konene (wayfaring) - chapter 3
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The world around her came into focus, hazy and smoke-filled. Alessa blinked once, twice, groaning as the pounding between her eyes made itself known once again.
As her senses gradually came back she realised that the branch-like arms of her enclosure were gone, the only thing now keeping her tight in the pod a glass looking panel in front of her.
The air inside was stale, and she felt her chest constrict as panic began to take over. In response to her quickening pulse and trembling body, she reached up, a sudden desperation to be free of her confines urging her on. With what limited movement she had she reached shaking arms up to push.
“God fucking dammit!”
Expecting more resistance, she nearly fell flat on her face, tumbling forward as the panel gave way with a hiss of fetid air. Her limbs protested at the sudden movement, seemingly having resigned themselves to a fate inside the cramped space. She just barely managed to land upright as the thing behind her sealed itself back up, leaving her to her own devices once more.
‘Not sure if that’s a win, really.’ The room around her was hazy, the source of the acrid smoke a number of fires that were lining the edges of the room. Adrenaline was surging now, fight or flight mode kicking in. And by god flight mode was looking more and more appealing by the second. She paused a moment to assess her surroundings, survey the area.
‘WWBGD? Bear Grylls, Bear Grylls. Channel your inner Man vs Wild.’
She pulled her hoodie up around her face, pulling the strings tight around her lower face. Her breath was hot against the fleecy lining, but it was infinitely better than the lungfuls of smoke she’d have otherwise. The haze in the room stung her eyes, but she was able to blink through it and keep focused.
The pool where that creature had pulled the tadpole from sat in the centre of the room, and as soon as she laid eyes on it she felt vindictive anger rise. Alessa crept closer to the container, unsure of just exactly what she would find inside but determined to do something to it. Peeking her head over the side, she felt a shiver run through her at the sight of the thousands of tadpoles circling peacefully in the water below.
‘It’s like that scene from Scooby Doo that Rhiannon made me watch, with the souls in the pot.’ The thought had her cackling internally before the reality of the situation sank in. ‘They could infect thousands of people…’
She let the thought linger for a moment before dashing it completely. She took a step back, eyeing the container and its surprisingly flimsy looking exterior.
“Well, there ain’t nothing to infect if they don’t have anything to infect them with.”
She looked around, hoping for anything that would help her destroy the pool of demon leeches. A gleam caught her eye, and with perhaps more glee than the moment necessarily warranted she grabbed the rough piece of metal. Before her nerves could desert her she spun back around, darting forward and sinking the sharp end straight into the side of the container. A spark of shock thrilled through her at how little resistance there was, and with an almost manic exhilaration she pulled it sideways, opening a long, jagged tear in the side. Her delight at having gotten one up on her captors quickly turned to panic as the liquid that washed over her hand from inside began to burn. She jumped back with a shout, shaking off as much as she could and wiping her hand frantically on the side of her trackpants.
“Great move dumbass.” Tears pricked at her eyes as the pain in her hand faded to a dull ache, and she glared resentfully at the slowly spreading puddle on the floor. Grim satisfaction ebbed through her as she watched swarms of tadpoles spill out of their container, and a feral grin crept it’s way onto her face as she watched as, one by one, they flailed in the open air, their dying screeches fading away without a host to sustain them.
Satisfied that she had done at least one thing right in this whole damn debacle she made her way around to the other side of the room, looking for a way out. She thought she had seen some sort of doorway on the opposite side. But as she got closer, she realised it wasn’t a door at all. At least, it wasn’t like any door she’d ever seen before.
“It looks like an asshole. A puckered asshole.”
She sat with the thought a moment, the ridiculousness of it all finally hitting her.
‘Am I supposed to believe that I’ve been abducted by tentacled alien abominations, inserted with a freaky brain-eating tadpole, and then released to find my way out? What is this, some sort of fucking hyper-realistic escape room bullshit?!’
“Am I being Punk’d? Is that what this is? Are they so out of original ideas that they had to revive that shithouse of a show?!” Throwing her hands up in frustration, she raged at the empty room, gesturing wildly as she pivoted in place. “If this is a joke and I’m being recorded right now, just know that I’m suing you all to hell and back!”
Her bravado was interrupted as she tripped on an uneven patch of ground, and she swore at the pain that lanced through her big toe as she fought to right herself. She noticed then that the area beneath her feet was shaking. As though in response to the silent acknowledgement the ground lurched, and a large rumbling could be heard from ahead.
From the direction of the only way out of this place.
‘Just fucking great.’
Realising that she had no way out but through the asshole, she gingerly made her way towards it. She paused before the door, not seeing any handles or visible markings that suggested a way to open it. Just as she was contemplating jumping straight at the thing and seeing what would happen, her arm brushed against the fleshy frame of the door. With a sound not unlike the suctioning of a tentacle it spiralled open, allowing her passage into the room beyond.
This space was empty, void of anything but a few small tables on the far right and a number of glowing bulbs dotted about that she was going to keep well away from.
Moving towards the tables, she caught sight of something sparkling in the firelight. Getting closer, she saw that it was a handful of large, shiny gems; a diamond, a ruby, what looked to be some sort of bloodstone maybe? She paused for a moment, looking about for any hidden cameras.
‘Fuck it. If they want me to play the game, then so be it. They’re probably fake anyway.’ She shrugged and grabbed the gems, stuffing them into her pockets before looking over the other things gathered there.
A few tattered sheets of parchment paper sat there, alien looking diagrams dotted with ink splats and smudges. A feather quill, and an inkpot. And three stone tablets, etched with some sort of ancient runes. She reached a hand out to the closest one, fingers trembling as they slowly brushed over the tablet.
Images immediately assaulted her senses.
The helm of a ship hurtling through the wide planes of space, an astral sea as far as the eye can see. The briefest of moments, then an identical ship blinks onto the horizon. Then another, and another, tentacled fronds hanging off the front writhing in the empty vacuum of space. An armada forms in seconds, the feeling of triumph and conquest building until-
Alessa snapped her hand away, terrified. Her breath was coming hard now, unsure of whether the things she'd seen were past or prophecy. Either way, it left her reeling, chilled to the core, the alien feelings from the vision still lingering. She moved away from the table, unwilling to face whatever else was stored on the other tablets.
Another asshole door sat on the opposite side of the room, and she made quick work of ignoring everything else and making her way over to it. Like the one before, it took only the lightest of touches before it spiralled open, leading to yet another cavernous room.
And that was when she heard it. A noise, a phrase? Whatever it was, it was calling to her. An almost synthetic sound, like dozens of voices laid over one another. Alessa let out a cry as the spot in her head where the tadpole had wriggled its way in throbbed, a searing pain lancing its way across her brain.
The noise entered her mind again, and she felt another spike in response.
And again, though this time there was no accompanying pain.
‘Here! We are here!’
The noise. She understood it.
“What in the… we? Who is ‘we’?” Alessa shouted, half-turning for the source of the voice. She felt a tug, something pulling her towards the left side of the room. She made her way across, jumping over smouldering piles and holes in the floor. The smoke was thicker in here now, clearly coming in through a gap in the wall.
Pressing the button on the control, she gasped as the platform she was on jolted, and with a hum began to lift up to another level in the room that she hadn’t noticed before. As it came to a halt, she paused, looking around for any other dangers. She realised with a start that so far, she had been the only person in wherever the hell this place was.
‘Even the woman from the other pod was gone.’
From this vantage point she could see another door on the opposite side of the room, this one broken and half open. Fire licked around the edges, and she could hear some sort of noise coming from whatever was on the other side.
“This is one hell of an escape room,” she mumbled, and was about to press the button to take her back down when she was interrupted once again.
‘Yes, help us!’ The voice was stronger now, and again she felt that tug, as though it was guiding her forward, showing her the way. Through the haze began to make out something just ahead of her. As she moved closer, she was able to make out a figure. Moving with caution now, making use of what was left of her self-preservation instincts, she chose her steps carefully, kept her breath even, hoping to sneak up on whatever it was that was calling her.
As the haze began to clear she saw what was ahead. Horror bloomed in her what was sitting in the middle of the space.
“It’s not real, it’s just a prop. It’s not real, it’s not real, it can’t be real…” The phrase kept her grounded, focused, rooted in some form of reality as she took in the sight laid out before her.
A human man lay sprawled on a crude looking surgical chair, naked from the waist up. He looked in rather good shape were it not for the rivulets of blood flowing down his face. His eyes were locked in a blank stare, his mouth twitching ever so slightly. A clean incision ran straight across his forehead, and where hair and bone should have been instead sat exposed brain. Her stomach revolted at the sight, but a macabre fascination kept her staring.
‘Help us, please!’
She jumped as the voice once again entered her mind, stronger now, as though it was coming from the man itself. She silently thanked whatever gods were listening that she had a penchant for horror movies and a nurse for a mother as her nerves settled, not completely disturbed by the gore in front of her, and moved to get a better look.
It was as though she had detached from all logical thought now. As long as she kept reminding herself that this was all a set up, that this would all go away soon, then she would be alright. Because if she sat and thought about it for too long, sat and really truly analysed the fact that this man’s scalp was gone and his brain was right there, then she just might lose her damn mind. As it was, the reasonable part of her own brain was long gone, instead replaced with a morbid curiosity at the wriggling, pulsing thing in front of her. She reached up a hand, as though in a trance, and was just about to poke the exposed nerves when the voice spoke to her again.
‘Free us! Help us!'
Alessa straightened, looking about for the true source of the voice. “Wait, who are you? Where are you?”
‘We are here - here!’
She startled as the body in the chair twitched, small convulsions running through it.
‘Yes, you’ve come to save us from this place, from this place you’ll free us!’ She jumped as the brain quivered in sync with the voice, a sense of anticipation colouring the words. 'Please, before they return. They return!’
Alessa straightened and her eyes darted about, on alert for anything else that may have been lurking nearby. Not seeing anything immediate, she returned her attention to the brain before her.
“What do I need to do?” A growing pit in her stomach suggested she already knew the answer.
‘Remove us from this body, from this case. Free us!’
Alessa let out a groan at the obvious answer. “Dammit, why did it have to be some Saw level shit?! At least these fucking animatronics are decent.”
Not giving herself time to think too much on what she was about to do, she moved forward and plunged her hands into the cavity around the man’s brain. The juices keeping it in place were cool to the touch, and the brain itself was so soft she was afraid she’d damage it just by moving it. But it was more pliable than she thought, and as she curled her finger further in around the base of the skull she found that it came away surprisingly easily. With a soft sucking noise, a spray of blood, and a soft shout of astonishment from her, it pulled free, and Alessa was left with a still pulsing, slightly warm human brain in her hands. She stood there for a moment unsure of what to do with it, her breath quickly becoming more rapid as she began to process just exactly what she had done.
The decision was made for her however as it began to vibrate in her hands, shaking and trembling like a chihuahua on steroids. The screech Alessa let out was decidedly unladylike as the brain moved of its own volition, leaping out of her hands to land with a solid splat against the hard ground. Disbelief, revulsion, fascination, all coursed through her as the brain shuddered, grew four clawed legs from below and sprouted thin tendrils from its upper back.
“What the hell?!” Alessa jumped back, as the creature reared back on its hind legs, angled as though looking at her.
‘We are free! Our freedom is ours! Friend!’ The voice once again echoed through her head, the voice she now realised belonged to this creature in front of her. The brain tilted slightly, and Alessa felt a vibration in her skull as the tadpole seized in recognition. She barely had time to register what was happening before the creature spoke again, brain stalks waving eagerly.
‘We must go to the helm. At the helm we are needed!’
“Where.. how… what? What is happening?” She was left spluttering to herself as the creature began to skitter off, moving towards a side path in the back of the room that she had missed. It stopped at the start of the decline, waiting for her.
Alessa paused for a moment, weighing her options.
Option one: this was all some elaborate setup, she’d be safe and sound, all she needed to do to find out just what in the hell was going on would be to continue on and play their game.
Or option two: this was real. She really had been abducted by aliens and was currently in some foreign bunker somewhere dealing with eldritch abominations and tadpole mind bugs and brains that grew legs and talked telepathically.
“Sure, what have I got to lose?” The laugh she let out was manic, the reality of her situation suddenly feeling like a dead weight.
Without any other course of action, bar sitting and waiting for her inevitable end, and against all better judgement, she stood and followed it down and towards an open door.
Towards chaos. And fire. And what sounded like roaring, and thunder.
‘At least I’ll die with a shred of dignity?’
She was just about to turn the corner, now nearly delirious with fear and exhaustion and pain, before something lunged over her head.
Close.
Too close.
Flinching back, Alessa almost lost her footing as she scrambled to get away from whatever was coming for her now. Looking up, ready to face her almost certain doom, she found herself face to face with the tip of a gleaming sword.
She froze in place. The only thing she dared to move was her eyes as she took in the sight before her. Following the line of the sword backwards, a shock ran through her as she saw the green skin, dark tattoos. The woman’s hair, which Alessa realised was actually a dark red, had small braids throughout, and her thin lips were pulled back in a ferocious snarl.
Alessa threw her arms up, hoping that the gesture of surrender was a universal thing.
“Stop, please! I need help!”
