 

It did not have to come to this.

 

“All of us do.” He replied back to his friend, reaching up for his targeting reticule and removing it, allowing the device to fall to the floor. “Your civilian crew have acted in open defiance to the sectional protocol of Imperial out-orbit scientific procedures designed to provide unity and prosperity to the greater planet of Hydaelyn and to our Empire. As such, you and your crew have been condemned. Please …. Please surrender your weapons and accept your incarceration. Do not make me do this, Keth.”

 

The other man across from him did not speak, but he merely shook his head. Slowly but surely telling his friend what he now thought of him as the years progressed and their paths diverged. There was a look in his eyes of pity.

 

“Seto. I cannot. These new regulations, these new procedures, they are taking advantage of-“

 

“Why do you still defy that this is our finest hour?!? … We are so close to winning this war! Do you understand that if we all unify as one on this planet, we would finally be able to do what we set out to do as children, Keth! We are on the verge of becoming above the point where we would as people be chained down to merely one world! To merely one system! This is a new golden age, not just for the Empire but for mankind as a whole! This is for the greater good, Keth! Why can’t you see that!”

 

“Not like this, Seto.” He said back to him with a calm, yet sad voice, shaking his head once more as he looked up at the trapped animals before shifting his focus back to his former friend. “Not like this. Who are we but monsters to be blind to such evils in our quest to see that goal achieved within merely a single lifetime.”

 

“And it will take another fifty more if we hesitate, Keth!”. With a harsh sigh, he released his chromatized hilt from his waist, shifting his cape to hold the hilt in front of him in a mildly aggressive stance, declaring his intention without words needing to be said any further. “I’m sorry. I can’t let our dream die here… “

 

The other man placed his hand towards his hip also, gripping his own weapon – the same weapon that his friend wielded. All of those night classes training together, all of those days grabbing lunch and hopping the train, all of the nights out – the skyscrapers upon the starry night as they stretched out their arms and dreamed of a better future. All of those holidays swimming in Thanalan’s great lakes…

 

“I understand.”

 

A pair of pale blue eyes blinked, and a beam of equally blue light ignited from the hilt – a blade of light thrusting from the device and looping upon itself in the style of a sword, the vibrating snap-hiss and the consistent hum billowing throughout the room. “Prepare your sword.”

 

Keth brandished his blade by his side, closing his eyes to prepare himself what he was about to do, igniting his own blade of light, his eyes bloodshot when he reopened them. “Let us see who is truly better, then. Once and for all.”

 

Seto said nothing in return. Instead he began to walk, lowering the tip of his blade to the floor, dragging it along to spark the metal and seer it before screaming out a war cry familiar on the Meracydian battlefield and spinning his blade to feint, delivering an overhand strike. Sparks and screeching sounds of bending light and energy flickered from their blades as they masterfully dueled at a speed so remarkably fast that the blades of light whirred like fans.

 

Beams of light tickled amongst their form, but always missed or crossed with one another as Keth was pushed back, their wrists spinning and twisting, block parry guard thrust, their blades danced with expert precision and an intent to kill. Cries of effort and enthusiasm roared out amongst the hall as Seto missed an overhand strike, slashing the wall behind Keth and scarring it forever.

 

 

 

The crack on the far side of the chamber had spread among the thousands of years of isolation. As time passed by, the crack had slowly begun to expand above the initial laceration to the wall made all of those years ago. Due to the lack of upkeep, the feature had crawled the entire way to the top. It was impossible to see from the distance that the young man and Captain of the Roehmerl were from the end of the room, but one did not have to be seen to be felt. Such was the source of the groaning noise from before, unknown to them.

 

"We should move, Ryanti, we should go right now. Wherever we're going, let's get there quickly."

 

Damn straight.

 

Ryanti’s eyes flickered to Sounsyy’s form backing up against him. But he could not stop a feeling from lurking into his skin, a feeling about the end of the hallway, the end of that chamber. It felt like pins and needles, and the feeling was absolutely not something that he would prefer to linger around and try to figure out more. It did not feel good, that was all that registered to him. He placed a hand firmly upon Sounsyy’s shoulder, to tell her he was there. He leaned a bit over her shoulder, eyeing the door out of there.

 

The door itself was bent over upon its own form. It had malfunctioned long ago, and the dark blotches upon the middle of the deformed door told Ryanti that it had suffered intense electrical damage. The door was directly across from the area they entered from, but he knew they would not be able to venture through that contraption. “The door is broken.” He said to her, her ear not but merely a fulm or two away from his lips as he conveyed his advising input to her. What caught his attention though was a little static blue light that shined from an area right next to the door. It seemed small in nature – square in shape, almost like an access hatch of some sort. Of course! They could turn the valve to unlock the hatch, and crawl their way further inside.

 

“The maintenance shaft. Do you see it?” He clicked his flashlight twice at the light, exposing briefly what appeared to be a level underneath that one could pull and yank off the panel with. “We could crawl our way past that door. It’s not comfortable but it beats staying here. We have to turn the valve though. I hope it hasn’t rusted.”

 

She could hear the effort of his breath as Ryanti leapt up and started jogging towards the other side of the room. For a few moments longer, the only sound that echoed throughout the enormous chamber was his pounding footsteps as he made his way across the space in front of him. The details of what had occurred to his right was not lost to him, as Ryanti kept his glance locked firmly in that direction, the blood stains amongst the floor and parts of the walls causing him concern, his breaths loud as he allowed his mental stress to bleed out of his lungs along with the physical stress that was incurred by the jogging. It was obviously that he was uncomfortable in this environment, and wanted to get out of here as much as Sounsyy did. Yet what happened next would change the entire face of their mission.

 

The final little bits of the age old fracture which had slowly consumed the entire far end of the wall like a parasitic scar peeled away, and one side of the enormous structure landed down upon the floor of the silent room, letting loose a deafening sound which shook the very floor they were upon, causing Ryanti to look that way immediately, his ears bending back due to the massive sound that vibrated the room they were in along with the rooms ahead. The pulsating echo of the right side of the far hallway’s wall hitting the floor reverberated through his ears as he stood dead still – dead afraid of that noise for part of him feared that they were not alone. And they were not.

 

With a looming, towering crumble the wall toppled to the side, slamming onto the floor with a near equal thudding, still air from the chamber behind now mixing with the stimulated dust in the air from the ancient panel, masking the now exposed room beyond even further than what the absolute darkness on the other end already hinted. Ryanti could make out shapes by pointing his light at it, but they were vague and obtuse. There were… cables everywhere, hanging from the ceiling and made out of weird fiber, as if they were mechanical tendrils entangled within one another in some sort of sickening apparatus. Ryanti did not even gift himself a breath. There was a sick tenseness in the air. It felt wrong. Unnatural.

 

Then, it woke up.

 

Piercing yellow eyes shined through the darkness like flames of Sulphur from a child’s worst nightmare, only that this was all too real. Mutated fists encased in grey matter and excess body mass pounded the glass of the enormous stasis chamber that it was in, activating dormant meta-defensive software protocols within his stasis chamber. What were in past eons designed to be auxiliary lighting in the room it was in had lost competence over time, struggling to turn on. The weak and feeble defense protocols were nothing more now than white lights blinking off and on, strobing the environment around Ryanti and Sounsyy, allowing them to make out the dark shapes of an absolute sea of cables surrounding the stasis pod at the end of the exposed room that dwarfed the ones pinned to the ceiling; and the stirring creature within. Yes, this was no nightmare, this was real. It had awoken, its mind rendered godless, its flaming volcanic eyes in motion as it let out a howl of a screech.

 

 

 

 

 

[video=youtube]

 

 

The moaning from earlier was not the ship coming alive. It was life coming from within the ship. And now that they had traveled within in innards, they would face its beasts.

 

Auxiliary systems began to activate around the Chimerical Biolab Research Facility, setting loose a relenting system of alarms that immediately transitioned the quiet and sanctioned area into a sea of swirling alarms that rang desperately in warning as the monstrosity with fury and anger rammed against its confinement once more, the tank long ago losing its ability to put it back to sleep again. Billowing yellow lights from the alarm blended with the white strobed to create an absolute scene of terror and chaos.

 

Ryanti was frozen, his face in utter fear of what he was seeing, the features in his brow, cheeks and lips frozen in his inability to comprehend what was going on. It was only the alarm’s lights that brought him back to reality, and his stillness and pupil dilatation would indicate traumatization to an expert in body language. His heart may had stopped for a moment or two. This was a state of fear beyond being scared, beyond withering like a maniacal lunatic. No, this was frozen fear. A kind of fear that would lead to nightmares down the road. His veins felt like ice and his skin bled a sickly pale from the blood drained from his expression.

 

To what horrific depths have they descended to in this place?

 

The sight was unbelievable, the unnatural force within the stasis chamber massive. But despite all this, he was still trained. He was still a soldier. His wet meal of fear and anxiety washed over his body, causing a temporary numbness of emotion. With one gasping breath he slung his rifle to the side and upon his shoulder, gripping Sounsyy’s shoulder with a cold, firm hand and tugging her in the direction of the maintenance hatch.

 

"COME ON!”

 

Right after, a shattering sound of glass being pierced rocked throughout the room, audible through the alarms and buzzing. The twisted form of the creature within whirred and worked its muscles as it started to break through, each and every second becoming closer to violently emerging out of its five millennium old prison. Another shrieking scream from chimerical chords roared across the open air, sending pins and needles down Ryanti’s spine as his ears stood up on end, the shock and numbness wearing off and giving away to pure fear and near panic. Ryanti was the calm and composed type; even his tails and ears only responded to extreme stimulation. Yet his ears were as tight as they could be, and his tail lifted up in a natural reaction of flight versus fight.

 

“OPEN IT! OPEN IT NOW!”

 

He shouted as loud as he could to Sounsyy, grabbing onto the valve of the hatch and started to turn it, but he could not do it on his own as he was already struggling with the amount of force it required to turn it due to the state of the manual lock. He didn’t even know if it would work, but it was only option they had. Ryanti and Sounsyy’s shadows from the alarm and strobing auxiliary lights caught the creature’s attention, and the damn well over 20 fulm tall monstrosity punched open another hole in the glass, stomping on a shard of it and using its brute strength to force it way through the tank in its entirety, it’s terrifying image amongst the cables that provided it nutrients eons ago as it spotted them a sight to behold and burn into another’s memory.

 

Ryanti looked back as one would typically warn against, and his hands began to turn the wheel faster at a pace he thought he could never match again, his groans of agony of the exertion beginning to morph into howls of desperation. He did not speak any more words, but when he looked back his feelings were apparent on his expression, and he put everything he could into trying to get the hatch to open… waiting desperately to see the door budge.