WC-757

I shamble for the rectangle of light above me.

I had only the vaguest of notions of moving up the stairs, gripping a ramshackle railing which only barely supported me in my slackened state. The journey had been a long one, and the relief in me was immense. My only concern now was explaining my presence to whomever I would meet in my passing. My arrival was bound to be one hell of a surprise.

I paused an inconspicuous distance before the threshold, listening curiously. The room beyond was in obvious disrepair, the confirming state of its construction or deconstruction indecipherable. A passage stretched forth from its leftmost extent, taking off with a slight decline into gloom.

Emerging slowly--cautiously--I took in the rest of the space.

The room stretched a peculiar distance off to the left and right, the left in something of a curving triangle, the right pentagonal, the passage the geometrical center. An octet of portholes graced the hypotenuse wall, shedding no light onto whatever outward scene they interceded. A command center of sorts spilled across the rightward perimeter, its present mechanical framework inherited by a whirlwind of activity which had exposed much of what may have otherwise forfeited itself to the imagination.

With a mounting sense of the inexplicable, I took my only untainted relief in making one last lumber toward an ergonomic chair, one which had seen only a slight assailing of its features.

Easing myself in, I laxed all but my ears, my attention fixed wholly on the ambience of the place.

Still even as I listened, nothing appeared to rattle my sensations. The eviscerated tech which surrounded me had been wholly decommissioned, betraying not even a single pulse of life. Of course, the overhead lights and room temperature spoke for themselves, padding at least a few of my uneasy suspicions with welcome doubt.

And yet, the point of contention remained: for where the wellspring continued its operations was a mystery yet to be unraveled. There were certainly no heating vents, nor other recognizable synonyms of circulation, which I could see.

I remained there for some time, the arduous journey leaving me quite blissful despite the state of affairs, and even the shortcomings of the chair.

I may have drifted off at one point, though my utter exhaustion left the memory of such slumber no less memorable than the ebon sheltering of a flitting eyelid.

Yet, in some space in time which I find myself similarly unable to pinpoint, a succession of sounds had broken the still. Of consciousness or the air, again, was inconclusive. Like all else, I fathomed, was I no stranger to the peculiar behaviors of the brain amidst the interfacings of certain diurnal commonalities. But curiosity--and doubtless fear--brought me to my feet all the same, cognizant now of much of which my own brain had tuned out in due course of my strenuous flight underground.

I moved as silently as I could manage, ears now strained for the extents of my perceptions. I could now just make out a level tone upon the air.

There was a marked change in the head of the passage, too, the once gloomy depths now ablaze in a sickening burgundy, its complexion swimming like dislodged sediment in seawater.

I edged along the wall, regarding the entryway I had emerged from earlier. It appeared as before, though evidently of a deeper ebon to my newly acclimated eyes.

Heartbeat teasing a crescendo, I reached the corner and stopped. The alien tone carried faultlessly, as even by the brink of the unknown passage its acoustical resonance had neither risen nor faltered.

Defying the terror which threatened to invade, I worked my gaze around the corner.

About twenty feet down the corridor stood a marine door, inordinate in stature within its thin frame. The atypical hue poured forth from the light above it, the view beyond the porthole synonymous with that of its brethren.

And then...seemingly at once...the terrifying reality became clear:

but I rebounded at once, cursing the very payload of my curiosity. Frankly, the portholes should have broken me far earlier. But the strain which had so enveloped me in my flight had found my nerves frayed, and blinded to the irrefutable truth: of where I remained, and of how I had arrived.

And like a devilish turnkey a madness swaddled my mind, its thin fabric no match for the cold, and I at once took off from that sight, slinking back into the ebon abyss below, into the only sanctuary which now remained.