The Pandora Index (Older work)

Dead Weight

Daniel Walker

What happened?

Where are am I?

It was if I was suddenly in the deepest part of the ocean, where no sunlight could possibly reach. It was cold, unimaginably cold, impossibly cold. Why do I feel as though I could burst into flames at any time? It's obvious that what I'm floating in is not water. It doesn't feel right, whenever I move my limbs the matter that moved around them felt thicker than water and was clumpy at times. There was something strangely calming about where I was, it was only a matter of time before my eyelids began to feel heavy.

How long has it been since I got here? It feels like it's been hours.

I began to try to propel myself forwards but my limbs felt like they've been stretched far beyond their natural boundaries, almost as if my arms and legs had melded with my surroundings. I also haven't had the urge to breathe even after however long I've been here.

"I'm not a monster!" An unfamiliar female voice shattered the silence. Another voice I don't recognize. I don't understand. My mind felt fuzzy.

"This world is only as cruel as we make it out to be, right?" The man's voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't identify it through its veil of resentment.

Distant gunshots...

"I found him!" That one sounded like Midas' voice, but it was different, it was more distant and muffled.

Angela's voice followed, also muffled, "Oh god, what did he do?"

The sound of screams, breaking glass, and crumbling concrete reverberated through the darkness, and then silence again.

I used all of my strength to just turn my head to look behind me, and what I saw made my blood run cold.

Eyes.

Eyes were everywhere, grey dead eyes all fixed onto me. What felt like a boney hand tightened its grip around my left leg and began to drag me down, or up, it's impossible to tell for sure, the eyes swiveled to track my movements. More skeletal arms reached for me, they grabbed my arms and my other leg. For a while I just stayed like that, held in place like a frog on a dissection plate. Two hands suddenly reached out and gently placed themselves on the sides of my face. Although I didn't feel as though I was in danger, there was a hidden yet also distinct aggressiveness to how whatever the hell this thing in front of me was acting.

To my surprise a gurgled voice resonated inches away from my ear. It sounded like someone was winding up an incredibly old music box.

"D- Da-a-niel... Daniel... Walker... Speak."

The voice sounded as if a chorus of hundreds of monotonous people were talking all at once.

"What are-" I had replied without thinking and immediately regretted it, the fluid that flooded my mouth and my lungs was probably the most disgusting material known to man. It tasted like saltwater, rubber, blood, and the sewage of New Detroit.

Whatever was in front of me guessed for me, "What am I? I am nothing, I am refuse, nothing but a monument to humanity's ancient lust for death and despair... You don't already know this?"

I was both amazed and disgusted when I realized that I could actually speak through the foul liquid.

"Are you the who I'm looking for?" I said trying not to gag, "Sleet's master?"

"Sleet's master? ...Oh, I see... The Index." A sort of gurgling laughter came from in front of me, "It is a name that does not belong to me."

"Then what the hell is the Index?"

"If I am nothing but death and destruction... Index is everything in the domain of life and creation..." A faint warmness began envelope me. A red glow pushed out of the direction of the voice.

"You mean the Index is..." I stared into the faint light, "It's like a god?"

The thing chuckled, "No... Your Index is far from being a god."

"Then what is it?" I shouted, frustrated by the vague answer.

"Your current goal is getting your memories, correct?" The thing said without answering my question, the glow seemed to be getting even brighter and hotter, "...I can only foresee your pursuit ending in tragedy."

"I don't care!" I growled, "I won't stop until I get my answers."

Suddenly, a large ring of pure red light hovered in front of me. The red light was fading away from the outer edge of the ring like bright blood that had been mixed with water. I was looking at a massive pupil. The pupil swiveled to focus on me.

The claws tightened their grip on my arms, and the two hands on my cheeks began to act more like a vice as they kept me from turning my head at all.

"I have been giving you the impression that your ignorance-" The thing growled, "-Your human ignorance, was not infuriating. Your ingratitude is an insult to me and my mercy only goes so far."

"Your mercy?" I felt my voice quake a bit and scolded myself internally. The beast shuddered with sinister laughter.

"Wherever there is life, there will always to be death waiting and preparing to reach up to pull it into a freshly dug grave. You've been in my icy grip since you drew your first breaths as an infant and until your last soul-crushing wheeze." A gurgled moan came from behind the pupil, "You've been at my mercy since the very beginning, and you will be until the very end. So I expect you to show just a hint of hesitation before you raise your pathetic tone at me."

I grew silent, how is someone supposed to respond to that?

"...The only reason I am letting you live and not strewing your organs across the sea now is because I need you to remain alive for the moment. You are going to have to play an important roll in the coming months, Daniel Walker. I will judge you by your actions over the next week and see if you are truly the one I need." The claws on my arms relinquished their grip but remained clasped around my legs, "I will take you to your Index, but I expect you to answer all of my summons in the future."

"Summons? Isn't the only way I can get here through the path?"

"No, now that you've passed through the path, I have a permanent link to your mind." It answered, "And one last thing..."

I felt more movement near me. The voice moved inches away from my ear to deliver it's last message.

"Ask Madison Sleet to tell you what her real name is, and what side she will be on when her world crumbles once you wake up, and at 7:23 PM on October twenty-second, 2039, ask her what her real name is again. It is imperative that you ask her at that exact time."

The eye began to close.

"Wait!" I called, "What if I'm not the one you need?"

"If you are not the one I need, then I will simply wait until the next one comes through." With that, the eye vanished. A lingering chuckle was all that it left. Without any warning, the arms on my legs jerked me in yet another direction but this time they were going much faster. Chunks of whatever was in the water rolled past me with sickening velocity. Soon the liquid around me began taking a warm red glow but this time I could tell it was the sun that was causing it. That's when I saw it. There was a large black shape floating on the surface of the sea...

It was a single boat...