zesty_pinto | (no subject) (Reply)

The pain was minute for now. Only so minute. My hand fisted the PDA before I dropped it and then stepped for the door, only to hear that rattling noise of more of those drones. Not only were there a number of these things installed in the ship, but if there were so many, then there were probably enough to protect a ship this size, meaning a possible hundreds. My hand gripped the firearm in the sad reality of where I was, but I wasn't going to die here when I knew where to go, when I knew there was a chance to escape.

My feet pounded out. The clicking became rampant in the air and again, bullets flew past me. The technology was still not perfect, and I was saved for it, but it meant movement. It meant I could not stop moving no matter what.

My gun screamed out red and white fury. The machine was dead at a close enough range before it would stare that damnable eye. My hand unconsciously unlocked the clip from the handle and I looked at it. Half a clip.

I walked carefully away. I had no reason to move quickly. Not yet, at least, though if the reason came up, I would be running as quickly as possible. My head began to pound slightly again. Somewhere in the halls I could hear a thumping noise; a low hum and thump. The more I raced my eyes around though, the more I knew that there was nothing here. Nothing here that was related with that sound.

I stopped when the corridor I needed to reach became a dead end. It was sealed off, probably intentionally. There were scorch marks all over the blast doors and bullet dings that scabbed over the hull. My feet stepped around dented lead slugs. It was recent. I could still see traces of spent gunpowder fuming in the air.

By the side of the door was an emergency bypass. A crank that I forced around. It still ran easily, and I managed to force it just enough to make it crack open and let me squeeze through. My head started to flare up and for a moment I forgot about where I was and started to reach for my helmet before I remembered that I could not even touch my head inside my helmet.

A few more steps away. My hand reached for my firearm instead. I hesitated. For the first time, I saw something that resembled liquid, and more likely blood. Free from where it lay, it began to flow slightly outward. I almost stared at it for what may have been forever, until I knew I had to go through there. When I began to prepare myself through, I had to stop again. I had to, what I saw was so disturbing, so frustratingly crazed.

My eyes saw a garden.

A beautiful green garden of plants that I could never have seen before or describe in ways that would justify what I saw. Thick bladed plants with bulbous head-like trunks that looked as though they should have been on a tropical island, flowers that were yellow and blue and red and orange and purple. And even the lights. My god, the light was bright, almost welcoming; it was like the sun.

I began to shuffle through, carefully. At the time, I then began to hear the shutter of those bugs again, but it was too late and I had stepped through. The ground was crinkling. I saw all over were red rusty shards of metal, crackled into soil. By it, bones. Skulls and

I have difficulty even saying it now. There was something there that the plants were connected to. It was a table board, but it was battered, covered, corroded in something black and caking hard like old mud. I really did not realize it until then, but I was curious and a fool for thinking that it was something so harmless. I shrugged the leaves away because I wanted to see what these plants fed on, and I was greeted back by a brown mummified head that continued to stare at me as it rot into the woodwork it was nailed into. It watched me, moving its milky white eyes as though it was still alive, aware; knowing.

I stepped back, choking with the urge to vomit but stopped myself when I heard the brush of the leaves almost touch me. This garden, this beautiful garden was a garden of death. The PDA came to my head and I could only think of what the logs said. Perhaps I was in some madman's garden of Eden. I did not want to think of it, but the thoughts kept going as I walked against the red earth.

Gunfire started to bleed into the air but I could not see where. Somehow I had stepped into an open room, an environment of a jungle, a place where there was no more sensation of a ship save in the remnants of rusting metal corpses and a light too bright to even be the sun.

I felt even more alone now. Somewhere, somehow, I had to leave. I don't know where I was, whether I was still following a hallway or not, but I had to leave. I foolishly escaped judgement and ran.

That was when I heard the sound of an unearthly howl. Something was rushing. Something coming close, perhaps unearthly like these creatures, like everything here. I ran. I continued to run, and I could feel tears fly as I continued to hope for a way to escape, but I knew there was no escape from this world, from this hell. I had to stop.

Before me, standing level towards me was a four legged creature, wrapped in fur, muscle, veins. It bore a human head, it carried fangs, and its fingers were injected with sharp bony spikes. As it growled at me, I could see within its jaw was a scrap of bleeding plastic in its jaw.