Standing more than ten feet tall, the glass tube becomes your tomb, or so you think. It's so bright inside the tube, and you blink away rapidly trying to make some sense of your surroundings. It hurts. Like sand in your eyes.
Unable to rub.
The rest of the room in dark, a workshop or an experimental lab, you think to yourself.
Steam rises around you, engulfing your eyes and mouth, ears and nose. Feebly, you swat your arms through it, as if it was nothing more than a nuisance fly.
You gasp and whimper like a child, not knowing what this white mist was. Could it kill you? Would it be painful? Would you die?!
Gasses hiss still, pulling at your eyes. Your body, heavy like lead, supported no longer by your legs, instead now, by unseen forces. Your mind is torn between being lead into the deep, dreamless sleep and fighting to stay awake.
No….
But so comfy….
Why…
Hydraulic gears clunk and whir. Chug and crunch. Out of sight now but not out of mind, you're too drowsy, giddy. Blissfully numb to the world around you. You giggle absentmindedly as a metal sheet begins a descent from the top to the bottom of your perspex tube, blocking out your view from everything.
And everything's view from you.
….
You eventually wake and you find yourself on your back, whatever unseen forces that kept your upright was now gone.
How long had it been hours? Days? Weeks?!
The glass is smashed creating a unsymmetrical star in the front of the tube. You're relieved. Also scared.
Whoever destroyed this machine would more than likely be your ally wouldn't they?
Your partner in escape?
Maybe the reason you woke is the gas escaping, no longer invading your lungs and lulling you into a sleep. Or maybe you heard the smashed glass, rousing you from your slumber in an adrenaline fuelled fear.
You intake a lungful of breath, telling yourself to be brave as you step out of the tube, careful not to snag your skin on any broken glass. Your heart thumping out beats against your ribcage.
Black and yellow warning paint cover the Metal doors leading out of your prison and into the world. Where the hell in Moebius were you exactly?
You peek your head around the walls and corners on the alert for any Robots, you'd rather not chance upon any in your current situation. You were tired and your small belly grumbles annoyingly with hunger. When was the last time you had eaten?
You look down at yourself, your clothes were torn and a little ratty looking but overall you looked to be in alright shape since the last time you had seen yourself, whenever that was, although a little worse for wear perhaps.
Despite your hunger, you sprint through the metal corridors, the floors and ceilings and walls all reflective and seamless, like a tunnel or the inside of a giant robot's metallic arm.
Running for what felt like hours you came upon a set of stairs that finally started a steady incline.
Up…..
Freedom…..
You bolt up the stairs without a second thought and rush out through the doors beyond then a second set of glass doors.
The doors hiss open practically rolling out the welcome mat for the vast sprawling world beyond
Outside sprawled in every direction. A tarmac road rolled around to the left and right of you. A large acre of tress stood tall and proud, overlooking the city and main road. Usually thrumming with energy and life and people and cars. Now silent and empty.
Fields of grass and crops of corn and rape. Meadows of beautiful flowers, now dull shades of grey caught in the moonlight's pale rays.
You sprint a little.
The trees whizz by in shades of grey and green and black.
You heard for the the nearest signs of civilization, a gas station with several pumps and a ramshackle shop front.
Rain pelts down in waves, unrelenting.
When did it start raining?
You try and catch your breath, watching it forming clouds in front of your face as the bitter cold bites at your cheeks and lips, was it raining before?
When you were last here?
Where was here?
A blur darker than midnight itself zooms past your face, at first you think it's a car, an electric one perhaps, the tires splashing dirty puddles of rainwater all over you. You turn your face down to feebly wipe off the gross wetness, groaning at your miserable misfortune.
Looking back up again, is when you meet a pair of fierce ruby eyes, the very shade of rage and fire and danger and blood.
