077: Drifted Dimension – Eight
As hard as drawing a breath in before was, it was pure agony now. Choking, the taste of metal filling her mouth, Pryseia felt wrong. Crushed, pierced, something had her in its grip, and when she tried to pull away from it, something wrenched within her, and the flare of pain that cascaded through her sharpened her senses enough for her to realize that she was standing upright, propped and pinned between a familiar form pressed against her front, and something nightmarishly alien clutched against her back.
Forcing her eyes open and leaning back as far as she could, she was met with the sight of white armour splattered with purple blood - her blood - where she'd had her head leaning against V'tala's shoulder. Beyond her, a sickly silver cable the width of her arm was extending away into a void so darkly black that she felt like it was drawing her in.
And then her feet scraped against the ground, and she realized it actually was drawing her in.
A simple sight though it was, just an endless expanse of black, it had every instinct within Pryseia recoiling in horror, her feet digging in to try and push herself away from the enveloping sight. The movement jostled V'tala, who stifled a groan against her shoulder.
Pryseia tried to move, to lift her arms to hold V'tala up, but as she tried to pull away, lancing pain shot through her, worse than before, the thing at her back digging in as if to hold her in place. She couldn't have stopped the cry that tore out of her if she tried.
V'tala wrenched backwards as she fully came to, her own noise of anguish caught behind her teeth as she managed to pull enough away to reveal the sickly silver cable that had punched clean through her chest and into Pryseia's, her bluish green blood and Pryseia's dark purple blending together into an almost denim shade on the thing that had speared the both of them through the heart.
Pain had V'tala's head lolling to one side, her eyes unfocusing as agony tried to drag her under, and Pryseia was reaching up to cradle her face instinctively, hands slick with their blood as she hissed, "No no no, remain with me here! We must remain conscious, I haven't the faintest idea what will befall us if we draw any closer to the darkness that lies in wait!"
Blinking to bring herself back from the brink, V'tala leaned into Pryseia's touch as she tried to move, but the thing that was running them through made that impossible. Gritting her teeth against the agony that such an attempt ignited through her, she asked, "The darkness. It's death, isn't it?"
"I believe you are correct in that assessment," Pryseia replied as calmly as she could, all the base, prey animal parts of her howling at her to flee in the face of the predator that would one day crush all of existence to dust between its jaws, "Whatever this thing is that's caught us, it's trying to reel us into oblivion."
"It's my dlegh," V'tala said simply, "Or a representation of it? This feels like a nightmare."
A surprised laugh had blood spilling from Pryseia's mouth at that. "What does this place look like beyond me? I'm afraid I cannot turn."
"Open space, white." V'tala told her, eyes scanning across what lay before her, "There's nothing to give a sense of depth. Black stars hang in the distance. There's something like a hand against your back."
As if aware it was the subject of the conversation, the thing that had Pryseia in its grip pulsed.
"There also appears to be a blood trail," V'tala continued, a hint of surprise cutting through the pain in her voice, "It stretches back further than I would have expected."
Nodding at that, Pryseia said, "We have a goal, then. A path to return along. I don't know about you, but I have been held in captivity for far too long to be slain by symbolism. There is yet more to life that I desire to experience."
Still being held by Pryseia, V'tala gave her a searching look, the sea green of the blood dripping from her wound and mouth practically glowing against the white of the her. Nodding her head slightly, she stepped forward, bringing her hands up to rest against Pryseia's shoulders, and pushed.
Pryseia shoved herself backwards with the force of it, and though it resisted, the sickly silver thing that held them both was forced to concede ground.
Looping her arms around V'tala's back to pull her as much as the other woman was pushing her in return, Pryseia pressed her shoulders more firmly against the thing that had them in its grip, and one step backward became five, then a dozen, than even more still.
She had no idea how they could get themselves free of this manifestation of the dlegh that bound them, but anything was better than getting closer to the open maw of the void that lay in front of her.
Maybe once they were far enough away from that thing, the panic and pain frying her synapses would die down enough that she could actually think.
A golden sun hung above them in a starless void, its light dim and gentle, waves of colour slowly undulating through it. A flash of green, a wave of pink, a flicker of blue, a swipe of purple. It wasn't moving as a sun should. There was something almost algorithmic about it.
Nevara blinked up at it before sitting up in a rush, hands trembling as a breath caught in her lungs. She could still feel the edge of death crouching before her, the terror of it making her blood run cold. Glancing around to try and get her bearings, she saw, sprawled out on the ground before her, Elytra, Rhea, and Malakh.
And none of them were moving.
Scrambling forward, Nevara crouched over Elytra, the other woman curled into a tight ball. When Nevara placed a hand on her shoulder, she could feel Elytra trembling, her body wound tight with tension.
"Elytra. Elytra!" She shook her carefully, but there was no response. From what she could see of her face, tucked into herself as she was, Elytra's jaw was clenched and her brows pinched together like she was bracing for an impact.
Groaning startled her, and Nevara looked up to see that both Rhea and Malakh were moving, so she called out, "Are you alright?!"
She hadn't meant for her voice to sound so panicked, but with every oddity she'd experienced in the last however long, her nerves were frayed.
And that had Malakh and Rhea bolting up, pausing long enough to shoot each other a glance to check that the other was okay before they rushed over to Nevara and Elytra.
"How long has she been like this?" Rhea's voice was clear and steady as she placed a hand on Nevara's arm, her eyes flickering over her as she scanned for any signs of an external injury. Nevara had been subjected to that look so many times over the course of their Thalatte enslavement that she felt something settle within her. Panic was useless in a crisis, and this was a crisis, though one she could scarcely comprehend.
Taking a calming breath, letting her training take hold, she replied, "I'm not sure. Since before I awoke, and that wasn't but a moment ago."
"Okay." Rhea shot her a relieved smile, patting her arm as she said, "Probably just sleeping in, then. If her day's been anything like mine, she's a real fuck of a time."
Between them, Elytra gasped and jolting under Nevara's hold like she'd just been struck. Unthinkingly, Rhea and Malakh both reached out to steady her, and the moment they did, something tore through them like they'd just touched a live wire.
Elytra threw herself up into a seated position, eyes wide as she stared off into the distance, shaking so hard that some of the plates of her carapace rattled against one another.
"Hey, talk to me." Rhea said, suppressing a tremble in her own voice as the current of something danced across her nerves.
Elytra turned to stare at her, eyes darting like she couldn't bring her into focus, her mouth opening but no sound made its way forth. She let out a harsh breath, eyes and jaw screwed shut as she steeled herself before she turned to Nevara and said, "I have the thing we need."
She extended a hand out, like she was offering something, and the moment Nevara placed a hand in hers, a white light engulfed them.
Blinking against this sudden onslaught, forms began to take shape around them: a cramped space, bulkheads, a pair of chairs, the window of a cockpit.
Rendered in pure white light, a recreation of the fighter that Keleria had just flown with her.
Like something had hooked into her ribcage, Nevara felt herself rise to her feet, that sensation drawing her forward as she breathed, "I know where to go."
She was in the pilot's seat a moment later, no pre-flight check needed as the ship leaped at her touch, aligning with the pull she could feel within her. She was barely aware as Rhea shoved Elytra into the copilot's seat - something about how she was still shaking like a leaf - as she brought them into that strange, inverted subspace, oily darkness swallowing them instead of pastel light.
"What is this place?" Malakh breathed from somewhere behind her, but Nevara could hardly spare a thought as her instincts dragged them through this space. With Keleria, with the memory of that retrofit Apiarian fighter craft, it had taken all her skills as a pilot to get them through this strange subspace, but now? Thought was a hindrance, the ship moving on her instincts alone rather than her hands on the yoke. Flying had never felt this seamless before.
She was aware of the others talking, but nothing of what they said made it through to her, her vision filled with the course Keleria had made her chart through this inverted realm. Seconds, eons later, they fell out of that odd subspace and into the equally inverted starfield that she knew was their destination, the black expanse of death itself crouching on the horizon.
Once again, the black stars that filled this space darted in to try and claim them, but Nevara was able to dance this replica of light away from them with an ease that was intoxicating. The tug in her chest suddenly changed, directing her down, and Nevara threw the craft into a dive that should have had them plastered to the back of the ship, but the laws of physics seemed to have only a tenuous grasp here.
A thin line came into view against the white of this void, a stripe of dark sky blue stretching out to the black void, and Nevara knew with absolute certainty that this was their destination. She opened the throttle even more, everything in her screaming to make haste.
When they were near enough to make out that it was Pryseia and V'tala before them, Nevara didn't even get a chance to slow down the ship as it vanished around them, and it was all she could do to keep running forward with the momentum their flight had given her.
Malakh recognized the shape of the thing that had Pryseia and V'tala in its grip the moment they drew close enough to see what they were flying towards, and the hand that she'd had gripping the back of an unresponsive Nevara's chair sank into it so suddenly that she hadn't registered what was happening until her feet hit the ground, sprinting forward as a warm weight filled her palm.
A mechanical shape like a hand with too many fingers, the whole thing a sickly silver colour that had some part of her recoiling in horror. But the part of her that was frantic with worry was much louder, overriding her dread at having to come in contact with that thing.
Long-limbed as she was, Rhea reached the pair first, her careful physician's neutrality momentarily fracturing when she saw the state that Pryseia and V'tala were in. Clinging to one another, delirious with exhaustion, they seemed barely able to stay upright as Pryseia leaned back against the bizarre hand-like contraption, a trail of green and purple blood extending off into the black void that had Malakh's hackles raised. Strangely, a sickly silver cable was stretching back into the void along with it, and at first Malakh thought it was wrapped around the pair.
But then Rhea eased V'tala away and they all saw the horrific truth - whatever this thing was, it had speared through them like a harpoon, the hand-like contraption spread at Pryseia's back keeping them from sliding off whatever this thing was.
The heat in her hand thrummed, causing Malakh to look down. The sight of a wrench in her hand, identical to the one Sarar had tossed her except for the fact it was made out of pure white light, didn't even shock her. She stepped up to the thing that had trapped her friends and immediately went to work.
As bad as the practice contraption Sarar had set her up with was, this thing was was infinitely worse. No sluggish movements from this one, it lashed out the second Malakh came in range, and the thunderbolt of pain it sent through her nearly had her vomiting.
But before she could reach out to try and pin it down, Elytra had slipped in beside her, holding the flailing phalanges back as much as she could, a cold sweat breaking out across the flesh in between the gaps of her carapace as she told her, "I've got this."
It was horrendous work, but thanks to Sarar's help it was familiar work. Even with Elytra taking the brunt of this things attacks, Malakh felt herself dissociating as joint after joint fell away under her hands. The sense of wrongness of this thing so pervasive, the depersonalization of whatever it was so ancient, just this temporary contact with it was enough to have her half blind with dread. She couldn't imagine how bad it was for V'tala and Pryseia, who had been stuck with this thing jammed through them for who knew how long. That thought alone kept her focused.
She was so intent on her task that she didn't realize it as the double palm portion of this monstrous thing pulled away from Pryseia's back, Elytra and herself falling to the ground as it turned to ash in their grip. The relief of that horror vanishing washed over her with enough force to have her blacking out.
Holding up V'tala as she was, Nevara with her arms bracing Pryseia, there was nothing that either of them could do as Elytra and Malakh collapsed, the sickly silver cable that had been punched through V'tala and Pryseia's chests disintegrating a moment later.
"Lay her down." Rhea barked out to Nevara as she gently lowered V'tala to the ground, the pale woman still conscious despite the gaping wound in her chest. Her teeth grit, she gave Rhea a terse nod, more blood than she should have had at this point sluggishly gurgling from her ribs. Once V'tala was safely down, Rhea returned the nod, then dashed to where Malakh and Elytra were sprawled.
Even before she reached them, the both of them were stirring. They looked wrecked, both shivering messes as if they'd scaled a sheer cliff face instead of unbolted a fucked up art piece, but they responded readily when she called them by name.
"Here," Malakh had gasped as she pressed the glowing wrench into Rhea's hands, "You'll need this."
Instead of a wrench, a scalpel made of pure white light now sat in her grip, and Rhea briefly squeezed Malakh's arm before she went to Pryseia's side.
Dr. Jagtap's instructions ringing in her ears, the strange metaphysical properties of this place granting her the ability to see the fatal dlegh that bound the two together, Rhea's hands were steady as the glowing scalpel made short work of the mess that had tangled itself up in Pryseia's ribcage. As the last inflamed, illusionary artery was severed, V'tala's essence coiling in her hand, she watched as the gaping wound in Pryseia's chest closed on its own, the woman taking in a rattling breath as she was able to fill her lungs to the brim at last.
Gently, carefully, Rhea cradled that piece of V'tala in one hand while with the other she severed the veins of the dlegh that were still rooted within her. When at last that vile network of control withered and sloughed away, Rhea reverently placed that piece of V'tala back in her chest. Like with Pryseia, the moment she was once again whole, the wound in her chest sealed itself up, and she took a steadying breath.
Rhea had only time enough to shoot V'tala a relieved grin before she tipped over, exhaustion suddenly swallowing up around her.
After helping Pryseia up into a sitting position, Nevara had just enough time to lunge forward and catch Rhea around the shoulders before she crashed headfirst into V'tala.
"Shit, sorry," Rhea breathed a moment later, getting an arm under herself, "That took more out of me than expected."
Elytra and Malakh, still looking worse for wear, had rushed over at Rhea's collapse, only to slump down beside the others once they saw everyone was alright. Once Rhea was back in a more stable seated position, Nevara helped V'tala up, then held her hand out as she said, "Give me the knife. We need to get out of here."
Rhea spun the scalpel in her grip so the handle faced Nevara, and the second she got her hand around it, the glowing ship popped into being around them once again. The strange fugue state didn't fall over Nevara this time as she took the pilot seat once more, deftly flying them through the swarming black stars and back into inky subspace. Sprawled out across the floor behind her, it was all the others could do to try and stay conscious after the ordeals they'd all been through.
They fell out of subspace into the starless sky with the golden sun, and a compulsion gripped Nevara so tightly that she could do nothing against it as she opened the throttle up all the way, aiming straight for the heart of that undulating sun.
Exhausted from everything, no one else realized it until shifting hues of light filled the cockpit. But even as they stood and cried out warning, it was too late.
Like a gleaming arrow through time, the pure white ship flew straight into the heart of that golden sun.
The horror of what she'd done had Nevara jolting upright. Or it would have, had she not been held down by the restraints of Malra's pilot seat.
"Report? Anyone?!" Was out of her mouth before she had a chance to even disengage the control apparatus, and she could have wept with relief when five other voices answered her all at once in a jumbled mess.
Her cockpit swung open a moment later, in time enough to see Rhea fly past, aiming for Enaruli once again.
"Just stay put," she said as V'tala made to stand, "I want to see if it worked."
"Then that wasn't a dream?" V'tala replied, and as unsteady as her voice was, she sounded stronger already.
"No, and it looks like whatever metaphysical surgery you did worked," Malakh radioed over from where she was stood in the open door to Zaanlaa, "Pryseia's stable."
"V'tala too," Rhea replied, her relief palpable, "What the fuck was all of that?!"
"I haven't a clue, but I think our training for the day must be postponed," Pryseia said with an unsteady laugh, "Vi, could you please demat us back inside?"
Silence was her only response.
"Viatrix, come in." Malakh called out, but once again no answer came. Joining in on the worried look the others were sharing, she said, "Unplug Enaruli, I'll bring us in manually," before pulling the cable that had been plugged into Zaanlaa, grabbing the other end as Rhea tossed it to her, and then following the cable back inside.
The were all back in the ship in minutes, the Storlayacas tucked away in their cargo hold while the crew crammed in around the mainframe in engineering, Malakh's hands flying across the controls.
"She's not… deleted, is she?" Elytra's voice was quiet as she voiced their collective fear.
"No," Malakh replied a moment later, her voice catching as her shoulders sagged in relief, "She's here, she's whole, but there's something off with her output. These readings are… I'm not sure what they are."
Next to her, Rhea straightened like she'd been struck, before she bent over the display Malakh had brought up, whispering, "Fuck me running."
Gently moving Malakh's hand aside, she enlarged a window on the display that showed some type of wavelength before explaining, "That's what REM brainwaves look like in organics. Viatrix is dreaming."