>>5634607>Deus Ex Machina. Applying that unused 100 from the last thread because Se-young deserves an ending of some sort.The automatic door hisses open, and stepping into the new room, what greets her is a rift in the middle of the room that her mind scrambles to understand but cannot. There is machinery around, but dust and rust cover everything. This place has weight as if something monstrous, in consequence, has waited here for a very long time. From everywhere and nowhere, she hears voices familiar and unfamiliar.
"There is something below this school that they tried to harness." Morgan, an old council member.
"Imagine what we could do with such powers." a younger voice. Is that Ms. Müller?
"The test subjects have broken." an unfamiliar voice, cold, clinical, and clipped.
"Se-young, do you hear me?" An old teacher of hers when younger.
"We need younger subjects. Their minds are more malleable." The cold voice once more.
"The rift can get you anywhere; you need to focus." A more aged voice, a lecturer firm and commanding.
"It doesn't matter how many it takes. I will win!" A younger voice, but unmistakably Yui's.
"You cannot understand it with the reason, you fools. It responds to emotion, desire, and dissent. It eats," a shrill voice, Cassandra, the former council treasurer, the one who took the most of Rift-7.
Se-young takes in all this, her ears ringing from the voices, some louder than a shout, some quiet as a whisper. A question comes into her mind. She knows it is not hers. Her mouth tastes like salt, and she smells dry sand. Heat radiates off the rift like an open fire. It feels like she is both at her most potent and her most helpless. The taste of iron slips into her mouth, and she realizes her nose has begun to bleed. Something is glancing at her and has asked a question that burns in her mind to be answered.
W H A T D O Y O U W A N T ?
For Yui to be alive.
For this school to be destroyed.
For release from fear.
For strength to not fail.
To be happy.
To live.
The rift takes in all this, and Se-young can feel it is judging her. Scouring her mind. She is found wanting. It is pleased. Her feet move before her mind catches up. In front of the rift, she looks down at Yui in her arms and then steps forward into the unknown.
