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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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?
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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?