C:\rias-rambles\finished-pieces\Bleeding-Edge\intro.txt
Holy shit! Elle’s using her blog to actually post creative writing! A finished piece of creative writing! The thing she fucking made the blog for! It only took her……nearly 4 years…My god! Sound the alarms! The sky is falling! AAAAAAAAAA!
…I can’t believe it either, but yay, here we are. Here’s hoping I can keep the fucking habit up this time. Not my best work, but it’s at the very least something, because my god it was starting to get embarrassing how little finished work I’ve been able to produce in the last few years. Thanks to Silentcook for his help in editing this. Brought me back to Ye Olde Fan Fic days of getting fucking cooked alive……SIGNIFICANTLY fewer SPAG mistakes now, though.
Anyways! It’s short. It does what it needs to. It’s weird and kind of horror’y. Hope y’all enjoy reading it, let me know your thoughts, etc. etc. etc.
Here’s a more accessible version via Ellipsus as well, if you don’t wanna read it via the blog’s heinous and intentionally evil formatting and/or hate zalgo text. (coward. /lh)
Content Warnings:
- Disassociation
- Suicide
C:\rias-rambles\finished-pieces\Bleeding-Edge\body.txt
A quiet hum pours through the otherwise silent corridor aboard the ark. Colonists are stacked up on shelves inside of dimly lit pods; their diagnostic readouts sprawling out across dull, faded screens on the cloudy glass. Time cuts back into focus, pulling me with it. The lights in the pod cut, and the hum becomes more and more audible.
My turn for maintenance duty.
I push myself out of the pod and click into place on magnetized floors, senses filtering in clearer and clearer. Sterile. The scent of straight amonia. Cold. Sharp, wet, cold. Darkness. A corridor that seems to stretch out into infinity.
…And that hum, that painful hum, one that is no longer a hum and is, instead, a fervent klaxon—the ship itself screaming in an understandable sort of fear—I ground myself in it. I lower the volume.
Sensor inputs are unclear, so I can assume it’s another O2 leak or a temperature sensor on the fritz again. Attempts to query for the cause of this maintenance order are left unanswered.
I make my way towards the source, following the slow curve of the floor. I stutter a moment, losing my footing amidst the frenzied noise and disorientation. The unit pauses for a moment as my foot hangs in the air.
Then the unit creaks into place, magnetic heel clicking to the floor.
My vision stabilizes as I ground myself in the sound of the roaring klaxon. The unit’s audio slowly rises back up and its stability returns with it. Synchronization. I cannot fall, I am not the unit. Balance. The unit is expendable, I am not. This is by design.
The steady curve of the space flattens back out as the corridor splits into three concurrent lanes. Another unit in a rolling ball speeds off, chasing its own alarm. I look forward and the unit’s sensor pings a sensor cluster approximately 500 meters from it–from me. Pods of fluorescent yellow goop line the walls, the ceilings, and the floors underfoot.
The unit moves hesitantly forward as a sensor pings from the ceiling right above. One of the pods. A white and red LED flash back and forth. Fatal error. I disengage my magnets and drift upward with the spin of the ship. The room is cold. I am cold, ice creeping into—focus. I grab the bars on the wall, lifting myself up towards the pod that’s firing errors. No time to lose focus.
ERROR: UNIT INOPERATIVE
!! REMOVE AND DISPOSE !!
!! CONTAMINATION RISK !!
The unit engages the fluid flush. The fluorescent yellow flow flooding its vision slowly creeps away and I am left in the dark once more, save for the steady pulse of white and red across my face.
The reflection in the glass is dull and worn away, metal and signal lights. The unblinking screen of the unit’s face stares out at the slowly defrosting ice clinging to the glass. The frost gives way to rotted away bone, dripping with yellow coolant.
The unit pulls the release lever, letting the corpse crumple out into my outstretched arms. It is barely held together by what remains of a vacuum suit, rotted acrylic plastic.
It should smell bad.
I mark the pod for scrap as the unit ambles down the side and toward the floor—acutely aware of every move I make through the unit. Two arms clutching a bag of bones, two arms clutching the grips on the wall, two legs vibrating with stress that should not be there, a stress that is not mechanical; a machine moving downward along an ever moving fixture, a machine built unlike myself and unlike any human. I do not belong.
The unit’s magnets click back into place, the vibrations pulling me back towards it. I start down the hall. Incinerator to the left. My left, no, the unit’s left. Both of our lefts. My left. A warning flashes. I dismiss it again.
Each step is heavier than the last. Each more intentional. More directed. Less autonomous.
The incinerator is 500…no, 50 meters away. I blink away static and trudge onward. 40 meters. 30. Another alert fires off at 20.
I dismiss it. The unit dismisses it. We dismiss it. 10 meters. The incinerator is directly in front of me, unlocking with a heavy click as we approach.
I pitch the corpse in, the unit watching as the plastic of the suit bubbles up. I watch bones catch fire, shards pinging off the unit’s shell. We watch as it disappears.
Another alert creaks out on my sensors as I grab a hold of the grate. We crawl inside the incinerator. The unit dies. I’m melting with it.
The flames we should feel are instead jagged, cutting, ice. My view separates, eyes seeing sights I do not recognize, for a split second, before it all is awash in yellow. We are d̵is̴̥͂c̷̛o̸͒nn̶͝ė̷͈̒c̷̜̄ͅț̵̃̎e̶̟̐̽d̸̨͐ .
E̶R̵R̵̡̥̍̂̂̅̑Ơ̷̺̰̫̲̖̈̏̚R̸̟̲̘̒̉̂:̵̧͍̠̳̋̍̑̀͌ ̴̥̊̑͂͝Ủ̵̡̡͕͛͐͠NỈ̴̡̯͚̰̘̰͇̈́̈͂̈́̃́̍́̕Ṭ̴̡͖̝͙̠̱͉̟̟̺̱͎̖͛̊̃̾̀͑̾̉͊͊̐͝͝ ̸̧̨̮̼̤͕͉̖̣̮͕̖̫́̀̆̒͒̇̿̈́̅͑͋͌͒̄͘͠ͅI̸̪͎̺̳̯̭̰̺̯͉̳̳̰͊̽͒̂̓͂̅͝N̴͈͛̃̇̂͌̽́̈́̾̈̔̑̆̈̚Ȭ̷̧͚̩͚̣̜̯̬̤͓̳̼͖̓͆P̸̺̻͔̼̯̦̠͓̻͒͆̉́̾̌̃͂͆͝É̴̢̛̙̬̏̋̑̿͛R̵̡̡͔̰͎̩̮̳̩͉̹̤̱̈́̿A̸̼̳͓͔̱̦̲̙͎͛̄̃̐̽͆͜T̸̫̻̙̮͉̼͉̻̣͐̽͆̅͝I̷̳̠̦͔͍͉̓̊͒̕͜͝V̵̼̳̪̼̟͖͚͗͂E̴̪̬̋̇̽͝