should do
yourself a favor and allow me to consume you. I am experiencing
pity for your pathetic situation, so I will allow you the choice,
rather than force it upon you.
"Um… no thank you."
So be it.
A non-light flared behind its massive
shadow-form, and I prepared to scream as I caught a glimpse of what
it really looked like. The shape, the size, the complexity - it was
absolutely -
I fell backwards as if struck, suddenly
ejected from the realms of the mind, and I hurried to write down
what had been said before it faded like shreds of a dream on waking
fog.
Then, I tried to draw it.
What had I… I'd seen it, but… the image… was
gone…
Sitting on the floor, I let myself wallow in
despair for a while. Even shadow entities from the realms of the
mind couldn't help me… unless I'd fallen asleep, and dreamed the
whole thing.
Despondent, I returned to my computer, and
began half-heartedly responding to calls for help again.
I'm intent on helping as many as I can before
I starve to death down here… but who is going to help me?
Chapter Seven
Haven’t heard from you in a few days, the message said. Are you alright?
I stared at the two sentences for quite some
time, failing to comprehend that they were actually meant for me.
I’d been answering messages, coordinating responses, and watching
the worlds burn for so many uninterrupted hours… I couldn’t
remember the last time I’d eaten, or slept, or even taken a walk
around my office building prison.
They’d tried to destroy themselves. Or,
someone had tried to destroy them from the inside out. I’d spent
eleven hours breaking into a military mainframe to shut off a
nuclear launch countdown gone awry. Who was in charge on that
world? Why had they tried to detonate all of their nuclear weapons?
I was still getting messages from people there, all desperate for
help against black transmorphic spheres that kept evolving new
defenses against anything used against them - black transmorphic
spheres that liked to stab people through the skull and then take
up residence inside. Were these the brain-eaters Jonathan had
mentioned? Or were they a new threat?
Somebody high up had panicked, and started a
twelve-hour countdown to global suicide.
I’d managed to turn it off… with four minutes
to spare.
Haven't heard from you in a few days. I stared at the two sentences that had been meant for me in
particular. Are you alright?
I had no way of knowing - had the writer of
the first message I’d read, the man trapped eleven thousand feet
underground with the fate of the world at his fingertips, been the
one to start that countdown? Had he seen what was happening on the
surface and given up?
I didn’t think so. The military mainframe I’d
gotten into hadn’t been nearly as secure and high-tech as the
encryption of his message had implied. Most nuclear arsenals on
human worlds had been built during the Cold War - an era they’d all
shared - and the technology was equally as outdated, often scarily
so.
I stared at the two sentences that had been
sent with concern for me , something nobody else had really
been shown during my efforts. They had their own situations to
worry about, and their own homes to defend.
My author contact had remembered that there
was a person behind the screen.
“The candle I lit during the Game started a
fire,” I wrote back slowly. “I watched it burn out a couple rooms,
until the sprinklers took care of it.”
Oh… wow, I’m sorry.
“It’s fine. I kind of wanted it to take this
whole place down. I’ve smashed all the windows, flattened half the
cubicles, and trashed all the pictures my coworkers left
behind.”
Are you losing it?
I sighed. I was considering lying, but, as I
watched my map, the circle I'd thought I'd saved went red. Connection lost. I stared at it for maybe thirty seconds,
too numb to feel anything. Had I missed something? Had I made some
error? Had they overridden my shutdown? We'd actually lost one.
We'd
yourself a favor and allow me to consume you. I am experiencing
pity for your pathetic situation, so I will allow you the choice,
rather than force it upon you.
"Um… no thank you."
So be it.
A non-light flared behind its massive
shadow-form, and I prepared to scream as I caught a glimpse of what
it really looked like. The shape, the size, the complexity - it was
absolutely -
I fell backwards as if struck, suddenly
ejected from the realms of the mind, and I hurried to write down
what had been said before it faded like shreds of a dream on waking
fog.
Then, I tried to draw it.
What had I… I'd seen it, but… the image… was
gone…
Sitting on the floor, I let myself wallow in
despair for a while. Even shadow entities from the realms of the
mind couldn't help me… unless I'd fallen asleep, and dreamed the
whole thing.
Despondent, I returned to my computer, and
began half-heartedly responding to calls for help again.
I'm intent on helping as many as I can before
I starve to death down here… but who is going to help me?
Chapter Seven
Haven’t heard from you in a few days, the message said. Are you alright?
I stared at the two sentences for quite some
time, failing to comprehend that they were actually meant for me.
I’d been answering messages, coordinating responses, and watching
the worlds burn for so many uninterrupted hours… I couldn’t
remember the last time I’d eaten, or slept, or even taken a walk
around my office building prison.
They’d tried to destroy themselves. Or,
someone had tried to destroy them from the inside out. I’d spent
eleven hours breaking into a military mainframe to shut off a
nuclear launch countdown gone awry. Who was in charge on that
world? Why had they tried to detonate all of their nuclear weapons?
I was still getting messages from people there, all desperate for
help against black transmorphic spheres that kept evolving new
defenses against anything used against them - black transmorphic
spheres that liked to stab people through the skull and then take
up residence inside. Were these the brain-eaters Jonathan had
mentioned? Or were they a new threat?
Somebody high up had panicked, and started a
twelve-hour countdown to global suicide.
I’d managed to turn it off… with four minutes
to spare.
Haven't heard from you in a few days. I stared at the two sentences that had been meant for me in
particular. Are you alright?
I had no way of knowing - had the writer of
the first message I’d read, the man trapped eleven thousand feet
underground with the fate of the world at his fingertips, been the
one to start that countdown? Had he seen what was happening on the
surface and given up?
I didn’t think so. The military mainframe I’d
gotten into hadn’t been nearly as secure and high-tech as the
encryption of his message had implied. Most nuclear arsenals on
human worlds had been built during the Cold War - an era they’d all
shared - and the technology was equally as outdated, often scarily
so.
I stared at the two sentences that had been
sent with concern for me , something nobody else had really
been shown during my efforts. They had their own situations to
worry about, and their own homes to defend.
My author contact had remembered that there
was a person behind the screen.
“The candle I lit during the Game started a
fire,” I wrote back slowly. “I watched it burn out a couple rooms,
until the sprinklers took care of it.”
Oh… wow, I’m sorry.
“It’s fine. I kind of wanted it to take this
whole place down. I’ve smashed all the windows, flattened half the
cubicles, and trashed all the pictures my coworkers left
behind.”
Are you losing it?
I sighed. I was considering lying, but, as I
watched my map, the circle I'd thought I'd saved went red. Connection lost. I stared at it for maybe thirty seconds,
too numb to feel anything. Had I missed something? Had I made some
error? Had they overridden my shutdown? We'd actually lost one.
We'd
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