I saw a light through the window. A foggy, ancient window that had never been lit for as long as I'd been living upon these lifeless plains was sweeping back the eternal twilight of shadows cast by the clouds above to reveal the barren, cracked earth that could no longer nourish even the hardiest of plant life. As I approached the metal building, I felt more than heard a powerful generators rumbling hum from somewhere deep below the ground, rising up through my feat and shaking the dust just enough to form a fine cloud above the ground. Naturally, I was curious... Someone had obviously found this place and thought to take shelter inside and restore it to working order.
I approached what had once been a sealed steel door to see that it was gaping wide open like the maw of some ravenous, one eyed beast, revealing a small, dimly lit room. For a moment, it seemed odd that the room had no teeth or tongue, but I quickly regretted that image with a shiver, then shook it from my mind. I cautiously stepped inside, trying not to imagine myself being swallowed as my steely blue eyes were instantly drawn to the door just across from the entrance. It was much the same as the first one... Deadbolts all along the sides with an automatic locking system that looked totally air tight. I was only given a moment to consider if I even wanted to proceed before the door behind me hissed and slammed shut with the frightful screech of metal on metal.
I was trapped in a small room-mouth for a mere few moments, but they seemed to last an eternity. Instantly, my eyes went wide and shot feverishly between the two doors, trying figure out just what had happened. Then I started looking along the seamlessly smooth walls, searching for... something. Some way to escape being eaten by a giant metal beast, perhaps? Regardless, I'm not entirely certain what that something was, but I never even had a chance to find it. The other door wooshed open, scaring me more than the first one did, and revealed a short hallway with lights along the bottom corner of each wall. I rushed out of the tiny little room into one that was only slightly bigger... just big enough to provide comfort. And two more doors, this time with actual knobs.
I sighed, clutching my chest and brushing my black hair out of my face as as my heart slowed from its frenzy, only for it to jump once more when the door once again hissed behind me, sealing me in the hallway. Immediately, I went to the door on my left, knowing it was the one with the window... and likely the largest room above ground in this tiny little box of death on the wasted plains. As I opened the door, what I saw wasn't what I expected. The room was bathed in the light of maybe a hundred small, flying creatures. Their bodies and heads resembled small, fluffy birds, but their eyes were insect-like, and they had four fuzzy legs.
Some where perched upon a golden haired woman in the center of the room while others flitted about, between computers, mainframes, and other electronic equipment. The woman was even feeding one of them... something out of the palm of her hand. She looked over at me as I stepped inside and frowned. I held up my hands away from the gun and knife hanging at my hip. "Sorry. Didn't mean to intrude... It's just..." I stammered slightly as she turned towards me. She was wearing a skin tight body suit that hid nothing of her form. She cocked an eyebrow, and I tried to continue, averting my eyes from the revealing garment. "I-it's just... um... T-this place has been... abandoned for as long as I've lived on these plains... I-I've never even been able to get the door open... and y-you...?"
She tilted her head, and I realized my gaze was drifting back towards her. I looked away again. "Ah... I was j-just curious I guess... Look, um... Can you please put this on?" I pulled a jacket out of my pack... The sun blazed on the plains during the day, but at night it froze as the clouds returned. I knew I'd likely regret parting with it later, but for now... She shrugged, accepting the jacket without a word, then slipped it over her shoulders. It was... almost more distracting to see her wear my clothes so casualy, but at least now I could manage looking her in the eye. "Sorry... Um, I'm Jack. Mind if I ask your name?" Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. "You do...?" Again, she shook her head. "But then...?"
She heaved a sigh, but no sound came out... and I instantly understood. "Oh... You can't speak?" She nodded, her expression inscrutable. "I'm... sorry." She grimaced and shrugged,waving the the appology away as she returned her gaze to the small creature perched in her hand. Whatever it was eating was almost gone. A moment of awkward silence passed before I worked up the nerve to ask her a question. "Hey, um... do you know how I can get out of here without going through... the automatic doors?" I didn't even look in the direction of the doors in question, but she seemed to understand well enough, despite the fact that she only shrugged in response.
She set the creature in her hand down, then walked towards me... no, the door that I'd been standing in this entire time. I stepped out of her way, and she gave me a small, polite nod and beckoned me to follow her. She led me to the other door, which housed a stairwell down. The only light we received came from the swarm of light-creatures that followed the woman, and I was thankful for that... and the fact that one seemed to have taken a liking to me, as well. I scritched the little creatures head. It barely reacted, but it's gossamer fur was pleasant to touch. With the stairwell only just barely illuminated around us, we cautiously proceeded downward into the metal beast's belly.
I silently wondered how going underground would help me escape, but came up with no answer... and I knew my companion wasn't able to (or perhaps simply wouldn't?) provide them for me. We walked down in silence for minutes, and my worries slowly grew deeper as the light behind us faded in the face of the darkness, leaving us with only our little bubble of sanctuary against the shadows. I might have considered turning around, if I wasn't absolutely certain the light creature on my shoulder would have left me if I chose to leave the womans company, plunging me into the oppressive pitch black world arround us. Eventually, the bottom of the stairwell came into view, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The woman looked back at me curiously, but opened the door at the bottom, letting in the brightest light since the noonday sun.
Even more of the light creatures swarmed here, almost all of them ranging in size from an inch long to a foot, but the largest was almost as long as I was tall... Far too large to flit about like her smaller kin, and the primary source of light in the room. Hundreds of eggs of varying sizes lay about the Lightbird Queen, as I chose to dub her. Most of them were tiny, no bigger than my thumb... and were no doubt the origin of the smallest lightbirds, including the small flock that flitted around my companion. A few were as big as my fist, and I near about knew that was the origin of the larger ones... including the ones perched on us and the ones carrying... what were they? They looked like rats, but had putrid black scales and beedy red eyes. The lightbirds carried them by latching their long legs around them, making them look like tiny bombers with a rodent/reptilian pay load.
Some of the creatures were dropped before the Queen alive, and as she lashed out with her beak... I looked away. It wasn't a pretty sight, to watch any of these lightbirds consume their prey, but I soon realized that's what the woman had been feeding "her" flock. Remembering I was supposed to be following her, I looked around the bright room. It was pretty big, but I noticed her standing near a door nearby, trying to catch my attention by waving her hand. Her eyes questioned me as I appraoched, and I shrugged. "I've never seen creatures like these before. They're... a little unsettling, but interesting." She looked at the lightbirds around her, then shrugged. I got the notion that perhaps she'd been down her longer than I'd thought... But that was impossible, right?
I followed her through the doorway as I thought abtout it. Maybe she lived off of the lizards, like the light birds? Or maybe there was other food down here...? If so, what of water? Did the birds even need water? If not, did she? Granted, that last question was silly, but these and other similar questions paraded through my mind as we walked down a corridor with many, many doors. Some were sealed with heavy, deadbolt doors that I tried not to look at or even think about, while others had simpler doors, some with little windows built in and others with rectanfular plates that looked like they once had letters and/or numbers on them... though they had long since faded into oblivion. The letters that still clung to the plates seemed constant, though the numbers changed with each door, thwarting any attempt to piece together a pattern. Still... The letters were "GTS." I probably would have wondered what that stood for if I wasn't still trying to figure out how the girl in front of me might have been able to survive down here.
The hallway branched off a few times as we walked straight down the long stretch that was the main hall, although we never truly reached the end, instead taking one of the many, far shorter offshots towards another metal door... and two recently activated turrets. The things didn't react to my companion, but the instantly locked onto me as I approached, firing a warning shot just infront of my feet, startling me into jumping back a short distance. It had scared the absolute crap out of me, and the woman looked utterly surprised as she glanced to and fro between me and the turrets. I shortly found myself wondering once again what this strange woman was thinking, but quickly refocused my attention on the pair of turrets that were currently locked onto me.
