Episode 147: Severe Hemorrhagic Gabagool

Strange light checkers the floor of a concrete hall. You dash through beam after beam, deciding it is warm and unfamiliar. The air thickens with each footfall. You do not know what is ahead of you. You are frankly no longer sure of what is behind you. The sterile swish of your assigned clothing melts into an acrid sweat that you have never felt, even during the most rigorous hours you spent in the Fitness Pavilion.

You pass others just like you, feeling the same emptying sensation with each breath. You're sure they feel the same. They always have, you think.

The path ahead of you barrels toward a widening pinprick of light and stench. This hallway was not meant to be walked. Not one this long. A quick trickle drips out from an unseen source between two support beams in the low ceiling. Water, you arrogantly assume. Your legs buckle. You slip in the pool it forms. You split your chin on the warm, wet concrete.

Blood drips and dances among the pools forming on the floor. Your ankle throbs. You crawl, hand-over-hand, toward the gaping end of this dismal journey. The light is now so bright. Your pupils strain and then give out. It penetrates into your mind. Heat and dust grind through your veins. Your heart beats faster. You know that you will reach the end.

The concrete has given way to a mountain of rock and metal. You are climbing ever upward now. You cannot see your wretched hands scrabbling among the twisted roots and rods. You are full. Leaden. A gust of wind ripples down the back of your jumpsuit.

Things are as they should be.

~~~~~~~~

I wake with a start on the banks of a crystal lake. Carefully-placed trees dot the shoreline and meander skyward. "Oh my god. Bo. Bo! I... I think we made it," I exclaim as I roll myself onto my back and stare at the unfamiliar sky.

"Bo?" I sit up and look around. I see only the smoldering crater and its trailing purple echo that screeches down into it from above the canopy.

"Bo? Where am I?"
"...Who are you?"