FloweryDream
New member
It felt deeper than it looked, as Elluin's hand disappeared into the blackness of the pit. Grasping for that faint image of a handle, awkwardly running against it, having to realign to grip it. The canister was shaped like a cylinder, with the black top that she grasped at having a straight, horizontal handle that went across the surface facing her, propped up by two juts of black connecting material. Despite the overall temperature of the room feeling just fine, despite the open doors, the handle itself was unnaturally cold, as if it could numb her fingers if grasped for too long. Still, it resisted her pull, and it became clear that the sides of the Black Box were not smooth. She had to repeatedly turn the handle she gripped as it slowly slid outward, fitting whatever outward beams stopped its ascent into a new line of vertical paths. Perhaps it was to keep it from sliding out in turbulence, or the connections were important in some way, but as seconds dragged on, and the damning silence grew thicker and harder to breathe, perhaps it felt like something else was in mind when designing it like she was using it incorrectly.
Still, as the cylinder was freed in the now silent flashes of red, Elluin could suddenly be sure of one thing. The only noise that cut through that thick silence was a low hum. She could not source its origin, but it had clearly grown in the dense seconds she had retrieved the device, the strange, forearm-length device being awkward and disproportionately weighted, revealing little of what it was in the red flashes that suddenly seemed too dim to truly make out anything. Even her footsteps offered nothing more than the jolt of nerves as she stepped, that low hum her world, growing louder by the minute.
Fight or flight twisted in the dark recesses of her mind and gave a simple message, running along the reptilian pathways of her nervous system, like a centipede crawling up her spine, injecting freezing venom with every awful step.
"Get. Out."
The hum only grew louder, and even in the passing red light of the room, she could look out into the hallway and see the lights of the ship rapidly fading. The dimness hid it for a moment, but in the flashes, she could suddenly see that darkness kept on the edges of her vision, no matter how close to the light she got, and her lungs seemed to scream that there wasn't enough oxygen.
The storm screamed[/i] at Comprendea, despite its distance. It was a great roaring beast intent on destroying his ears, at flooding his senses with an overwhelming cataclysm that he was not prepared for, that he could not prepare for. It would deafen him with its crashing volume that already was unbearable, then it would beat upon his face until his mask would smash inward to cave in his eyes, then fill his mouth with soot and snow until his lungs filled with-
He was panicking. Even through everything, he could feel the reaction burning, a cyclical loop of emotions feeding one another until any other input became too loud to bear. There were responses, that much anybody knew, but that did not help at the moment.
What became apparent, in that brief moment of clarity was that it felt like something pulled away from his head. Like something had been squeezing down on his mind, pushing in from all directions, and the moment he had fully noticed it, it had retreated back. The panic, the emotion, was being force-fed by something else, something he couldn't see. He couldn't even see if it was still on him, but at least it had seemed to relent once it had been noticed.
The storm continued. It did not slow. They were running out of time.
Fyleen pushed open the door, finding the dim hallways it opened into barren, flashing red lights on the corridors that sat like a waiting beartrap. With an audible snap, the tablet's speaker seemed to short-circuit into death, dropping her into silence once more as she peered into that waiting maw of the ship. Something seemed wrong about it, at first, as she stared down into the strange corridors with many doors and turning halls. She had been through this door before, on their own ship, and it led to the kitchen areas. There were not this many doors, this many hallways that immediately seemed to lead straight into parts of the ships that did not have hallways or doors.
It was for a brief moment, but as the red lights briefly illuminated a distant wall that turned into a corner that shouldn't exist, its destination not visible from where Fyleen stood, the wall breathed. It shifted, like the flank of a beast trying to remain still, and in the distance, she heard the dripping of water upon the metal flooring. As quickly as it started, it seemed to hold its breath.
"Warning: Return to the Ship." The suits blared to Flyeen and Comprendea, the world of Elluin too muted to hear a thing. "Storm approaching. Evacuation necessary."
Still, as the cylinder was freed in the now silent flashes of red, Elluin could suddenly be sure of one thing. The only noise that cut through that thick silence was a low hum. She could not source its origin, but it had clearly grown in the dense seconds she had retrieved the device, the strange, forearm-length device being awkward and disproportionately weighted, revealing little of what it was in the red flashes that suddenly seemed too dim to truly make out anything. Even her footsteps offered nothing more than the jolt of nerves as she stepped, that low hum her world, growing louder by the minute.
Fight or flight twisted in the dark recesses of her mind and gave a simple message, running along the reptilian pathways of her nervous system, like a centipede crawling up her spine, injecting freezing venom with every awful step.
"Get. Out."
The hum only grew louder, and even in the passing red light of the room, she could look out into the hallway and see the lights of the ship rapidly fading. The dimness hid it for a moment, but in the flashes, she could suddenly see that darkness kept on the edges of her vision, no matter how close to the light she got, and her lungs seemed to scream that there wasn't enough oxygen.
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The storm screamed[/i] at Comprendea, despite its distance. It was a great roaring beast intent on destroying his ears, at flooding his senses with an overwhelming cataclysm that he was not prepared for, that he could not prepare for. It would deafen him with its crashing volume that already was unbearable, then it would beat upon his face until his mask would smash inward to cave in his eyes, then fill his mouth with soot and snow until his lungs filled with-
He was panicking. Even through everything, he could feel the reaction burning, a cyclical loop of emotions feeding one another until any other input became too loud to bear. There were responses, that much anybody knew, but that did not help at the moment.
What became apparent, in that brief moment of clarity was that it felt like something pulled away from his head. Like something had been squeezing down on his mind, pushing in from all directions, and the moment he had fully noticed it, it had retreated back. The panic, the emotion, was being force-fed by something else, something he couldn't see. He couldn't even see if it was still on him, but at least it had seemed to relent once it had been noticed.
The storm continued. It did not slow. They were running out of time.
-----------------------------
Fyleen pushed open the door, finding the dim hallways it opened into barren, flashing red lights on the corridors that sat like a waiting beartrap. With an audible snap, the tablet's speaker seemed to short-circuit into death, dropping her into silence once more as she peered into that waiting maw of the ship. Something seemed wrong about it, at first, as she stared down into the strange corridors with many doors and turning halls. She had been through this door before, on their own ship, and it led to the kitchen areas. There were not this many doors, this many hallways that immediately seemed to lead straight into parts of the ships that did not have hallways or doors.
It was for a brief moment, but as the red lights briefly illuminated a distant wall that turned into a corner that shouldn't exist, its destination not visible from where Fyleen stood, the wall breathed. It shifted, like the flank of a beast trying to remain still, and in the distance, she heard the dripping of water upon the metal flooring. As quickly as it started, it seemed to hold its breath.
-----------------------------
"Warning: Return to the Ship." The suits blared to Flyeen and Comprendea, the world of Elluin too muted to hear a thing. "Storm approaching. Evacuation necessary."