"The light changed. What does that mean? Does it mean anything??"
She snatched the bag from his hands, "it's an alarm that emits a frequency to all drones within the area. Right now, it's commanding them to inspect a malfunction. Remove your clothing and toss them aside."
His head swiveled in every direction and he peered back at the smooth, circular, slanted wall they originally entered through. He pulled off his shirt and unbuttoned his jeans. They easily slipped down his legs and crashed to the floor as he awkwardly removed his shoes with his feet.
Unzipping the bag, she forcefully jammed the plush teddy inside. It crumpled and shifted, legs sticking out as she pushed it back inside. Closing the zipper, she handed him the bag. "Put it on and take good care of it."
"Okay," he chewed on his lower lip, while nervously inserting his arms through the straps. "But shouldn't we be running away?"
With a tight hold on his shoulder, she turned him around. A rustling sound came from behind. The gun suddenly appeared next to him. His head snapped to her and he stared in confusion.
"Wear it," she tapped his shoulder with it, refusing to look into his eyes. Her finger pressed the insignia on the bag and the invisibility function was activated.
He gazed down at the gun in confusion. It no longer covered all of his forearm, there was a two inch gap now between it and his elbow. That's weird. Did it get smaller? Didn't notice that when we were at the swamp. Syrqnä startled him out of his thoughts.
"Activate the invisibility function on your suit. Run. Wait for me outside and remain close to the wall. Avoid bumping or crashing into any Kraälst."
"Why? Why can't we leave together? What are you going to do?"
"Do as you're told! Get out of here!" Her voice echoed loudly within the factory.
Startled by her yelling and red glowing stare, he stumbled back. One of his feet gave way and he slipped, crashing against the onyx floor. The cans and bottles in his bag shifted and dug into his backside. His eyes widened when she stepped forwards.
Her arm shot towards the collar of his suit. He flinched. She lifted him up with ease, settling him gently on the floor. He swayed momentarily as he regained his balance.
"GO!" She turned her back to him and approached the base where the toy had been held captive.
His hand rapidly pressed the insignia on his chest four times until invisibility was activated. He twisted around and ran. An explosion boomed behind him. Something ricocheted against his bag and another painfully bit into his left leg. Halting on his tracks, he turned to where Syrqnä was.
Crouched on the floor and with a fist slammed against the floor, she leaned in front of what remained of the base. The onyx floor beneath it fractured in several places. Cracked pieces of the pedestal's silver base laid strewn all around her and scattered about throughout the factory.
Red strands of hair wildly flared out above her head, weightless and shifting in all directions. An unsettling blurriness obscured her features. She pummeled her fist against the remaining segment. The ground beneath him shook and he struggled to remain in place. Arms swaying, he lurched backwards and forwards. More fractures radiated from the area. He gazed down and noticed a few of them quickly traveling in his direction. Movement from the far end of the factory caught his attention. Several small sized creatures emerged from one of the walls.
Their thin luminescent tentacles hung loosely under a black metallic disk that was nestled underneath their heads. Not as bulbous as the scout's, these were only slightly bigger than a basketball. The two large eyeballs seemed to pulsate inwards and outwards from their sockets. One large lid slowly wiped an eye. Both lids blinked independently and out of sync.
They hovered in a straight line, all five stopping to assess the situation. When Syrqnä straightened her back, the drone in front released a dark, foul-smelling cloud in her direction. The area was momentarily obscured. She zipped to where they were.
Benjamin could barely see what was occurring, but through the shadowy mist, he could make out their faint glow and her radiance. A loud bang and a flash of light expanded within the haze. Then another followed. The dark mist looked like a storm cloud with booming sounds and flashing lightning. He squinted. Something was headed in his direction. It was blurry and he couldn't decipher what it was—much less react in time. Before he knew it, it barreled into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
It sent him flying backwards and gliding against the floor just inches away from the factory's wall. It was a drone, half his size, making moist and squishy noises as its head flopped back. Electricity crackled and sparked weakly through the cracks on its mangled disk. Twenty tendril-like tentacles twitched and curled over him. Warm slime oozed out of the creature's body and onto his. A musky, rotten stench emanated from the slime as it continued piling up on top of him. He grimaced and gagged. Lids lazily closed as its large eyes rolled into its oblong head. They remained half-closed when it finally stilled.
Trying to ignore the smell, he shoved the disk. Slime covered his hands and caused them to slip over its surface. Each small movement sent pain to course throughout his body. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he clenched his jaw. With great effort, he finally pushed it off. Breathing heavily, he rested his head on the floor and ran a hand over his stomach. A stinging sensation encompassed the area. His breath hitched when he softly pressed on it. Gasping for air, he lifted himself up, only to see Syrqnä running in his direction and a group of Eaters emerging through the far wall.
I can see you! You're covered in slime and it's creating an outline. Didn't I tell you to wait outside? On to my back! Wrap your legs around my waist!
"Hu—," he let out a loud scream.
Syrqnä quickly snatched his wrist and tossed him into the air like a rag doll. Pulling his arm over her shoulder, she jerked him towards her back, causing him to wince from the impact. His other arm flailed in the air and struggled to latch on. The smaller ring confined its movement as his hand tried to grasp her jacket from beneath the open space under the gun.
Guns blasted behind them. She jumped in the air. He clumsily wrapped his arm around her neck, banging the gun on her chin several times, until he finally secured himself. Her shoulders tensed when she unsteadily landed outside of the building.
"Syrqnä?"
"Hold on tight. Tighter than before!" She said as she sprinted, wrapping his arm around her neck.
He tightened his arms and legs. The pain caused him to breathe sporadically as he clenched his teeth and tried to forget about the increasing pain on his stomach. The bouncing against her bag made it worse.
You're injured. I'm sorry, but we're going to have to escape through the vent.
Ok, that shouldn't be so bad. Right? He relaxed a little.
We're jumping into the vent and ... we'll be falling for exactly twenty-six thousand four hundred feet.
"WHAT?!?" He croaked and peered over her shoulder, she jumped into the large hole. Quickly closing his eyes, he braced himself.
Just think of home. Focus on a memory. She telepathically told him as they began to free fall into the darkness.
The skin over his face migrated upwards. No matter how hard he tried to keep his mouth closed, his lips were loosened by the force that attempted to pry him off of Syrqnä. Saliva escaped from its corners and traveled up his face. Tears began to leak out of his eyes and his brain jiggled within his skull. His neck fought to keep his head in place.
Think of home. Home ...
Feeble muted lights rapidly vibrated before him. Furniture slowly began to materialize behind his closed eyelids.
The blue couch.
No, it was orange.
The wooden coffee table.
The sound of a clock that ticked on the wall.
It's a Small World softly chimed in the distance.
He stood outside his front yard, ready for school, but it was nighttime?
A shadowy figure lurked in the street.
He found himself back in his living room, watching TV.
His thoughts were scattered and he was having a difficult time focusing. The muscles on his arms and legs burned and ached as they strove to maintain their grasp. Paled and strained fingers held on to Syrqnä's jacket, they were beginning to cramp. He tried harder to search for a memory. Any memory.
He crept out of his room and cautiously approached the living room, halting in the corridor when a man strolled out of the kitchen. A suitcase was lazily dragged by one arm, rolling behind him. It wobbled and squeaked. The wheels underneath it scratched against the wood floor.
Each lumbering step loudly echoed through the corridor. The man's shaggy brown hair messily cascaded over his forehead. With his head hung low and shoulders slumped, he continued walking to the front door. Benjamin wanted to call out to his father, but the words were stuck in his throat.
"So, that's it? You're just going to leave? Run away?" His mother yelled from the kitchen.
Benjamin's heart quickened. His father was leaving? The last word repeated in his head several times.
His father paused. Sighing loudly, he held a hand over his face. "What more do you want me to say?"
"Please, don't go."
"I can't do this anymore, Margaret!"
"Oh, that's a lame excuse and you know it! You mean you 'won't', not 'can't'!"
"I CANNOT keep getting into the same arguments with you. It's always the same. Never changes. Nothing ever gets fixed, we just keep going back again and again to the same problems!"
His mother approached his father and placed a hand on his arm. "We can try to work them out. Together!"
He shook his head and gently removed her hand. "How many times have you said that? And we always return to the same spot. Every time! No, it's over."
"What about Benjamin, huh? Are you just going to abandon him?"
Benjamin's breath hitched, nervously clawing at the wall. Shaking his head, he stepped forwards, but stopped when he heard his father respond.
"Of course not! I'll set up some days I can visit him and he can stay with me once I find a place."
She moved away from him. "Wait ... are you going to take him away from me?" Her voice trembled.
"What? No! I meant he can stay with me some days. We'll split our time with him."
"That's ridiculous! Not to mention, completely unacceptable. You actually believe he's going to be happy with that?"
With a rueful laugh, his father threw his head back. "And you suppose he's happy now? Hearing us arguing every damn day? We can't even be in the same room for more than five minutes! Such a great happy environment!"
"No ... maybe we can try counseling?"
"Oh, this again. Because that worked so well last time?"
"I had to work! It's not my fault they rescheduled me!"
"That's always it though ... you know what?" He held his arms out in front of her, open palms gesturing her to stop. "Forget it. There's no point to this. I'm done here."
His father turned away and opened the front door. Wringing his hands together, Benjamin blinked away the tears building in his eyes. He sprang forwards and ran to his father.
"Dad?!?"
Wide-eyed, his father peered down at him. The surprised expression quickly melted away when he saw the quizzical and worried look on his son's face. Leaning down, he gently caressed the top of Benjamin's head. "Hey, buddy. Did we wake you up?"
"Where are you going?" Benjamin pointed at the suitcase.
"Listen, I have to go for a while. It'll only be a short while, I promise."
"No!" He violently shook his head and reached for his father.
"I promise! I WILL be back to see you soon."
"Please! Please, don't go!" Wrapping his arms around his father's waist, he buried his face on his shirt, tightening his hold.
His father pried Benjamin's small arms and pushed him away. "I'm sorry, Benjamin."
Benjamin reached out for his father again. He tried running out of the closing door, but his mother held him in place. Fighting against her, his feet repeatedly slipped against the floor's smooth surface. The door slammed and his father was gone. "Dad! DAD! Come back!"
"Don't." His mother said softly and then yelled at the door. "COWARD!"
"No! I don't want him to! Let go of me! LET GO!" He wailed. Fiercely trying to pry her arms off of him, he writhed and kicked his feet when she picked him up.
"STOP." She shook him.
"Make him come back!"
"He's gone. He's made his choice."
"Bring him back now, mom!" He viciously slapped at her arms. Red-faced, he sobbed and released a high-pitched scream.
"Stop it! I can't force him to do anything he doesn't—," her cellphone blared out an annoying alarm sound. It vibrated harshly against the kitchen counter. She set him down and stomped away. "Great! Just great! You have to get ready for school and I have to go to work. Couldn't have picked a better time, Stephen? You selfish bastard!"
"This is all your fault!" His voice cracked.
"Is that so?" She asked as she reached into the fridge, slamming the door shut. "Fine. Okay! It's my fault. Now go get ready."
He stood there and glared at her. "I hate you!"
The carton slipped out of her hand and crashed onto the floor. Orange juice spilled out and pooled near her slippers. "What did you just say?"
He seethed, panting heavily and choking back his tears. "I HATE YOU! I hate you! I hate you!" Screaming loudly, he bolted down the corridor and hid in his room.
Every day after school, he'd sit in the living room, eyeing the front door. When he needed to work on homework, he'd work on the coffee table, facing the door. Bathroom trips were taken in a hurry. Showers were speedily finished. The couch became his bed.
Days passed, followed by weeks full of the same routine. His father didn't return. He'd often wonder what 'soon' meant. Four months had passed and his birthday was around the corner. There was no way his father would his miss eleventh birthday, he repeatedly told himself.
The phone rang in the kitchen. His mother answered it, but then she spoke too softly for him to hear. A gasp resonated within the house, followed by stifled sobbing. Silence permeated and lingered until she called out his name. Begrudgingly, he walked to the kitchen, hoping she'd be quick. He wanted to be ready for when his father returned. Instead, he found out that he would never see him again. His father promised he'd be back, but he lied to him. It had all been a lie.
He was slipping away. Tears streamed out of his eyes and he was crying uncontrollably. No, he was slipping away from Syrqnä. The force from falling was tearing him off. His arms were floating above him and his thighs were pinned against her armpits. Strength was depleting from his muscles as fatigue settled into them. They were losing their grip.
*******
***While I was writing the third chapter following this, I read a chapter from Alyce Caswell where her protagonist Fei falls down a vortex. 'Ah, bleep.' That was my thought. My story was beginning to have too many similarities to hers in certain portions, something I'm not comfortable with, unless it's an homage/deconstruction. I wondered if I should change everything here and take another path, but I couldn't, it was too important for me to change. It was very important for the psychological [hidden] aspect of the story. Unlike the volcano dream [which connects to the hot vents on the mountain], in this circumstance, I will explain the hole's purpose [and importance]:
•Benjamin has fallen down the rabbit hole.
•Falling down a big hole = descent deeper in the unconscious. A descent to memories—repressed memories. The catalyst is the teddy bear she placed into his bag, instead of hers.
•The previous chapter detailing the dimly lit area of the hole above, continues to be aspects of himself which are not defined. Also, an escape route. In the previous chapter, a purely psychological escape route. In this one, it becomes a seemingly real, physical escape route, until the memories portion.
•Occasionally, it refers to death. There are three things Benjamin needs to work through within the whole story, this one initiates the death [transformation] of one of his three major problems. The hint of the problem is at the very end of the second to last paragraph and connects again with the beginning. Before this he's been slowly changing the other two, but he hadn't touched upon the third—final—problem.
•It's a dream challenge to see if you're confident in facing real life problems.
•It represents the feeling of being below others. Primarily, low self-esteem. He's bullied in the beginning, yet he does nothing about it, nor speaks up against it. This is a very smart, yet very 'soft' boy.
Apologies to Alyce if she continues to read this story!
Time for a little bit of Maths! Oh, come on! Some of you groaners in the back, this'll be interesting, I'm fairly certain of it.
How long would it take them to fall?
How much do each weigh again? Right, we don't know. Let's assume their combined weight is the same as one adult, male, human. They're falling 8,046 metres, or 26,400 feet, or five miles.
IT WOULD TAKE THEM BETWEEN 138.16-140 seconds, or 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 2 minutes and 32 seconds. [ROUGHLY!] Edit: I should add here the time you would get from only using terminal velocity 53m/s, just in case—152.1 seconds/2 minutes and 53 seconds. Though incorrect, since it doesn't even consider the standard atmosphere.
The problem with anything such as this is that unlike those wonderful little problems in your maths books at school, the real world contains variables. In this story, I didn't create varying atmospheric pressures for Kraälst Ta'ark, much less this vent. They're travelling with a gust of wind with an x amount velocity, in a vent with an x amount ambient temperature [yes, yes, he felt a chill, because he'd spent five days in Hell experiencing at least 38° Celsius/101° Fahrenheit within his shield. It's also described as 'musty with a rancid smell', we can therefore assume that the temperature is somewhere around 28°-30°C/82.4°-86°F with a wind gust making it feel slightly lower. The temperatures around the hot vents that surrounded the mountains should've been between ~375°-400°C/~707°-752°F.] Oh! One more very important factor, I never created a MEAN gravitational force within this world either.
I won't write a novel with the primary genre label being 'Science Fiction'. I would never finish it, probably fail [dismally] and if I didn't, at that point, I should just write a proposal with postulations instead of a story. Therefore, Science Fantasy it shall be!***