>>6002335<span class="mu-i">It's that dream again.</span> You cast a furtive glance behind your back. The hooded figures have kept their pace, precisely thirty feet behind, not an inch off. Around a corner, you lean on a wall for a short rest. The rumble of steps perishes in a sudden halt, leaving your panting marooned, stranded in the soundscape. Without even consciously thinking, you clamber in and out of hatches, feeling your way forward through cobweb-infested maintenance tunnels.
What are you even trying to accomplish? This is the part where you recognise you can't escape. You speed up, they speed up. You turn, they turn. You reverse towards them, they back away. You cower in a locker, they respectfully wait just beyond your grated vision. Like restless humans, they march until their prey drops dead from exhaustion. But you're no common prey. In this world, there's no thirst, no hunger, no tiredness. Only boredom, lightly peppered with dread.
What was your personal endurance record, anyway? Not this time, that's for sure. As usual, the lead cultist slides back just a little when confronted by your gaze. “What's the matter with you?” Chernov answers, the hood of his robe just barely covering the still-smoldering temple. “What's the matter with you? I thought you are not my enemy. Why are you running away from us? From the void that embraces all?” He bares a grin, teeth charred brown by radiation.
Close your eyes. You are on Venus. The air presses heavily on your skin, despite the climate adjusters running on full blast. Sulfuric rain thumps against the roof, sending just the faintest hint of rotten egg up your nostrils. The environment is hostile, but it is alive in its own way. Indeed, the very atmosphere oppresses, pulls you down, anchors you in life. This is as far away from the void as it gets.
Another jeer from the mutineers, Dick this time. “Touching dirt again, ain't ya? Not gonna work, yer a spacer now. Ya can hunker deep underground, and still hear her call. The Mistress awaits.” The rest murmurs after his lead, “The Mistress awaits.” If only you have some malicitite on you right now, you will show these fools who the real mistress is. Unfortunately, you don't. Instead, sensing a rare moment of distraction in your pursuers, you break into a mad dash.
Tough luck, they are not as negligent as you have hoped. Your hands grope around in the darkness for a while before finding purchase. Smooth, like a gemstone. Oh God, no. Your shoulder blade itches. Rainbow light shines from behind you, revealing a wall of skulls, their eyes studded with black diamonds.
Something is stirring under the skin of your back. You fall on all fours, groaning from the splitting pain. Air flows down your throat in ragged bursts. Up out of it comes inhuman crows, as the wings tear lose of its fleshy prison. The cultists kneel wordlessly, light filtered through your figure dancing on their hoods.
