Creche 2.1 Draft
Creche 2.1
{A gathering of hatchlings in a nesting colony, tended to by different adult birds.}
(•͈⌔•͈ ﾂ
It was wet, and so dark I was blind to everything but the path and flow of the water. The first two seconds were a confused jumble, up was down, down was up, then right. I was spinning down the chute before I tucked in my arms and legs and abandoned myself to the path of the pipe as I was washed down, and steeled myself through every painful bump against the walls.
My lungs burned.
The first time I surfaced, I spluttered and gasped, and coughed. I swallowed as much water as air. The second time I was dazed, black swimming in the corners of my eyes, and my hair in my face.
When the water finally slowed, I was half drowned, floating on top of the stream that was almost a river. I don't know how I ended face up and lived through that. Powers, maybe.
I floated to a stop on a gravel bank, and it was a few minutes before I gathered my wits, shook off my daze and sat up.
I hurt. I hurt, all of me. I couldn't see much, but a beam of light filtered from high above. I had come to rest in a cavern, it was wide and open, the ceiling damp and dripping. Spires of stone stretched from the floor to the ceiling.
The cavern extended away in two directions, the cavern wall was separated into a maze of rocky ledges and smooth, water worn stone formations. Somewhere the rusted pipes and concrete had become a cave.
Under these, an empty expanse widened and widened until the flow was thin over the ledge into the dark bellow, I was lucky it became too shallow for me to float over the edge. I wasn't sure I was in Alchemilla any more, but that strange echo was still there. Labyrinth's power was still all around me, still active, still working. Stronger now, I thought… I might even be closer to her.
I gathered my legs under me and shivered, then stood up. I weaved a little on my feet, dizzy. Nauseous. I folded, my knees giving out under me and I fell to all fours in the water. I vomited up all the water I'd swallowed, until the heaves didn't bring anything more up.
I tried to stand again, and this time managed to keep my feet. I waded until the water was not around my knees anymore, but splashed with every step. The air was cool and moist, and raised goosebumps on my arms. Cold.
Where did I go now?
I stepped over to the wall, trailing my hand as a guide in the murk until I stood over the edge of the lethargic waterfall. Far below, the water turned to misty darkness. I knew the bottom had to be there, I could hear it. Water fell, water was everywhere.
I looked back the way I came. Then up, into the rocks and formations overhead. Labyrinth was well named, I'd never find my way through all of that.
I stopped and planted my feet. I pushed on my power, turned the dial up, flipped the switch, listened. I didn't have a target, didn't have a destination, so I simply set it loose, pulled back my filters and let it tell me what it did.
Labyrinth's power was still working, things were still moving.
I heard voices.
I stopped and listened, shouting. That sounded like… Regalia.
I mean, he was the only person I knew that treated shouting like it was a conversational tone of voice. With that, I squared my shoulders and looked up, plotting a path up the stratum ledges. Up it was.
I gripped the lowest stone shelf, it was above chest level, and jumped up. I got my elbows over the rock and tried to pull myself up. After a few seconds of straining I started using my legs, feeling for a toehold.
As I kicked uselessly, my power filled in gaps, the location of the rock around me- then it surprised me. I started becoming more aware of my center of balance, or the way my arms were positioned, my leverage… The water on the rock, how slippery it was…
Awareness expanded, and I pulled myself up onto the ledge. Huh.
"Not so hard…"
The awareness remained. Weird. I'd used my power on myself before, but… not like that. Weird… but… I liked it.
I looked for another handhold, and pulled myself up. It wasn't easy, but… It was doable. I reached out for another handhold, pulled myself up. I was breathing hard, but I could see, just looking at them, which I could reach. Which I could pull myself up. How to go about it.
I scaled the rock wall with increasing ease. At the top my arms were shaking, and I was breathing hard, but it was more my being out of shape- I went right up the wall. I knew exactly where my fingerholds were, where I could brace myself, where I could wedge my fingers and toes to hold me. I was in complete control of my balance.
"Wow." I breathed, hands on my knees, "Wow." I started to laugh, then I really laughed. For the first time, using my power had left me… giddy. Really, truly giddy. That had been fun!
"I said quiet! I hear someone."
I stopped laughing, and turned. I didn't see anyone. The voice had been flat and mechanical. Basilisk.
I had that feeling again, the sensation of building, mounting. Labyrinth's power was accumulating again. There was a change coming. I took a step back from the drop.
I spotted Basilisk a moment later, she was poking her head out of one of the tunnels further back and was soaked to the skin, her hair was plastered to her neck and scalp and it looked black in the gloom. Her orange jumpsuit looked brown. "Oh. It's you." Basilisk squinted at me, which looked strange with the bulky, vented mask she wore.
I took a small step back. As the walls rippled with bricks and leaves. Basilisk's eyes widened a moment before her face vanished in an emerging tree's branches.
"What-" I managed before I followed suit.
The terraces and stratified cave wall was transforming, branches and leaves, emerging. Brick, stone, walls emerged from the floor in crumbled heaps.
I watched in wonder as the ruin of an old castle emerged from the walls all around me. Trees shot towards the sky, grass emerged from the stone and water in a wave of gold and green. A village, perched on a rocky landscape accented with long grasses and tall trees, but still inside the cave?
Was the cave natural, maybe a large room in Alchemilla before Labyrinth had changed it? Was there a limit to how much Labyrinth could effect the landscape, the… the layout of her worlds?
"Fuuuuuuuck!" Basilisk's metallic scream roused me as she tumbled through the canopy of a tree. She'd rode up some twenty feet toward the sky, this was complicated by the tree itself hanging over what was now a ten-foot drop. I jumped to try and reach her, catch her- a move that in retrospect was pointless. She was too far away, and anyway she had to weigh more than I did.
What was I going to do, cushion her fall?
Basilisk landed hard, but it was on a grassy patch- well, a muddy grassy patch. It barely resembled the sluggish river that it had been, and fortunately for her. Not far to fall, but far enough if she was less lucky. It was a very soft landing.
I jumped across the rocks, watching my step. The tall grass was deceptive, hiding pitfalls in the crags. But it was getting easier to tell where. I wondered if it was because I was growing familiar to the world-changing nature of Labyrinth's power, or something else.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
Basilisk was now almost entirely brown, with mud, and lying prone, glaring up at me from the shallow puddle she had fallen in.
"I'm not dead," She grit out, paused a beat and then continued more quietly, "I might have sprained my ankle."
She was really lucky, actually. The mud pit was in one of those crags in the ground. There were rocks on three sides. If she'd fallen just a little differently, she could have been seriously hurt.
I squatted at the edge of the pit, on the rock, and offered my hand. Basilisk hesitated, staring at it like it might bite her.
"Come on, I don't think it matters if I want to get muddy at this point." I said, "It's gonna happen."
Basilisk's brow furrowed a little, like my response was not the one she'd been expecting, but she reached up and took my hand-
-Induced mutagenic effect. Vector limited. Provokes uncontrolled tumorous alterations in biological organisms registering her voice-
-and hauled her up and out.
It was interesting. Beside the hints pinging off her power, describing it and how it worked, I could also sense her center of balance, how she moved, and my own balance in relation. How wet the rocks were under my feet.
Basilisk took a wobbly step and I let go of her hand. I'd gotten her out, but now that I had her, I didn't know what to do with her.
"Hello?" I ventured, "You got swept down here too? By the water?"
Basilisk shrugged listlessly, "Yeah." She sighed, "That other guy too, he's here somewhere."
Other guy? Oh. Regalia, maybe. I glanced up the leafy cliff. The trees were still growing, taller and taller. High above, the cave ceiling was folding away into branches, sunlight filtered through the leaves. The borders of the cave were eroding into a larger space
I had no idea how to go about getting back. If things kept changing like this, maybe I couldn't.
"Do you want to look for a way back?" I asked, when I realized the silence had lingered just a bit too long, "Or… we could wait here for security to look for us."
"Labyrinth's worlds don't last. Everything always goes away when she goes to sleep."
That didn't really answer my question. Though maybe it kind of did. If the world would eventually fade away, then staying put made sense. Better than risking falling into those crags…
I gazed over at the moldering castle ruin. I hadn't been outside since arriving at Alchemilla, and the rocky landscape had a lonely, solemn beauty that would have arrested my attention even before four walls, a ceiling, and a floor became the extent of my world.
Basilisk sank to the stone, sitting and staring at her feet, "Might as well just sit here. I don't have anywhere to go."
After a moment, I sat. We waited.
I glanced at Basilisk.
Previously, my experiences with Mimi, Heather, Nick, and Charnel came to mind. But also, I remembered Benny, and Elephant. The horror and the heart-crushing fear, the smell of copper. I hesitated, I dithered. While my previous attempts making friends had been… well, not successful, but not disasters, I faltered.
Basilisk glanced at me, her eyes hooded. Where Nick had responded to me with caution, and Mimi with mercurial change, Basilisk was guarded. Considering. This only undermined my confidence, and I drew in my shoulders.
She looked at me, and she glared, "What's your power?"
I leaned back on the heels of my feet, trying not to show how intimidated I felt. That divot in benny's head lurked in a dark corner in the back of my mind. That feeling as I felt him ebbing, his body slowly shutting down, even as I struggled to help him. I swallowed, and clasped my hands to keep them from shaking.
"I- I- I- I feel things, I can touch them and I know things about them." I stuttered.
Basilisk stared at me, "Fucking figures." She stood, jumping to her feet. She started to pace, walking from one end of our shared rock to the other with quick, angry strides.
"Fucking Thinker, of course! I bet you'll get out. You'll get to go to prom and get a driver's license and become a doctor or a- a- whatever!" Basilisk growled. Or, it sounded like she was growling. It was hard to tell when she was Darth Vader.
I edged back, staring. My power was pinging danger, but only distantly. She was angry, sad, anxious, frustrated. Guilty?
"You'll find something. Be a fucking hero. What am I supposed to do? I can't use my power for anything!"
I concentrated, pulling off anything I could. She was taller than me, older than me. More solidly built. But…
She… she wasn't dangerous. She was… she was sane, I realized. Sane, but her power was deadly and had no off switch. She finished pacing and stopped, standing and staring off into the distance- I followed her gaze, the ruined castle.
Sane, but frustrated, and maybe dangerous. If her mask ever came off, if anyone ever heard her voice. Had anyone ever heard her power? Probably. I felt, suddenly, a kind of kinship in her.
I hesitated to speak, but she was hurting. And I knew what that felt like.
"I killed people too." I said.
She stared at me a moment, then turned away angrily.
I sighed and looked away, out over the rocky field, the ruined walls. My gaze came to settle on the castle, the hollowed-out towers and the still standing keep with the trailing carpet of ivy and moss.
I fixed on that. In this hauntingly beautiful landscape, it stood out.
"Do you want to explore the castle?" I asked.
"Fuck off. I'm… going to look for that loud idiot." She paused, "Can't believe I said that."
(•͈⌔•͈ ﾂ
Well, Basilisk said she did not want to explore the castle but I could feel her moving as I neared it, in an indistinct, distant way. Circling around in the crags… not moving further from me... Following me?
Was touching someone enough to gain awareness of where they were? I wondered if I'd been getting faster uptake from my powers since this strange, surreal episode began.
Especially compared to the initial confusion and obstruction. If felt like I might be.
I wandered across the crumbling pile of stone at the base of the outer wall there was a wide trench, I guess it was the moat? The castle drawbridge was just a collection of rotted timbers at the bottom of the now, but I forded the ditch it filled, and scaled the other side like a mountain goat… or maybe a cat… Something that scaled walls and moved over obstacles well. A fly or a lizard.
Okay. I was used to this. I could handle any weirdness Alchemilla threw my way. Up I went.
It was so quiet. With a landscape as barren and rocky, and wild as this I kept expecting wind, or the sound of birds crying lonely in the distance, or insects. But there was nothing, hardly a sound at all.
Inside the castle walls, I stopped and turned every which way, staring up at the ramparts and the… that was the right word, right?
The walls were half-collapsed, and the keep and towers were missing their roofs, there were no doors across the Keep's broad threshold. There were trees and bushes growing all among the stones, one tower was crowned with trees, and the courtyard was cast into shadow. Flowers waved among the grass on the walls, white, yellow. Red and blue.
And I was not alone.
Charnel sat in a gently sunken bay, surrounded by long grass and flowers, a few paces in front of where the Keep's front gate might have stood. The courtyard was ringed with the roots of toppled pillars worn smooth by the elements. She was asleep, her silver-white hair gathered in a long rope that trailed to her feet- I hesitated to wake her, but even as I stood there she lifted her head.
"Ah. I must've drifted off." She blinked slowly. Her eyelids still had that blacken-eyed heavily bagged look, all the blood vessels standing out under her perfectly white skin.
"Hello."
"Hello, again, Taylor." Those strange segmented fingers clacked lightly as she folded her hands.
I stared at her a long moment, mulling over what Blake had said. She knows more than she lets on. A question nagged me, "What did you mean, what you said before, that we 'are swords and knives'?" I asked.
Charnal blinked again, she spoke very slowly and clearly, "It is the way of things."
Another of those slow, unsettling blinks, "We are made human by power. We surpass humanity, by power. And by power, we lose our humanity again. The power will rule you. It rules all of us. It is the way of things."
I puzzled on that, "Doctor Selmy tells me to not let my power rule me, change who I am." I said, "A parahuman is a human with a power. Not a power with a human."
"And yet we are chosen by power." Charnel replied, "And we are here because we were overcome by it. We did not possess it, so it possessed us in turn. As we do not possess it, we cannot leave. Those with power can do anything."
I frowned. That sounded familiar.
A sat down beside Charnel, and looked around the courtyard. The sky was opening up above the towers, in every direction, great walls of layered and marbled stone. It was like being at the bottom of a massive canyon, or a crater.
Labyrinth's power was… I'd heard of parahumans working on a scale like this, as profoundly as this. But to see it in action… Was she effecting the entire Alchemilla compound? This had to cover miles.
And, it was beautiful. Bleak and beautiful and grand; peaceful, stark and empty.
I could see hanging terraces of flowers and trees. Cathedral walls, their windows gone, leaving behind a latticework of empty clerestory. Statues, great hands and faces weathered by rain and wind. A ruined village on the canyon wall just below the castle walls, trees growing out of the houses. A bell tower. Huge walls, like small cliffs themselves. An enormous tree, like a forest unto itself.
And high, high above the canyon walls I saw the incongruous trail of an airplane passing through the clouds.
I wondered how the staff would deal with a situation like this. I followed that thought further and wondered how the patients would react. This would sow complete chaos-
Oh no. Sveta.
Sveta… was a sweet girl, and didn't deserve the problems she had to deal with.
But the power she had did make her dangerous, despite her nature and intentions. If these changes continued… if they were as widespread and profound as they were now, and if they continued to change and expand…
She would get out, might already be out. She was a voluntary patient, she understood how dangerous her power was, but it operated without her input.
"I need to find Labyrinth!" I stood, then wondered what I expected to do.
Charnel stared at me, blinking slowly. "I do not know where she is."
I stared up at the canyon walls, at the castle ramparts and the ruined town bellow it, and I reached, feeling out the ebb and flow of Labyrinth's world. I could feel it.
"I don't either, but I bet I can find her."
(•͈⌔•͈ ﾂ
It was difficult. I hadn't met Labyrinth to begin with, and the world she created made sensing my surroundings difficult. But the arrangement of her valley was a basin, and I was not yet at the lowest point.
I guessed she would be there, in the very lowest point, in the center. The castle overlooked the town, there, the town filled the bottom in a tangle of stone and leaves. It was difficult to gauge its size looking at it, as a forest encroached too heavily. Though the ground was not level at any point, a gorge cut deeply across my path, I looked for a way across.
I followed the slope down, until it became a path and I was looking at a covered stone bridge that crossed a gorge and passed into the town. It was heavy and supported by thick, square columns. I picked my way up the rocks, along a narrow trail, until I found myself walking inside. Inside, water flowed up over my ankles and feet. Cold. The bridge was an aqueduct.
"Huh." I shivered, that water had reminded me that I was wearing scrubs and not much else.
I followed the flow of the river, until the water opened out into a stone-lined pool and I waded out. My socks were soaked now, so I sat beside the pool, stripped them off and wrung them out, and examined my surroundings. The pool bordered one side of a wide plaza, maybe once a market, now grassy and broken with tree roots. Old swords rose among the weeds, stabbed into the ground, or lying fallen in the grass.
"Hello?" I called. I listened a moment, then breathed in, "Hello! Is anyone there?"
My shout was muffled in the silence of the town. It was like a blanket, smothering everything, even the sound of the water falling into the pool was muted. It was eerie.
I started walking, carefully picking my way over the plaza, through the timbers and rusty blades.
Inside the town, the streets were cobbled, but often broken by tree roots or covered in moss, or buried. The walls were stone, and covered in reaching ivy and moss. Wooden carts stood abandoned, and all was still and shadowed in dappled green under the walls and branches. Broken stone and brickwork was everywhere. The streets were narrow, and doorways so close, and even the plaza was small and confined. It was very claustrophobic, so that I could barely see the sky above me.
Leaving the plaza, I headed down, and soon I could sense I was not so alone. I smelled smoke.
"Can anyone hear me?" I called, not holding much hope of a reply.
I found a burning cart at the head of a stair. Still deeper into the heart of the town I found more signs of fire. Seared ivy. Smoldering wood. One of the houses was filled with flames.
Labyrinth's world started to take on a darker edge. The walls pressed in. The moss was replaced by sickly green algae dried and caked on the walls, and the plants grew sparser. The light faded until there was no sky overhead. I head water dripping again, and I had to watch my steps.
Then I found an open door, singed and knocked from rusted hinges. Once it had been covered with carvings and symbols worn down with time. I stepped beyond it, and everything opened up.
I was in a large room. A pillared foyer, I realized, dominated by a statue of a barefoot woman in a robe… Beyond the foyer was a chapel. Here there was light, cast by flickering torches sconced in the walls, and held by statues lining the walls, knights and more women in robes, and above the alter.
"Um… hello?" I said, warily. The alter was a large plinth of stone on top of a small rise of steps, and a girl was seated on the alter. There was a restful air about her as she sat, staring into space with her head tilted just so- like she was listening to distant music. Her eyes did not track me as I approached, and her hands stayed folded in her lap. She… reminded me of Charnel, so colorless and still. But I could see her breathing…
This girl had to be Labyrinth.
Labyrinth… did not look dangerous. She was… well, small. Thin, with long, straight pale hair. A particular pale, almost white, colorless. Her skin was pale too. That particular pallor that Elephant also had, from living inside without much sun.
"Hello?"
I carefully moved up the steps. In the torchlight, her pallor and hair was cast in yellow and orange hues. Her scrubs were orange too, she almost looked like an orange statue herself, very out of place among the towering ones that flanked her. But serene, peaceful.
"Labyrinth?"
She didn't respond.
I reached out slowly, touched her shoulder.
"Laby-
Then, everything changed.
There was a spike of fear, of terror, from Labyrinth; so intense I felt it too and threw myself backwards. The world changed in a ripple, a wave gathering force as it moved out from her and into the world she had built that I could feel as it passed me.
The statues and torches and stone alter were torn away, the changes filled in the space they had been- and plunged the world into darkness. I was blind, and disoriented. Turned around as everything rearranged itself. The smell of leaves and stone were replaced by a musty smell, and rusted metal.
Light flickered on, harsh florescent lighting guttering out, then on again over my head. The church had transformed into a nightmare. Stains trailed down padded walls, chains and thick bundles of barbed wire hung from the ceiling in curtains; the floor was concrete, studded with barbs of broken glass and needles.
In the middle of it, Labyrinth sat on the floor, staring at me mutely. Flickering in and out of sight with the lights, pale like a ghost.
My heart hammered in my chest where I'd sprawled on the glass. I could feel warmth spreading down one arm- my leg- I'd cut myself.
And Labyrinth sat there, mutely staring at me.
"Uh… Hi." I said, "Um. You scared me."
Labyrinth said nothing.
"I… I guess I scared you too." I added, "Sorry." I picked myself back up, carefully not taking my eyes off Labyrinth. But apart from that first outburst of power, she… well, she seemed fairly calm. I thought. It was hard to tell.
"So, uh. Hello." I stood, still looking at her, "The doctors call me Auspice."
Labyrinth blinked once.
"Um, call me Taylor?"
Labyrinth shrank back when I raised my hand. Her hands fisted in her scrubs to tightly her shoulders were shaking.
"Oh… oh, hey…"
Labyrinth shrank back when I stepped forward again, and I offered my hand, palm up, talking very quietly. "It's okay… It's okay."
Labyrinth stopped shaking, and stared back at me, but now I didn't know what to say. "Um. I actually came looking for you." I said, "You don't know how to turn, uh, all this off, do you?"
Labyrinth stared at me, for a moment her mouth opened like she was about to speak, but aborted the action without a sound.
"You can't talk?"
She just stared back at me, blinking slowly.
"Okay." That was problematic, but hardly her fault, "Well, I can't sleep. We're both special like that." If Labyrinth couldn't turn it off, I was stuck.
I… I could try knocking her out… I glanced at her, sitting there looking at me, trusting. No, I didn't think that was an option. Not yet anyway. Right now, I didn't know for certain that she had done anything beyond inconveniencing the staff. I hoped.
Besides, forcibly knocking her out might not actually shut off the effect she had on the asylum, powers didn't have to make sense like that.
"Well, we really need to get out of here. Try and find one of the doctors. Can you walk?" Labyrinth did not move at first, there was an aborted motion in her hands, "I can help you up, if you don't mind?"
I stood and reached out, and this time Labyrinth didn't shy away. I took that as a good sign, and took her hand-
-Creation. Crafts dimensional pockets. Imposes their shape on surroundings. Sculpting. Two threads of consciousness, one manages her worlds, one manages her body. Uneven distribution, fluctuates between-
"Oh, sorry." I blinked, "Zoned out there for a bit. My power kind of reads off people when I touch them, I guess I should have said something."
Labyrinth blinked.
Right, so now I had Labyrinth, where did I take her from here? I looked at the flickering lights, and the chains and rusty wire. The jagged barbs on the floor. The room was square and a hatch closed off one end of the room. It was so heavily rusted I doubted I would be able to open it.
I gave it a try, grabbing the latch and tugging on it once.
"Can… can you change it back to the castle? It was easier to walk."
Labyrinth blinked back at me and… I felt something. The flagstones and torches did not return however. Instead the hatch crumbled away into dust, rusting away in an instant.
"Oh. Okay, thanks." I managed, "That works.
I blinked at a sudden tug. Labyrinth had latched on, one hand fisted on my sleeve.
"Is everything okay?" Her shoulders were shaking again, "It's all right…"
Strange, the world had completely transformed, but I could still smell smoke.
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