The captain was afraid. She could see it in his mind. She could see the fear rise, like a sudden summer shower, and then dissipate as he made his decision. He stepped forward, putting his powered armor right in the middle of the doorway, and told them to get in through the gap between his legs.
Her sister and the-boy-with-the-gun hesitated, but she did not. She went down on all fours and crawled across the blood-and-gut-stained floor. The blood wetted the skin of her palms and feet, soaking her pores. It was fresh with the dreams of the soul that had been animating it just moments ago. If she wanted to, she could still peer into the man’s heart and see his last thoughts and desires. But she closed her eyes. What she needed to see now was danger. Danger coming for her, and danger coming for her sister.
She stood up, let the blood drip from her hands, and opened her eyes. When she did, she was looking straight at the cashier, standing behind the counter, offering her food in a hundred languages at once. She looked around the room. She could see patrons sitting at tables, waiters buzzing back and forth. Behind her she could see the platform, filled with people, humans and beastkins of kinds familiar and kinds she’d never seen before. But, they weren’t... they weren’t people. They were impressions of people. Impressions of the people who had once used this station as it was meant to be used. It felt... it felt like more souls had passed through this one station than were currently alive in the whole galaxy. The combined weight of their impression pressed on her eyelids. She tried to open her eyes again.
When she opened her eyes, she saw the station again, still filled with people. But something was different. Instead of laughter and shouting, she heard coughs. Faintly at first, then rising. Soon the coughs became a cacophony. Then the people began to drop. She saw the place’s color fade, as the trains stopped transporting souls, and started transporting bodies. She tried to open her eyes again.
This time, the station was quiet, though not empty. People in sealed white suits were carrying in bodies. Hundreds, thousands, millions. They were loaded up into the trains. Then, one of the people in the sealed suits coughed, and disappeared. She could see things changing, as if months, perhaps years, were happening at once. The trains still passed the station, but they no longer stopped. Nevertheless, the bodies kept coming. First they were left on the platform, then they were thrown in the shafts and tunnels beneath the platforms. Eventually, the station was boarded up. For a while, trains kept passing the corpse-filled platforms of the station-tomb, but they grew less and less, till even the trains of the dead stopped. She was all alone, in a station built for the living but filled with the dead. Somewhere in her stomach, she felt a cough starting to rise. She tried to open her eyes again.
This time, she was staring into her sister’s face.
“Achinoam, are you alright? Snap out of it!”
Her sister was about to touch her mask, and she slapped the hand away. “I’m fine, Draha, I’m fine.”
She looked at her hand, still stained with blood. She brought a finger to her forehead, and drew a glyph of focus on her mask. “Let’s keep going,” she said to her sister, who nodded, but in her mind she was still concerned.
Achinoam bit her lip. She’d been arrogant. The priestess had warned her, her and all the acolytes, in many lessons: do not underestimate the power of a ruin’s nightmare. She’d remembered that warning, but only now, standing in the real thing, did she understand it. Understand the weight of a place home to a trillion memories. She looked at her sister, who was sticking close to the-boy-with-the-gun. If something had happened to her while she wasn’t looking...
The faithless often thought that the power of she-who-sees was to see. But it wasn’t. It was the power to not see, and thus to see only what you wanted. It was control. It was the mask. She could not afford to let it slip again.
“That door was no accident,” the captain said, “this place has a machine mind. Clearly it’s gone feral, and is looking to kill us all before we spread word of this place and someone comes to shut it down.”
Yes, that made sense. That’s why she did not see what was about to happen till lieutenant Kaleisch was already doomed. Machine minds had no souls. Or, if they did, they had no dreams that she-who-sees could peer into.
Alwin, the-boy-with-the-gun, asked if they shouldn’t just leave.
The captain disagreed. “If it had anything worth being afraid of, it wouldn’t resort to tricks and traps like this. If we’re careful, we can still get out of here with a big profit. If you never risk something, you never win anything.”
Those were the captain’s real thoughts. But so were the thoughts that convinced him that, at minimum, the machine mind here could not penetrate his armor. The ‘risk’ he was talking about was losing the remaining three of them before smashing his way out on his own.
That was fine. Achinoam’s true thoughts were exactly the same. As long as she did not lose sight of her sister again, she would get both of them out of here in one piece. The other two... as the captain said, you need to risk things to win things.
(Source: https://pixabay.com/en/corridor-tunnel-underground-subway-957757/ )
END OF PART III - PART IV IS UP HERE
So, to anyone who came back for more after part II, thank you very much. For anyone new, you can start reading from the beginning, part I, here.
For the interactive part: @mathowl was kind enough to chip in a vote last time, and that was all it took to change perspective. ;) As I wrote before, for now I'll keep the interactive part the same, point-of-view, as it's easiest in these early stages.
From which character's point-of-view should the next part be written?
1) Captain Pyrrhos Kolbe
2) The Witch, Achinoam Fierro (same as this part)
3) Ensign Draha Hedda Fierro
4) Lieutenant Alwin Reis
Please vote by stating your preference in a comment. And once again, thanks for reading!