36. Immersion Ch2 (Worm)
Thanks to @Auks and @Inkling for betaing this chapter.
Immersion ch2
The tunnels were damp and rusted, groaning as the weight of the ocean pressed down upon the city of Rapture. Dim lights lined the halls, flickering intermittently, giving birth to odd, deep, shadows.
Shadows that seemed to move and shift, hiding things deep within them. Things that had once been human, but were now something else. Something less.
Taylor gripped her wrench just a bit tighter, the heavy tool having already saved her life from the crazed denizens of the underwater labyrinth. Atlas, no mister, had called them splicers. That they had once been people before they injected too much of the power granting drug called Adam. Now they had gone mad, twisted in both body and mind.
Taylor took a self-conscious glance towards her left hand where her veins swelled and gave off a steady neon blue glow as tiny bolts of power snapped between her fingertips. She had taken the same drug as they had, multiple times. Was what happened to those deformed people her fate if she kept going on as she had?
But she had to. She had to if she wanted to live through the hellhole that she now found herself in.
She needed power if she wanted to survive the torments that Rapture kept throwing at her. Perhaps escape would be a better term, survival didn't seem to be an issue for her within the city's wall.
Taylor was so caught up in her thoughts, she almost missed the scraping shrieks of hooks against metal. She hurriedly brought her hand up, pointing the lightning covered fingers towards the ceiling even as the deformed man hurtled down.
She screamed, first in fright as her shot went wide and then in pain as the splicer's red hot hooks sunk into her. Her vision blurred a red tint as the hooks found her again and again.
Before she could black out from the pain or die from blood loss, to finally escape the nightmare she lived, the world zoomed by her. The tunnels blurred past her as an unseen force dragged her down the decaying halls she so feared and stuffed her into a tube. Stuffed her into a tube and brought her back from the brink of death.
She couldn't escape the city by dying. It had happened too many times for her to care to count. Her only choice was to keep moving, to keep going, to keep dying.
Over -
The gardens were surprisingly beautiful, a sharp contrast to the devastation she had found in the rest of the city. They were nearly untouched and even the lights had seemed brighter there than the rest of the city.
And then the laughing started.
A man appeared in a burst of red energy and embers, his fist bright with fire. "Right here asshole!" he yelled as he flung balls of fire at her.
-and over-
As she stepped around the corner a spotlight fell on her and an alarm started to blare. Turret guns and flying security bots came to life with bright red lights as she tried to back away, but it was too late.
Bullets ripped into her before she could run.
-and over-
Two whales danced in an infinite ocean. Jellyfish stars glowed as the whales broke apart and into school upon school of fish, the groups swimming around rising plateaus that seemed uncountable.
One shark among the uncountable thousands upon millions broke from the rest, swimming right towards her.
-and over-
The ground shook as the monster hidden in a diving suit charged. It's whale song of a roar nearly over taking the scream of its drill as it pierced her chest.
"You rescued me Sir Bubbles!" A little girl said with a giggle, hugging onto the monstrosity even as Taylor was dragged away.
-again.
She just wanted it to end. One way or another she wanted it to end. She hurt too much. The phantom pains of her deaths haunting her as she staggered along what was left Rapture's roads, trying to find the ever elusive exit.
She was just so tired.
*Player one unconscious, logging out*
-0-0-0-0-
Taylor woke with a cold sweat and a pounding heart, her frantic eyes searching the room. To her surprise she wasn't standing in a glass tube, instead, she was lying on her family's old sofa with a blanket carefully tucked in around her. The room wasn't lit by neon filtered through murky ocean water but by sunlight spilling in past familiar curtains.
Was she home?
But how? Atlas had said that they were in the middle of the Atlantic! Though maybe in retrospect, she was putting far too much faith in a little voice she had only met over a radio.
Or maybe, her rational mind said as it woke, it was all just a bad dream. A nightmare brought on by a too violent video game and some bad sushi. Her stomach turned as the memories came pouring back in, waking her up completely.
Why was it she could remember bad dreams so clearly but good ones she forgot in seconds?
She tasted bile as a hiccup snuck up out of her throat, but she managed to hold down the rest. Apparently, violent video games were not what she needed.
Taylor let out a groan as she stood, her blanket falling to the hardwood as she rose. She blinked at it, wondering momentarily how the cloth had gotten there and blinked again as she wondered where her glasses had gone.
The image of her father checking on her came easily to her mind. It was a sweet and comforting thought, soothing even. Enough so to calm the last of her nerves back down to manageable levels.
With her glasses recovered from the coffee table, she glared at the TV stand where the console had the gall to look innocent. She would have glared at her plate of sushi too if it were still there but apparently her father had cleaned that up too last night.
She let out a yawn as she moved into the kitchen earning a smile from the man sitting at the table.
Her father was a thin man with thick glasses and a hairline that was losing the war with his forehead, but he was not a meek looking man. For what he lacked in width he made up for in height, towering over near everyone else Taylor had ever met. And when he was angry… he seemed to take up the entire room as he loomed over you.
She had only seen it twice in her life but the image of it had stuck with her.
"Morning sleepy head." He greeted over his newspaper with a pleased smile on his face, "Have fun last night?"
Not really, no. But she didn't say that instead she held a hand over her belly and said, "I think the sushi's gone bad."
Taylor winced as the grin left her father's face as he set down the paper. He reached her in two strides, hesitant hands feeling at her forehead, "You do feel a bit clammy. How's your stomach feeling?"
"Twisty." She told him honestly, causing her father to hum as if he were a doctor trying to make a diagnosis.
"How'd you sleep last night?"
Again she was honest, "Bad. Nightmares…" She hesitated, "I don't think the sushi mixed well with the videogame."
He grimaced and the flash of guilt on his face made Taylor feel a stab of her own, "I thought I saw you tossing last night but I figured it was just the heat… Do you need me to call you out from school?"
Taylor shook her head at that near immediately, barely a thought going into the action. As tempting as that sounded she didn't like the taste of it. It had the bitter tang of giving up, of defeat, something she tasted all too many times the other night. "There's only two days left in the year, I think I can last. If I can't I'll go to the nurse."
He didn't look convinced, but he eventually nodded, obviously none too happy about it. "You will call me if you change your mind. Just leave a message with Dorothy if you need anything, alright?"
Taylor gave a nod.
"Good, now go get ready. I've still got time before work so I'll try to make something to help settle your stomach. Should be done by the time you get done."
Taylor obliged, debating giving him a hug before walking through the living room and up the stairs to get started with her morning routine. The shower's warm water made her feel good, easing muscles she hadn't known were tense and giving order to the mess she called hair. Her locks had not agreed with the sofa's cushions. Though as much good as the water did her it did nothing for the new bags under her eyes.
They made her thin form appear all the more gaunt, even sickly. Her cheek bones now had a sunken appearance and her too wide lips looked all too pale.
She looked like a mess, though she supposed that if anyone asked Emma or her little friends they would say it wasn't much of a change. That was something she wasn't looking forward to later in the day. Still, theoretical opinions aside, that sushi induced nightmare had done a number on her. At least now with her hair combed and her teeth brushed she felt a little more human.
"Taylor!" Her dad called from what sounded like the foot of the stairs, "I've got to head out! Your breakfast is on the table! Call me if you need anything!"
"Ok!" She shouted back as she zipped up her lite hoody, "Have a good day at work!"
"You too!" he said as the door snapped shut with Taylor shaking her head. 'You too'? Like she was going to work too or something.
She was downstairs not three minutes later with a bit more pep in her step as she walked to the kitchen. There was a bowl of porridge and a cup of orange juice at the table, she smiled at that.
Though the breakfast was missing something. Her morning caffeine.
An easy enough fix, just a refill of the tea kettle and a flip of a switch and her water was heating up. It would take a few minutes but she had time, the bus wasn't due to arrive for another twenty something minutes and the stop was not even a five minute walk away. And she needed her daily injection of caffeine.
She sat at the table sighing contently as she settled into her chair. The smell of oatmeal making her feel like she had finally recovered.
Then she made a face when she took the first bite. He had put too much honey in. She hadn't liked it that sweet since she was a kid. Still, it was nice of him, though he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Trying to be nice. It was a bit weird.
Nice but weird.
She picked up her dad's discarded newspaper, reading it more as a way to distract her from the taste of the too sweet oatmeal than anything else. She'd never been one to really care about the news. Maybe it was because the world was too depressing or, more likely, she had too many of her own problems to pay much attention to what was happening around her.
With another mouthful down and a careful ear out for the kettle, she read the front page news. Max Anders, the guy who owned Medhall the big pharmaceutical company in town, was donating money to the local museum after some Parahuman named Circus robbed them and
Mayor Christner was apparently unveiling a new initiative downtown that would supposedly create new jobs.
She couldn't imagine that last piece of news had pleased her dad any. He was always complaining that City Hall was investing all it's time in the Downtown area while the Docks suffered. She was a bit surprised by how cheerful he had seemed this morning if this was what he had been reading.
More interesting was one of the side articles. Apparently Uber and Leet were responsible for three home break ins where they severely beat two men, with the third having been away from home at the time. The police, according to an inside source, had linked each of the men to Uber and Leet themselves. Former minions who had obviously done something to piss the two villains off.
Honestly, it was hard to remember that those two were actually supervillains, they were just so… lame. They raced around town on go-karts and floated across buildings with balloons wrapped around their waist while the live streamed all their dumb little adventures, and their failures. Their many embarrassing failures.
And then they do stuff like this. Beating up their minions, punching hookers, stomping on turtles, ect. It was like they were bipolar, going from funny to vicious at a rate that gave her whiplash.
She set that thought aside with the paper as the kettle bubbled and whistled. The secret to a good cup of tea was to have the honey at the bottom of the cup and to pour hot water directly over the bag instead of just plopping it in. It led to a richer flavor, or so her mother believed and she wasn't inclined to disagree.
She stirred the cup absently as she sat back down, letting the tea steep and brew in the water. Shouldn't be much longer, which was good considering nothing else interesting seemed to be happening in her not so little town.
She absently took her first sip as she read the funny pages and had her eyes bulged as a strange sensation swept over her. A familiar sensation. It was as if she was filling up a tank she didn't know, didn't want to know, was there.
She had to put down her tea before it sloshed everywhere.
She stared at her trembling fingers, flexing them as horror started to build in her. In the game, in that had given her those horrid nightmares, in Bioshock, there had been a power bar. A limit to how many times she could use injectable super powers. A limit that could be refilled when depleted with a substance called EVE or, which she had much preferred, by drinking some soda or a coffee.
By drinking caffeine.
With a shaky, hopeful, breath she flipped a mental switch that had suddenly made itself known. She let out a choked sob as lightning snapped to life between her fingers and her veins became neon bright. Her whole body felt warm as the power spread over her and sweat started to break out across her back, a sweat not born from the new warmth.
Lifting her other hand, she saw that it was the mirror image of its twin. Veins bulging against skin as the electricity coursed through her and cracked between her hands.
Was she still dreaming? Was it ever a dream?
Had she really gone to Rapture? Had she really died?
Tears started to prick from her eyes.
No, no that couldn't be right. It couldn't have been possible. She couldn't have ended up in the middle of the Atlantic, in the middle of some post-apocalyptic underwater city that should have only existed in a videogame.
How could it have happened? How could it have felt so real?
A thought hit her. A horrible little thought that had her eyes tracking downward, her head slowly turning until they landed onto the newspaper. Her mind replayed the news of the day, remembering the article that had caught her eye. An article about how Uber and Leet, the Videogame themed Villains, had been going around beating up their minions.
Going around beating up minions, one by one, almost as if they were searching for something. Something she probably had.
A game system that granted powers.
She reached out for the paper, wanting to search it for any clues that she was right. As soon as her fingers touched the paper it lite on fire, causing Taylor to squawk and try to slap the flame out. Her efforts just made things worse as her electric fingers started more fires then they stopped, forcing her to dump her cup of tea on the flames to stop it.
She let out a cry at the soaked and charred paper, her hands held high so they didn't set fire to anything else. She just wanted them to go away, she wanted the electricity to stop.
And then it did, like someone had removed a tab from its slot. Her veins dimmed and the lightning sparked away into nothingness.
"Rapture wasn't real," the sigh that came out sounded more like a sob than anything else. Knee wobbling relief mixed with fear sank into her as she fell back into her chair. "It was just a part of a game… a game."
It surprised even her how fast she was up and into living room. When the game system slammed to the floor she briefly worried for the wood but the sight of the undamaged casing infuriated her.
She tossed it, stomped on it, jumped on it.
Not a scratch.
She growled, dragging the system down the basement stairs by its cables taking an almost perverse pleasure as it clacked and thumped against each step. She slammed it to the concrete floor and was frustrated to find that again there was no apparent damage.
She reached for her father's toolbox and grabbed the first handle her fingers came across. She slammed the tool with all her might, hands ringing and bones jarring as she brought her weapon home again and again. But still, there wasn't a mark.
"Why!" Smack, "Why!" Smack, "Why, won't you break!" Each word and swing seemed to add all the more fire to her. Her blows raining down harder with every sound, until she couldn't take it anymore.
On ingrained instincts, she raised her hand. The tab that had disappeared earlier slid into a new slot and lightning lashed out from her fingertips. The smell of burning dust and ozone filled the air raged in Taylor's nose as she took in unsteady breaths, trying to calm down.
She found she couldn't. Not in that cramped dark space. Not with her hand glowing with power. Not with a wrench clenched knuckle white in her fist.
Her breathing just couldn't seem to stay even and her heart raced as her eyes started to notice just how dark it was down there. How the shadows seemed the shift in the light, how they seemed to move. How they could hide something.
She kicked the still intact system out of her way as she ran up the stairs, her hand still glowing and wrench still gripped tight.
An:
Please tell me what you think.
Immersion ch2
The tunnels were damp and rusted, groaning as the weight of the ocean pressed down upon the city of Rapture. Dim lights lined the halls, flickering intermittently, giving birth to odd, deep, shadows.
Shadows that seemed to move and shift, hiding things deep within them. Things that had once been human, but were now something else. Something less.
Taylor gripped her wrench just a bit tighter, the heavy tool having already saved her life from the crazed denizens of the underwater labyrinth. Atlas, no mister, had called them splicers. That they had once been people before they injected too much of the power granting drug called Adam. Now they had gone mad, twisted in both body and mind.
Taylor took a self-conscious glance towards her left hand where her veins swelled and gave off a steady neon blue glow as tiny bolts of power snapped between her fingertips. She had taken the same drug as they had, multiple times. Was what happened to those deformed people her fate if she kept going on as she had?
But she had to. She had to if she wanted to live through the hellhole that she now found herself in.
She needed power if she wanted to survive the torments that Rapture kept throwing at her. Perhaps escape would be a better term, survival didn't seem to be an issue for her within the city's wall.
Taylor was so caught up in her thoughts, she almost missed the scraping shrieks of hooks against metal. She hurriedly brought her hand up, pointing the lightning covered fingers towards the ceiling even as the deformed man hurtled down.
She screamed, first in fright as her shot went wide and then in pain as the splicer's red hot hooks sunk into her. Her vision blurred a red tint as the hooks found her again and again.
Before she could black out from the pain or die from blood loss, to finally escape the nightmare she lived, the world zoomed by her. The tunnels blurred past her as an unseen force dragged her down the decaying halls she so feared and stuffed her into a tube. Stuffed her into a tube and brought her back from the brink of death.
She couldn't escape the city by dying. It had happened too many times for her to care to count. Her only choice was to keep moving, to keep going, to keep dying.
Over -
The gardens were surprisingly beautiful, a sharp contrast to the devastation she had found in the rest of the city. They were nearly untouched and even the lights had seemed brighter there than the rest of the city.
And then the laughing started.
A man appeared in a burst of red energy and embers, his fist bright with fire. "Right here asshole!" he yelled as he flung balls of fire at her.
-and over-
As she stepped around the corner a spotlight fell on her and an alarm started to blare. Turret guns and flying security bots came to life with bright red lights as she tried to back away, but it was too late.
Bullets ripped into her before she could run.
-and over-
Two whales danced in an infinite ocean. Jellyfish stars glowed as the whales broke apart and into school upon school of fish, the groups swimming around rising plateaus that seemed uncountable.
One shark among the uncountable thousands upon millions broke from the rest, swimming right towards her.
-and over-
The ground shook as the monster hidden in a diving suit charged. It's whale song of a roar nearly over taking the scream of its drill as it pierced her chest.
"You rescued me Sir Bubbles!" A little girl said with a giggle, hugging onto the monstrosity even as Taylor was dragged away.
-again.
She just wanted it to end. One way or another she wanted it to end. She hurt too much. The phantom pains of her deaths haunting her as she staggered along what was left Rapture's roads, trying to find the ever elusive exit.
She was just so tired.
*Player one unconscious, logging out*
-0-0-0-0-
Taylor woke with a cold sweat and a pounding heart, her frantic eyes searching the room. To her surprise she wasn't standing in a glass tube, instead, she was lying on her family's old sofa with a blanket carefully tucked in around her. The room wasn't lit by neon filtered through murky ocean water but by sunlight spilling in past familiar curtains.
Was she home?
But how? Atlas had said that they were in the middle of the Atlantic! Though maybe in retrospect, she was putting far too much faith in a little voice she had only met over a radio.
Or maybe, her rational mind said as it woke, it was all just a bad dream. A nightmare brought on by a too violent video game and some bad sushi. Her stomach turned as the memories came pouring back in, waking her up completely.
Why was it she could remember bad dreams so clearly but good ones she forgot in seconds?
She tasted bile as a hiccup snuck up out of her throat, but she managed to hold down the rest. Apparently, violent video games were not what she needed.
Taylor let out a groan as she stood, her blanket falling to the hardwood as she rose. She blinked at it, wondering momentarily how the cloth had gotten there and blinked again as she wondered where her glasses had gone.
The image of her father checking on her came easily to her mind. It was a sweet and comforting thought, soothing even. Enough so to calm the last of her nerves back down to manageable levels.
With her glasses recovered from the coffee table, she glared at the TV stand where the console had the gall to look innocent. She would have glared at her plate of sushi too if it were still there but apparently her father had cleaned that up too last night.
She let out a yawn as she moved into the kitchen earning a smile from the man sitting at the table.
Her father was a thin man with thick glasses and a hairline that was losing the war with his forehead, but he was not a meek looking man. For what he lacked in width he made up for in height, towering over near everyone else Taylor had ever met. And when he was angry… he seemed to take up the entire room as he loomed over you.
She had only seen it twice in her life but the image of it had stuck with her.
"Morning sleepy head." He greeted over his newspaper with a pleased smile on his face, "Have fun last night?"
Not really, no. But she didn't say that instead she held a hand over her belly and said, "I think the sushi's gone bad."
Taylor winced as the grin left her father's face as he set down the paper. He reached her in two strides, hesitant hands feeling at her forehead, "You do feel a bit clammy. How's your stomach feeling?"
"Twisty." She told him honestly, causing her father to hum as if he were a doctor trying to make a diagnosis.
"How'd you sleep last night?"
Again she was honest, "Bad. Nightmares…" She hesitated, "I don't think the sushi mixed well with the videogame."
He grimaced and the flash of guilt on his face made Taylor feel a stab of her own, "I thought I saw you tossing last night but I figured it was just the heat… Do you need me to call you out from school?"
Taylor shook her head at that near immediately, barely a thought going into the action. As tempting as that sounded she didn't like the taste of it. It had the bitter tang of giving up, of defeat, something she tasted all too many times the other night. "There's only two days left in the year, I think I can last. If I can't I'll go to the nurse."
He didn't look convinced, but he eventually nodded, obviously none too happy about it. "You will call me if you change your mind. Just leave a message with Dorothy if you need anything, alright?"
Taylor gave a nod.
"Good, now go get ready. I've still got time before work so I'll try to make something to help settle your stomach. Should be done by the time you get done."
Taylor obliged, debating giving him a hug before walking through the living room and up the stairs to get started with her morning routine. The shower's warm water made her feel good, easing muscles she hadn't known were tense and giving order to the mess she called hair. Her locks had not agreed with the sofa's cushions. Though as much good as the water did her it did nothing for the new bags under her eyes.
They made her thin form appear all the more gaunt, even sickly. Her cheek bones now had a sunken appearance and her too wide lips looked all too pale.
She looked like a mess, though she supposed that if anyone asked Emma or her little friends they would say it wasn't much of a change. That was something she wasn't looking forward to later in the day. Still, theoretical opinions aside, that sushi induced nightmare had done a number on her. At least now with her hair combed and her teeth brushed she felt a little more human.
"Taylor!" Her dad called from what sounded like the foot of the stairs, "I've got to head out! Your breakfast is on the table! Call me if you need anything!"
"Ok!" She shouted back as she zipped up her lite hoody, "Have a good day at work!"
"You too!" he said as the door snapped shut with Taylor shaking her head. 'You too'? Like she was going to work too or something.
She was downstairs not three minutes later with a bit more pep in her step as she walked to the kitchen. There was a bowl of porridge and a cup of orange juice at the table, she smiled at that.
Though the breakfast was missing something. Her morning caffeine.
An easy enough fix, just a refill of the tea kettle and a flip of a switch and her water was heating up. It would take a few minutes but she had time, the bus wasn't due to arrive for another twenty something minutes and the stop was not even a five minute walk away. And she needed her daily injection of caffeine.
She sat at the table sighing contently as she settled into her chair. The smell of oatmeal making her feel like she had finally recovered.
Then she made a face when she took the first bite. He had put too much honey in. She hadn't liked it that sweet since she was a kid. Still, it was nice of him, though he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Trying to be nice. It was a bit weird.
Nice but weird.
She picked up her dad's discarded newspaper, reading it more as a way to distract her from the taste of the too sweet oatmeal than anything else. She'd never been one to really care about the news. Maybe it was because the world was too depressing or, more likely, she had too many of her own problems to pay much attention to what was happening around her.
With another mouthful down and a careful ear out for the kettle, she read the front page news. Max Anders, the guy who owned Medhall the big pharmaceutical company in town, was donating money to the local museum after some Parahuman named Circus robbed them and
Mayor Christner was apparently unveiling a new initiative downtown that would supposedly create new jobs.
She couldn't imagine that last piece of news had pleased her dad any. He was always complaining that City Hall was investing all it's time in the Downtown area while the Docks suffered. She was a bit surprised by how cheerful he had seemed this morning if this was what he had been reading.
More interesting was one of the side articles. Apparently Uber and Leet were responsible for three home break ins where they severely beat two men, with the third having been away from home at the time. The police, according to an inside source, had linked each of the men to Uber and Leet themselves. Former minions who had obviously done something to piss the two villains off.
Honestly, it was hard to remember that those two were actually supervillains, they were just so… lame. They raced around town on go-karts and floated across buildings with balloons wrapped around their waist while the live streamed all their dumb little adventures, and their failures. Their many embarrassing failures.
And then they do stuff like this. Beating up their minions, punching hookers, stomping on turtles, ect. It was like they were bipolar, going from funny to vicious at a rate that gave her whiplash.
She set that thought aside with the paper as the kettle bubbled and whistled. The secret to a good cup of tea was to have the honey at the bottom of the cup and to pour hot water directly over the bag instead of just plopping it in. It led to a richer flavor, or so her mother believed and she wasn't inclined to disagree.
She stirred the cup absently as she sat back down, letting the tea steep and brew in the water. Shouldn't be much longer, which was good considering nothing else interesting seemed to be happening in her not so little town.
She absently took her first sip as she read the funny pages and had her eyes bulged as a strange sensation swept over her. A familiar sensation. It was as if she was filling up a tank she didn't know, didn't want to know, was there.
She had to put down her tea before it sloshed everywhere.
She stared at her trembling fingers, flexing them as horror started to build in her. In the game, in that had given her those horrid nightmares, in Bioshock, there had been a power bar. A limit to how many times she could use injectable super powers. A limit that could be refilled when depleted with a substance called EVE or, which she had much preferred, by drinking some soda or a coffee.
By drinking caffeine.
With a shaky, hopeful, breath she flipped a mental switch that had suddenly made itself known. She let out a choked sob as lightning snapped to life between her fingers and her veins became neon bright. Her whole body felt warm as the power spread over her and sweat started to break out across her back, a sweat not born from the new warmth.
Lifting her other hand, she saw that it was the mirror image of its twin. Veins bulging against skin as the electricity coursed through her and cracked between her hands.
Was she still dreaming? Was it ever a dream?
Had she really gone to Rapture? Had she really died?
Tears started to prick from her eyes.
No, no that couldn't be right. It couldn't have been possible. She couldn't have ended up in the middle of the Atlantic, in the middle of some post-apocalyptic underwater city that should have only existed in a videogame.
How could it have happened? How could it have felt so real?
A thought hit her. A horrible little thought that had her eyes tracking downward, her head slowly turning until they landed onto the newspaper. Her mind replayed the news of the day, remembering the article that had caught her eye. An article about how Uber and Leet, the Videogame themed Villains, had been going around beating up their minions.
Going around beating up minions, one by one, almost as if they were searching for something. Something she probably had.
A game system that granted powers.
She reached out for the paper, wanting to search it for any clues that she was right. As soon as her fingers touched the paper it lite on fire, causing Taylor to squawk and try to slap the flame out. Her efforts just made things worse as her electric fingers started more fires then they stopped, forcing her to dump her cup of tea on the flames to stop it.
She let out a cry at the soaked and charred paper, her hands held high so they didn't set fire to anything else. She just wanted them to go away, she wanted the electricity to stop.
And then it did, like someone had removed a tab from its slot. Her veins dimmed and the lightning sparked away into nothingness.
"Rapture wasn't real," the sigh that came out sounded more like a sob than anything else. Knee wobbling relief mixed with fear sank into her as she fell back into her chair. "It was just a part of a game… a game."
It surprised even her how fast she was up and into living room. When the game system slammed to the floor she briefly worried for the wood but the sight of the undamaged casing infuriated her.
She tossed it, stomped on it, jumped on it.
Not a scratch.
She growled, dragging the system down the basement stairs by its cables taking an almost perverse pleasure as it clacked and thumped against each step. She slammed it to the concrete floor and was frustrated to find that again there was no apparent damage.
She reached for her father's toolbox and grabbed the first handle her fingers came across. She slammed the tool with all her might, hands ringing and bones jarring as she brought her weapon home again and again. But still, there wasn't a mark.
"Why!" Smack, "Why!" Smack, "Why, won't you break!" Each word and swing seemed to add all the more fire to her. Her blows raining down harder with every sound, until she couldn't take it anymore.
On ingrained instincts, she raised her hand. The tab that had disappeared earlier slid into a new slot and lightning lashed out from her fingertips. The smell of burning dust and ozone filled the air raged in Taylor's nose as she took in unsteady breaths, trying to calm down.
She found she couldn't. Not in that cramped dark space. Not with her hand glowing with power. Not with a wrench clenched knuckle white in her fist.
Her breathing just couldn't seem to stay even and her heart raced as her eyes started to notice just how dark it was down there. How the shadows seemed the shift in the light, how they seemed to move. How they could hide something.
She kicked the still intact system out of her way as she ran up the stairs, her hand still glowing and wrench still gripped tight.
An:
Please tell me what you think.
Last edited:
