Quoted By:
You scoff as you ponder just how spoiled The Cats can get these days. Were you a too dotting mistre- master? ...No, it's Angelina’s fault for feeding Them bad food, probably.
Yet you can't dwell on that for long. Suddenly, the previously steady machinery roars with renewed vigor, curbing your contemplations and dashing any hopes of planning with the ear-piercing wail of straining cogs of reality at hand. And it’s the clangor you know by heart already, after all those descends alongside Seo-young. The blast doors are beginning to close! Too fast! The time is almost up! You must reach the elevator while you still can!
Now alone, you hastily peer over again. The guards are all on the move, with the two loitering around the cart and preparing the area, and the third-!
The third makes her way over to you, gun drawn.
For a split second, you feel as if yours and their eyes met, even though the terrifying, black shield of the hazmat mask. Time stops for a second, with it, its abstract noises. Did she see you? It’s too late to run... On instinct, you dash back and stumble limply below the misty white ocean. Drowned ever further by the heavy, rock-like lump of panic in your stomach.
There, the sudden shift of temperature - of your surroundings? - sends a dazing spark headfirst and through your body, and a new cloud starts fogging your racing mind...
Like in slow motion, you lie at the bottom by the wall, surrounded by nothing but the swirling tendrils obscuring the traces of light, leaving you in grayish darkness. The world, the danger, ebbs away. Only distant vibrations and the slowing pounds of your heart send ripples through the cozy blanket of your newfound bedding. It’s almost serene. With gentle licks of ice cooling the burst of fiery emotions. Shielding you from everything with its otherworldly plumpness. The evidence, The Cat, Seo-young, the guard, everything swirls along with the tides. Everything.
You barely blink when the orange boot stomps mere finger length from your face, shuffling your hair out of the way. For an undetermined amount of time, the shape remains. With it, you in your stasis, heart’s in sync with the slowing vibrations.
…
Then, with another ripple, it moves away, revealing... a shimmering shape behind it? You squint dazedly and the blurry, bright dot turns into a series of many tiny, golden and white ones lined in the shape of thin fibers. Focusing further, the mysterious constellation forms... an animal? Or more like the nerve system of one, sitting patiently and overlooking you from afar. Like a small - morbid - guiding light.
Realization hits you. With it blessed, albeit still wobbly, consciousness. The loving licks of cool morph back into the piercing icy spears all over. There is a pulsing, painful sensation at the back of your head. The machinery is getting even more silent. The doors are closed, and with them, the fog stopped pouring in,as now rays of light pierce through the greyish canopy.
