The first thing Netzach sees when he comes to is the office fan spinning lazily above him. The second thing he notices is that he's laying on the floor and somehow he managed to do that. He tries to sit up but immediately feels dizzy and falls back to lay flat on his back. His artificial breathing starts coming in shallow gasps and it feels his insides pulsing like something is trying to force its way out of his body.
He wants to cry again, wants to throw up, or maybe even both, but something is holding him down.
Too many times he's ended up like this, always having close calls when he finally gets his hands on a form of enkephalin before it was too late. This time it seemed to be too late. Way too late. The lack of willingness to act on his needs for once rendered him once again helpless for what was to come.
How ironic.
All the times he had tried so hard to prevent another meltdown for no reason. It hurt the first time it happened. It'll hurt again.
And then suddenly everything stops. His vision is blurry but at least he's aware of how much heavier he feels. Everything is quiet and there's nobody there with him.
The silence, no chatter, no whirring of machines, nothing.
He feels a sense of panic, despite being unable to move. He looks around his empty office. The sense of loneliness overwhelms him. It's unbearable.
It's like he's melting.
The panic melts away and he's left to accept his fate. It takes some time but eventually the feeling of warmth spreads through him. He looks to see that throughout his panicking, he truly was melting through the floor... Was this normal?
Everything goes black after that. He can hear murmurs and shouting but they sound distant and muffled, closes his eyes as soon as his consciousness slips away.
Thump.
Thump.
Yesod quietly takes note of the vibrations. Rhythmic like a heartbeat, mechanical like a machine.
He sits up and leans over, resting against the back of his chair. Noise is better than silence in the facility. Silence is never a good sign, despite wanting little noise to concentrate.
A strange feeling settles inside him, a need to follow the noise. It felt too unusual, he couldn't pinpoint why or what could be the cause of it.
He pushes aside whatever was bothering him. There were more pressing matters than a vague feeling he couldn't explain.
Rhythmic, rhythmic. Like the beating of a heart. That thought calms him slightly. He doesn't know what it means, nor does he care. Whatever is causing it is either a blessing or not.
Thump.
Thump.
He's just curious. A little. But curiosity kills the cat.
Thump. Thump.
Thump.
There is something else, something more... Something... He can't put his finger on it.
Something is happening in the facility, something bigger than anything he can imagine here. Something that isn't supposed to happen.
Thump. Thump.
Thump...
The coffee on his desk ripples with the thumping.
He gets up from his desk, heightening his cognition filter to not draw too much attention to himself. He leaves his office and keeps a keen ear to where the source of the thumping is from.
It was getting louder. More intense. If there was trouble going on, he needed to be on it right away.
When he walks down the halls more, however, is where the troubles began. Not because of the thumping itself, but only because the sight that greets him, distracts him.
Employees reacted to flesh-like vines everywhere, panicking and many fighting, many of the vines seemed to have been keeping containment doors closed.
This was very unusual. Yesod doesn't recall any abnormality or ordeals that could cause this. The third thing in mind was... not impossible, but it shouldn't be likely to happen.
And yet it might be.
He's still thinking about all the unknown factors when an employee runs past him with a scream. Some people are cowering behind their coworkers, and others hiding in corners.
It's simply chaos.
Keeping calm, Yesod continues down the hall.
"Noodle!"
"Oh, hey, boss!" Noodle waves lamely as she keeps her weapon still.
"What's going on?"
"I'm not sure! One minute I'm working with one of thems fuckin' Funeral, and the next, I'm almost locked in their rooms! These vines are everywhere!" She gestures to the vines crawling along the walls, "They're not attacking us yet, thankfully, but I wouldn't wanna test 'em!"
Yesod frowns. They don't appear hostile. That's strange. "Do you know what they are?"
She shakes her head, "No idea! It's not grabbin' anyone, and it's only keeping the doors shut, somehow! I thought that was a good thing, but I'm worried about the energy we're supposed to collect from those abnormalities, now..."
Yesod observes the vines, trying to pinpoint where the source is coming from.
"So... what should we do, boss?"
He considers it briefly. What could he say? This was new territory, it would take some time to figure it out.
The priority had to be finding the source of the problem. It wasn't doing anything harmful, so long as it kept to itself. He didn't want to risk any employees getting hurt by these things.
"Let's find the source and deal with it from there."
"You're coming with? What if something happens to you?"
"I can't die," Yesod responds bluntly, "I'll be fine, Noodle. It's about time I got more involved."
Noodle's eyes light up in excitement, "Wooow... This is the first I've ever seen...! Let's not waste a moment, then!"
The hallways shifted to a greenish hue from the violet colors of the Information Department.
"It's coming from Safety Team...?" Noodle whispers.
"Looks like it," Yesod nods in affirmation.
The green lights illuminate the corridor, showing the abundance of vines all over the walls. It makes a texture that makes Yesod squirm enough to try and look away from.
As the pair approached the group of employees, they were overcome by relieved but scared individuals.
"Yesod!" The Safety Team agent called out frantically to him, "what's a higher-up like you doing here?"
"Have the vines been attacking the employees at all?" Yesod asks, ignoring their question entirely.
"They're blocking our access to the rest of the facility, obviously. I've been trying to help clerks out of all this..."
Noodle nods, "It refuses to fight back despite all the cuts I made on it," She says in a hushed tone, "maybe it's not an abnormality."
"It's not," The agent states, "Netzach's gone crazy."
"Netzach?" Yesod repeats slowly, raising his eyebrows at the sudden mention of the name, "I didn't expect him to be capable of something like this... Sephirah don't have meltdowns of this caliber twice."
The agent shrugs, "I dunno sir, he was pretty on edge today! It was so unlike him, I tried to ask about it but he just ignored me!"
Thump. Thump.
Yesod turns to look at Noodle, noticing how worried she looks.
"If my hunch is correct... Is there any way to get someone into the Safety Team's main room?" Yesod asks, earning a hesitant nod from the agent, "Then let me in. Noodle, help this agent--"
"Iris."
"-Help Iris let me in there. Then help them with the clerks."
"What about you, sir?!"
"I'll be fine, Noodle," Yesod repeats what he's said before, "I can't die."
Noodle looks at Iris for an answer, seeing them nod in agreement. Noodle sighs, "Fine... Please be careful!"
The three walk over to the Safety Department's main room door, the captain and agent both utilizing their weapons to help Yesod squeeze through what little gap they could make before the vines made the door even more inaccessible.
"Sir!!!" Noodle yells.
"I'm fine, Noodle. Go," Yesod shoos the captain from the other side of the vined door, "Iris needs you."
...
Yeah, there she goes. It's quiet on her end.
Yesod slowly turns to face the source of the vines and chaos.
"Netzach."
"Yesod," The echoey voice from Netzach's lowered cognition filter, trying to sound emotionless but failing, "I'm sorry." He was like how Yesod remembered seeing him, his boxed frame sprouting an almost tree-like bundle of vines out of him, but there were simply even more vines than before, longer and thicker, tangling within themselves more than actual tentacles, like Yesod's. The trophy in the room was knocked down, and crashed onto the floor, partially broken.
Yesod takes careful steps forward. He has to keep his safe distance from the tendrils so as not to accidentally touch them.
A few minutes pass in the silence between them. No sounds of struggle and shouting filled the air.
"What happened?"
Thump.
With Yesod breaking the silence, Netzach sighs, "I don't know."
"I know you're lying. Tell me what happened."
"It's not a lie," Netzach's response comes out in a whisper, "it started small. I was just... Thinking... And I kept thinking on that thought. It was too much. I ended up on the floor. I was going to get my usual dose... But I couldn't move."
Ah. Of course. "What were you thinking of?"
"... I was... Reminiscing."
Thump.
Thump.
Silence fell once again. The tension between the two grows thicker. The silence becomes more uncomfortable with each passing second. No words were spoken as each considered the other.
"... May I join you?" Yesod asks.
It was a weak question. A simple request.
Netzach lazily brushed a spot nearby himself with those vines of his, not a verbal response, but an act of invitation.
Thump.
Slowly, Yesod sits down beside him.