You are in the cockpit and the heat ray is headed toward you.
[[Dodge left!]] | [[Stay on course!]] | [[Dodge right!]]
You jerk the wheel to the left and your plane moves gracefully around you, an extension of your body. It grazes the beam so close that you feel its heat through the reinforced glass, and your body tries to go into panic mode once again.
[[You struggle not to let it.]]
Your instinct assesses the situation quicker than you can think, and your brain quiets your body. Staying put is the only way to avoid this one. If you flail around, you'll run right into the beam.
Sure enough, the beam misses, but it grazes your ploane so close that you feel its heat through the reinforced glass, and your body tries to go into panic mode once again.
[[You struggle not to let it.]]
//Come on, Emily. Think only about what you're going to do.//
Not the danger, but the future.
The tripod, one of dozens, stands below you. Huge white eyes hug the metal surface of its robotic head, electric patterns swimming beneath them like an old plasma screen.
Black eyespots migrate up to stare at you, and, with one extraordinarily prehensile tentacle, the monster raises its heat ray toward your plane.
You are up so high.
[[Dodge again!]] | [[Ready my own beam!]]
You jerk the wheel to the right and your plane moves gracefully around you, an extension of your body. It grazes the beam so close that you feel its heat through the reinforced glass, and your body tries to go into panic mode once again.
[[You struggle not to let it.]]
You stay your course, orbiting above its head, waiting for it to fire again. It fires off two beams, but the Thunder Child is fast enough to avoid both, just barely rolling out of the way in time.
The tripod tank is expressionless, but it feels angry somehow. You almost can feel //exactly// where in its head it feels angry, but that doesn't make any sense. Probably just a migraine.
As your automatic system coasts you out of the way of a stray beam from the battle behind you, the tripod you were engaging raises itself up and bellows its awful cry. Everyone has a different name for it but you think it sounds sort of like someone shouting "mugger!" in an English accent.
Whatever the noise is, it's taken a special interest in you, and it's inviting its friends to help take you down. You notice two heading towards you. Behind them is a third, and it's twice as tall as the others.
[[Go for the tall one!]] | [[Keep fighting the first one!]]
Your hands trace automatic paths over the controls you helped develop in the lab back at UNIT. Your sophomore year, right after Carrie asked to get a separate room because you'd broken up. You didn't know yet that she was dating Penny, and had assumed it was due to her not taking peanut butter as seriously as you did, or all the shoes everywhere. That first year she had almost acted //ashamed// about dating Penny, and some part of you wonders how long they'd been together. But Carrie wouldn't cheat on you.
//No. Can't get caught up in all that. Need to be right here, right now.//
You press some buttons in sequence, ionize the silver and the secondary metals. It'll take about four seconds, but that could mean life or death.
[[One...|One2]]
Jenna sent you a photograph of one over New York that was taller than this one, but it's easily the biggest one you've seen in person.
Maybe this'll be like a sci-fi movie and if you take out the biggest one, the smaller ones will drop dead too. Probably not, but that would be great, so you might as well take it out on the off chance that human culture just happened to be right about this one thing.
You spin the wheel almost one-eighty and peel off the course of your orbit around the first tripod, straight into the line of sight of the large one. It raises its heat ray, which just looks like a cluster of the smaller heat rays. Not exactly reassuring.
You might only have one shot at this.
[[Ready my beam!]]
You have enough problems as it is. You can't let this thing draw your focus away from it. Clearly, what you're doing is working, so it's time to double down on the invader you're already dealing with.
[[Aim for its head!|Ready my own beam!]]
Your hands trace automatic paths over the controls you helped develop in the lab back at UNIT. Your sophomore year, right after Carrie asked to get a separate room because you'd broken up. You didn't know yet that she was dating Penny, and had assumed it was due to her not taking peanut butter as seriously as you did, or all the shoes everywhere. That first year she had almost acted //ashamed// about dating Penny, and some part of you wonders how long they'd been together. But Carrie wouldn't cheat on you.
//No. Can't get caught up in all that. Need to be right here, right now.//
You press some buttons in sequence, ionize the silver and the secondary metals. It'll take about four seconds, but that could mean life or death against this huge thing.
[[One...]]
You continue toward the behemoth, its eyespots crossing as you grow nearer.
The controls are warm against your sweaty palms.
[[Two...]]
Its focus on you becomes more and more intense, and as its heat ray starts to glow - faint and orange like a dying ember - you realize you are not heading toward a robot, or a mech, or anything like that.
Well, you are, but...
[[Three.]]
But it's the weight of the thing's thoughts, and it feels more real than everything around you.
There is so much hate inside of the thing, the //person//, facing you. They want you dead. They want you //more// than dead.
The tripod lowers its heat ray, and you are more terrified than when you thought it was just trying to kill you.
[[Four-]]
It raises a different beam, one you haven't seen before, and as your controls become almost too hot to touch, your own beam fires off.
Only it isn't enough to push back against the strange, horrible wind the tripod has just thrown at you.
Suddenly the sky is slipping, and you're in space, except it //isn't// space, it's a horrible foggy tunnel as wide as the whole world and too deep to think about.
You're falling into it, and you're speeding up.
[[Fight back!]]
You slam on the accelerator, and your foot just flails in the air. Something is happening to the space around you. You're falling away from your controls...
[[Keep fighting!]]
You keep your aim, wheel turning automatically to stabilize the craft as you carry out the secondary firing sequence.
The controls are warm against your sweaty palms.
[[Two...|Two2]]
The tripod's focus on you becomes more and more intense, and as its heat ray starts to glow - faint and orange like a dying ember - you realize you are not heading toward a robot, or a mech, or anything like that.
Well, you are, but...
[[Three.]]
You lean forward, clearing your head, tensing your muscles and trying to hold back the deforming weight of this place...
Something slips past you. You don't get a very good look at it, but it looks almost like a stereotypical UFO. Was there a woman inside? Or is your mind playing tricks on you?
[[Keep trying!]] | [[Let go!]]
Your muscles cramp, your leg twists in a way that feels entirely wrong, and your left eye feels too big for its socket.
You remember that this thing is not airtight.
[[Try steering or something!]] | [[Let go!]]
Everything is swirling, and swirling, and as the last of your air leaves the cockpit, you see something coming towards you.
[[Mars?]]
You twist the wheel too hard. The hard plastic feels like a rubber hose here. It easily snaps off and flies backward, hitting you in the face.
[[Stay awake...]] | [[Let go...|Let go!]]
Your head rings, your fingers are close to breaking, and your arms bend back.
//You smell like a bubble bath,// Jenna says, somewhere.
//That's because I just took one,// you reply.
[[I have to keep going!]] | [[It hurts too much...|Let go!]]
You are standing in a forest clearing with your brother.
He is so young and so fragile, but this time, you are the one standing at the edge.
//Go on,// he says. //Make the jump.//
[["I can't."]] | [[Jump.]]
You feel him walk up behind you. You can't see his dead eyes, or the way his face has mingled with the mud in those twelve long years. But you can feel them.
[[He pushes you.]]
It's the same as always in these dreams, except now it's you falling, and it's your face that melts into the mud over those twelve long years alone in the woods.
//Are you happy?// he calls down. You feel his dead eyes on your broken body. //I didn't chicken out, Em, I did it.//
He sounds so excited.
[[You slip away.]]
It's the same as always in these dreams, except now it's you falling, and it's your face that melts into the mud over those twelve long years alone in the woods.
//Are you happy?// he calls down. You feel his dead eyes on your broken body. //I didn't chicken out, Em, I did it.//
He sounds so excited.
[[You slip away.]]
You wait for your father's god to come, or your mother, the guardian angel.
But no one shows.
[[Just the darkness.]]
You breathe in a bit of the dark, and you can see again.
You're back in the wind tunnel.
Something passes over your head. It looks bigger than the Moon. Some kind of freighter, or maybe a floating city. A black, smooth rectangle with protrusions you can't identify, green-tinted and glowing with power.
[[It's time to let go.|Let go!]]
Not quite?
[[Is this death?]]
Not quite?
[[Okay, stop being like this. If I'm dead then I'm dead. I'm Emily Fucking Ballard. I don't waffle. Take me to the next thing if there is one. If not, then I'm checking out.]]
''...''
[[...]]
You notice two things.
The first thing is that you're colder than you thought was possible. One time when you were little you went outside to play in the snow while your dad was sleeping, only you forgot your coat and locked yourself out for two hours. You thought you were going to die, and even then, you weren't as cold as you feel now.
[[And what's the second thing?]]
The second thing is that everything hurts like hell.
[[Look around.]] | [[Try to get up.]]
You crane your neck to the left, trying to-
[[Ow!]]
Hilarious. That isn't going to happen. You're not sure anything in specific is broken, but you feel like you just got hit by a train.
Except... maybe your leg?
[[Try moving your leg.]]
Okay, bad idea.
You crane your neck to the right and see that you're splayed out in a patch of the red weed. Or something //like// the red weed, only this stuff is a lot less smelly and doesn't look as weird and juicy as the rampant overgrowth the Martians brought to Earth.
It's a lot more glowy, though.
[[Try the left again?]] | [[Try getting up.|Try to get up.]]
Oo//ooo//h! Oh //damn// that hurts!
But you force your neck to turn the way it really doesn't want to.
Something is shambling towards you.
[[Run!]] | [[If it kills me, it kills me.]]
If you want to so much as get up, you're going to have to strain every muscle in your body.
[[Strain left leg.|Not doing this]] | [[Strain right leg.|Not doing this]] | [[Strain left arm.|Not doing this]] | [[Strain right arm.|Not doing this]] | [[Strain neck.|Not doing this]] | [[Strain chest.|Not doing this]] | [[Strain face.|Not doing this]] | [[Strain fingers.|Not doing this]]
Oh, come on.
[[Okay, whatever.|Run!]]
Oh. ''Oh!''
That's definitely broken. Shit.
[[Guess we're trying the left side now.|Try the left again?]]
Why did you think you would be able to do that? You just fell through some kind of portal into God-knows-where and probably suffocated at least once.
You can hear its footsteps now. //Thunk-thuh Thunk.// Sounds like a tripod...
[[Okay then strain left leg!|Not doing this!]] | [[Okay then strain right leg!|Not doing this!]] | [[Okay then strain left arm!|Not doing this!]] | [[Okay then strain right arm!|Not doing this!]] | [[Okay then strain neck!|Not doing this!]] | [[Okay then strain chest!|Not doing this!]] | [[Okay then strain face!|Not doing this!]] | [[Okay then strain fingers!|Not doing this!]]
[[You try to move]]
[[And try again]]
[[But it's on top of you now]]
[[Standing over you]]
[[And those eyes]]
[[They're not machine eyes]]
[[...|.....]]
[[......]]
And all you can think of is
[[Doctor Moreau]]
...
You're not sure why he comes to mind. But from that moment on, no matter what, you think of the creature in front of you as Doctor Moreau. The mad scientist from that stupid show Dad made you watch, because he watched it when he was a kid.
The "real" Doctor Moreau was just some old actor, not even a very good one - although he certainly seemed to love his job. He was not only fictional, but the man who portrayed him was probably dead by now.
Still... you remember the dreams you used to have. Being under the knife on Doctor Moreau's table. Being at the mercy of his medical implements. It always ended before it got //really// bad, but you knew there was nothing but evil inside that man. The version of him in your dreams was much more serious than in the show.
And while this Moreau doesn't have knives, he does have tentacles - whiplike and strong, except for two which seem almost fuzzy. That's the other thing - Doctor Moreau is lopsided, deformed, unlike the Martian you saw earlier.
[[Is this Mars? Is this death?]]
You're on the cusp of consciousness as he picks you up, and his alien touch is as cold as the ground beneath you.
[[You drift off...]]
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