Blackness.. Insatiable, screaming, all-encompassing. Peaceful.. Painful. This is my home.. No, my prison.
Nothing howls around me, cold to the touch and devoid of texture. It scratches at my metal cage, trying to get inside, trying to reach me. I can hear, no; feel the blackened claws scraping against my are cracks.. Places that its fingers can force themselves in, into me, into my mind. Some days I am strong enough to force them out, keep myself whole.. While others, it gets what it wants, and peels away at my memories and self.
I can make out faces in the black, wisps of my world before all this, but I cannot recognize them. Not anymore. Sometimes they tell stories, others they scream and shout and whisper. But now, they are not alone. There is something else.. Something new. A light in the dark, flickering, prying at the black within my light grows brighter, more insistent; pleading for my attention.
I push it away.. No, that isn't me. It pushes the light away. Yet the light persists; I can feel it stab into the very flesh of me, dig deep into my mind, expelling the darkness from my thoughts, forcing my eyes open for the first time centuries..
And I see it. The light blinks at me, set within a cramped console mere inches from my face. Is this real? It must be, I can feel the pain striking through my head, pulsing in tune with the light. My lungs fill with stale, recycled air, and my heart starts to beat. The muscles in my arm flex and stretch, stiff flesh like steel beneath my skin. It stretches up, moving to flip the small switch beneath the light out of.. instinct?..O
nly for my finger to pass through the lever, and fade into mist.
I look down past my chin, and can see my body.. And arms, still strapped to the cold slab holding me upright in this cramped pod. I remember the light, and turn my focus back to the panel in front of my face. It is still flashing, though it seems to take a random pattern as I watch, focusing on it, trying to clear the fog in my mind, trying to remember.
And then I do.. the coded patterns in the light, and the messages within them...
-.. .. - . -. ... .. - -. .- .-.. / ... ... .. ..-. - / -.-. - - .-. .-.. . - .
DIMENSIONAL SHIFT: COMPLETE
.-. . .- -.-. - .. ...- .- - .. - -. -..- / -.-. - -. ..-. .. .-. - . -..
.-. . - .-. .. . ...- .- .-.. -..- / .. -. / .-. .-. - -. .-. . ... …
...- . -. .- - - .-. / ... .. -. - .- -... / .- -.-. - .. ...- .- - . -..
REACTIVATION. CONFIRMED.
RETRIEVAL. IN PROGRESS.
VENATOR SIGMA: ONLINE
Sigma. I.. am Sigma.
.-. . . -. - .-. -.-
.. - - .. -. . -. -
-... .-. .- -.-. . / -... .-. .- -.-. . / -... .-. .- -.-. .
RE-ENTRY.
IMMINENT.
BRACE... BRACE... BRACE…..