Project Erid - First Steps
Welcome to Project Erid.
"What is two plus two?" The question irritated me, I just want to sleep again. It's nowhere near my wake up time.
A few minutes go past, before the voice comes again.
"Whats two plus two?" I groan. It's much too early to be dealing with something that doesn't even know basic math.
"Whats two plus two?" The voice is exactly the same as the last two times as the voice said it. It must be some form of AI then.
"Kmrph." I try to respond, but gibberish is all that comes out.
"Incorrect." The lady's stupid voice rings out "Try again. What's two plus two."
"Jroe" I'm a little bit closer this time. I try to open my eyes but they stay shut, refusing to open even the slightest.
Okay one more try... And, open!
Oh! I felt a little wiggle, that must mean something. Come on, how hard can it be, just open your eyes!
Slowly but surely, I peek my eyelids open only to have them burned alive by the lights.
"Helspo?" I breathe out, eyes slowly adjusting. There's a claw thing above me. I get the faintest deja vu of seeing one of these before. God, that feels like a lifetime ago.
"Incorrect. What's two plus two?” The claw clicks a bit and fiddles with something on my right side. I attempt to roll my head to the side, but severely miscalculate the amount of force I would need and go rolling off the bed.
I feel the burning sensation of tubes being pulled out from… Was that in my- nope not going to think about it.
The claws grab at me in an attempt to place me back on the bed, but I inch away. Every movement I make feels like I’ve seen, or heard of before.
I scoot until I’m just out of reach of their prying fingers, the ladies' voice calling out for me to stay still. I allow myself a moment to catch my breath before really looking around.
I’m in a stark white room, right at the very bottom. I was just laying on a bed before I crawled away. I look up, expecting to see the roof at a normal distance.
Oh how wrong I was.
There is a domed ceiling, but it’s at least 35 feet above me with a ladder leading up to a hatch in it. Stacked in a column above me are two other identical beds. A track runs around the room, presumably for those pestering arms to take care of me, and whoever is lying above me.
What if they’re dead like how it was for Grace?
Grace… Where have I heard that name before?
“Camilie, this is Dr. Ryland Grace. He’s going to help us save the world.” I clutch my moms hand, everything here is so loud. There's too much going on all at once. The man in front of me seems friendly enough, reaching out a hand for me to shake.
“Hi there. You can just call me Grace.” I look up at my mom who gives me a rare smile and takes the man's hand.
“Hi…” I mumble over to him. “You can call me Cami.” He gives me a warm smile, his eyes lighting up.
“That’s a wonderful name” He crouches down so he’s at my level. “How old are you Cami?” His glasses are hanging off his face in a silly way.
“I’m six now Mister Grace” a smile breaking out across my face. “How old are you?”
“Camilie!” My mother scolds me. “It’s not polite to ask someone their age.” Well that's not fair. He asked me my age–
“It’s alright, I asked her.” Mister Grace stops my mom on her scolding and winks at me. “I’m thirty-three.” I raise my eyebrows. He’s like, really old.
“Stratt! We need you.” An out of breath looking person comes running up to my mom, handing her something on a tablet.
“Understood. Come on Camilie.” She takes my hand and tugs me away from Mister Grace, who waves as we walk away.
“Please return to your bed.” The computer’s voice rings out again, it’s claws still trying to grab me.
That’s why all this seems familiar. My mom showed me this stuff before, but that must have been ages ago. I look down at my arms, and torso, I must be at least seventeen by now.
“What’s two plus two?” Oh so we’re back to this are we. I grab onto a bar on the side of the wall and heave myself up. My legs barely want to work. It’s like they’ve been asleep for ages. I hold myself up on that bar until I’m sure that I’m steady enough to move.
“Four.” The computer stops for a moment and I hold my breath hoping that it’s the answer it was looking for.
“Correct.” The arms back off a little bit once the computer says this. Giving me more room to move about the little dorm area.
Everything looks exactly as it did on the Hail Mary, almost identical. Even down to the color of the walls. Am I on the Hail Mary?
That can’t be right. Last we heard we went to Erid to save his little rock friend. Rocky, I think his name was.
Plus I have gravity, which I wouldn’t have if I was in space. Then again, the Hail Mary did have a centrifuge so that they could have gravity for their experiments.
Nope. No way. I’m not in space. My mom would barely even let me leave the house without my location. There's no way she would just throw me up into space.
Would she?
I mean she did that to Grace but–
“What's two plus two?” What is it with this god awful two plus two thing?! I spin on my heel getting ready to tell this AI that it needs to shut it, but the arms are gone.
“What’s two plus two?” I crane my head up, and find that the arms are at the topmost bunk now, messing with something up there.
When Grace woke up everyone was dead.
“Krphsm!” I see a blur of motion falling towards me from above. Scrambling to the side the mass gets stopped by the arms just before it hits the ground before its gently set down.
“What’s two plus two?”
“It’s four. Four! Do you hear me?!” The mass reveals itself to be a man, thankfully fully clothed. I slink further back as he grabs onto a bar and heaves himself up grumbling. He has a heavy Russian accent, and a fully grown beard that he makes an offended noise at once he notices.
He gets himself steady on his feet before turning around. I try to step back even further, hoping maybe this man won’t even see me. He finishes his turn and looks straight at me before letting out a heavy, annoyed sigh. Shaking his head he starts for the ladder, then realizing I don’t plan on following him stops.
“Do you want normal clothes or not?” Without waiting for a reply he climbs up the ladder making it to the top way too fast for someone who just rolled out of bed. Literally.
“State your name for access.” The computer voice says.
“Marc.” He gives no inclination of giving a last name, but the computer seems fine with that. The hatch opens and he crawls through.
Shit he’s actually not waiting for me.
It’s actually not too bad of a climb, I ignore the person who’s still sleeping (hopefully they’re alive) the computer doesn’t even ask me my name as I climb through the hatch.
I heave myself onto the first area where I saw Marc go and walk unsteadily over in the direction that I’m hoping Marc is in.
Thankfully I’m right.
“Here’s your stuff” he tosses a duffel bag at my feet as he tugs on a shirt. “Get dressed and meet me out there.” Then without another word he brushes past me and shuts the door.
I crouch down and slowly unzip the bag. Maybe this is like an escape room, and I’ll find clues in this bag.
I rifle through the different things in there. Two (very) popular fantasy books from back home, a stuffed frog, a box full of notes from different people wishing me luck (?), a pair of round black glasses (which I gratefully put on), and piles of brightly colored clothes.
I tug on a shirt with the Project Hail Mary logo on it and a pair of sweat pants. There's a pair of black converse with little stars on them, so I pull those on too before opening the door again.
I turn the corner to see Marc hunched over a table, he looks up when I walk over, rolling his eyes slightly at my shirt before going back to the papers on the table.
“Are those going to help us escape or something?” I reach to grab the papers but he tugs them out of reach.
“Escape?” The word sounds funny with his accent.
“That’s what this is isn’t it?” He looks at me funny. “An escape room?” Something flickers behind his eyes before he looks away, back to his papers.
“There’s no escape. These are mission notes.” He holds up the papers, still out of reach from me.
“Isn’t that exactly what someone in an escape room would say?” I cross my arms, trying to look down at him. It’s a little hard to do given that fact that he’s like, six whole inches taller than me.
He pinches the bridge of his nose before walking right up in front of me. Instinctively I shrink down a bit, but instead of yelling he just grabs my arm and drags me in a different direction.
“Believe me now?” He roughly yanks me upright after I tripped. I go to tell him off, but the window we’re in front of stops me.
There are no words to describe it. There’s nothing and something all at the same time. The darkness is almost never ending, but the twinkling of stars makes it feel so up close. Stars slowly disappear to the left and new ones come up to the right.
Holy fucking shit.
I’m in space.
Taglist: @rat-talks-alot
