A/N: Three cheers to UnendingEmpire, beta reader extraordinaire.
Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream - And Then There Were...
They were six.
There had been seven; seven contestants vying for entrance to the magical ruins no-one had ever noticed or heard of before. Only one could enter, and the winner had already done so, with pleased determination.
As for the others...
Kana followed the last rays of the evening sun with her gaze. There wasn't much else to look at, really; after half a day spent in the area, the ruins they had gathered around had lost much of their initial allure, and the other participants to the tournament were also just hanging around: leaning on trees, chattering quietly, killing time.
Kana had lost her very first match, forcing her to relinquish her claim to entering the ruins. Yet she had remained to see how it all turned out, and even now, hours after the shrine maiden had emerged as the victor and entered the ruins, she still lingered on. It wasn't like she had anything better to do.
Fortunately, all the others shared the same idea: none of the seven contestants had left the area, again with the exception of the shrine maiden. Less fortunately, even when surrounded by other people Kana felt aching loneliness: she knew none of these weird people, and just seeing them made her realise just how acutely, crushingly lonely she was.
Kana blinked her eyes rapidly. Enough of this. She would have to try and make contact with someone today. She needed to talk to someone, anyone.
She cast a covert glance at the person standing closest to her; the purple-haired scientist wearing glasses and a lab coat with mud stains around the edges (she had taken quite the tumble when she had lost against the green-haired spirit). She was tapping her finger impatiently against her arm, but her expression wasn't forbidding. Kana found herself inching closer, going through various possible opening statements in her mind.
"Umm, excuse me..." she muttered. That got a head-turn, at least. "Ms. Asakura, was it?"
Rikako nodded. "Indeed. And you are...Miss Anaberal, if I remember correctly."
Kana nodded, a strange warmth spilling into her mind. Someone had remembered her name. "You can just call me Kana, if you want."
Rikako smiled. "Very well. You can call me Rikako, then. It's a pleasure."
"It is," said Kana earnestly. She had been acknowledged! Rikako hadn't turned the blind eye towards her! Maybe, just maybe...
She began quickly raking through her mind for something else to say. How long a pause could there be in a conversation before it turned awkward? She couldn't remember.
"Umm, umm..." she struggled. "Are you waiting for the shrine maiden to return here, or..." It was such a stupid question, and Kana regretted it the moment it left her lips. Of course Rikako was waiting for the shrine maiden to re-emerge from the ruins; that was why they all were still there.
To her immense relief, Rikako didn't seem to be offended by the foolish nature of her question. "Well, yes. Obviously, I'm curious to find out what the prize awaiting the winner was." She adjusted her glasses. "I'm hoping for Miss Hakurei to be so kind as to let me examine her prize." She grinned sheepishly. "Assuming it's something that can be examined, that is. I presume you're still here for the same reason."
Kana nodded. "Well, I want to see what the prize is as well...And I don't really know where to go, anyway," she said in a dejected tone.
"Oh." Rikako tilted her head. Was that pity in her eyes? Kana would take it. Even hate would have been better than being ignored. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's alright. I'll probably find a new place to call home sooner or later." She didn't really think so, but she thought it would sound better than the bald-faced truth.
Rikako nodded. "I hope so."
Kana didn't know how to reply, so she looked at the sky instead. The sun had almost set: only the edge of corona could be seen far in the horizon.
"So, have you any hypotheses as to what the prize could possibly be?"
Kana quickly returned to planet Earth. "Oh. Not really, I suppose. Something important, probably."
Rikako crossed her arms and nodded, with a serious expression on her face. "I've been thinking about that too. It has to be something really special... What do you think, Princess?" she suddenly asked from the young woman clad in a kimono who had been dreamily traipsing towards them and was now standing only a few feet from them.
"There's a ghost behind you," said Kotohime happily. She covered her face with her sleeve to hide her giggling.
"H-huh? Yeah, I know." Rikako glanced over her shoulder to see the ghost in question, who was in the middle of a heated conversation with the blonde-haired magician. "Why do you keep saying that?" Kotohime didn't respond, but her giggles grew louder.
Kana wasn't really paying attention to their shenanigans. She was just glad to be there, as one of many friendly strangers who just might accept her as one of their kin.
"But I want to go!"
Kana turned her head. The younger magician, Marisa Kirisame, was yelling so loudly it was impossible to ignore.
Mima, the older of the duo, clicked her tongue at her. "Absolutely not. Not for the reason you wish to enter for, never."
"Excuse me?"
"Were you to enter the ruins in search of magical artefacts, I might allow it. To search for the shrine maiden? Out of the question."
"You're just sour because she beat you in the finals!"
The temperature instantly dropped by several. All eyes were now diverted on the arguing magicians.
When Mima next spoke, her voice was eerily calm. "Be that as it may, I still forbid you from entering."
Marisa opened her mouth for an angry and no doubt inflammatory response. Before she could say anything, however, Rikako approached them, her hands up in a pacifying manner. "What are you talking about?"
Mima scowled at her, then nudged her head towards the ruins. "The warding spell evaporated moments ago. For no discernible reason, I might add."
"And I'm going in!" Marisa chimed in. Without waiting for a reply, she turned around on her heels and dashed towards the ruins.
"Marisa, don't you dare-" Mima started. Marisa was already out of sight. Mima let her hand fall and rolled her eyes. "Kids these days." She turned her back at the ruins. "Well, if she wishes to prefer her judgement over mine, she can damn well sort out whatever is in there by herself."
"Will she be alright?"
"She's my apprentice, What do you think?" She glared at everyone staring at her. "I'd discover something better to do if I were you. And fast."
Everyone hastily returned to what they had been doing prior to the little incident.
Night fell, and the first stars of the evening illuminated the sky, along with the waning crescent moon. There wasn't a cloud in sight. Rikako and Kotohime continued their musings and Kana joined in at random intervals. And always, always, at least one of the others reacted to her contributions. Even if the sun had gone down, even if these people were all weirdos, even in spite the earlier dispute the light in Kana's mind grew brighter.
She had finally escaped Purgatory.
"Sho anyway, then I wash like, theshe aren't the moleculesh you're looking for!" Rikako finished the sentence in heaps of giggles.
Kana laughed politely along with the rest and looked at the night sky. It was half past one based on the moon's position. Three hours since Marisa wandered into the ruins. Two and half hours after they had decided that if they were all going to wait, they might as well have fun doing it, and fetched and summoned some supplies for an impromptu picnic. And one and half hours after they had started to get seriously hammered.
The five remaining contestants were now lounging around the remains of their campfire, nibbling on the remains of their snack (marshmallows, bean pastries and sake.) and playing a card game. Kana hadn't quite caught on to the rules, but it was of no consequence: none of the others either cared or were sober enough to criticise her bad play.
Rikako fanned her face with her hand, her face beet-red. "It's shooo warm here." she removed her lab coat and threw it behind the log she was sitting on.
"What're molecules?" Ellen was lying on her stomach next to the log, her head propped up with her hands.
"They're like..." Rikako made wild gestures with her hands. "Theshe really shmall round thingamajings shtuck together." She frowned, unable to find the words she was looking for. "Well, uhh, kinda like theshe." She dug into the bowl of marshmallows and picked a pair that had stuck together. "Open your mouth!" She popped the treat into Ellen's mouth.
"Mmm!" Ellen mumbled, sounding appreciating. "I like molecules!"
Kana watched silently as Rikako removed her glasses and painstakingly — or as painstakingly as could in her current state — wiped them on the hem of her lab coat before putting them back on, even dirtier than they had been before.
"Miss Rikako, it's your move."
"Whut? Oh, right right. Shorry." The scientist pushed her fringe away from her eyes and picked up the cards that had scattered on the ground during her previous attempt to explain how corrosion worked with the help of several pebbles, large quantities of sake, and hand gestures wild enough to make most windmills envious. She peered at them.
"I guessh...I'll put in thish." She held out the four of spades and placed it on top of the discard pile, then lifted a new one from the deck. "It'sh your move, Mima."
The magician ghost didn't reply.
Kotohime gave her a soft nudge.
"Mimaaa," Said Ellen, grinning brightly.
Mima glared at her cards like they had called her mother a bad word. Then, without further ceremony, she discarded her entire hand and got up.
"Hey, don't be a shore losher," Rikako slurred. "Even if you've got a bad hand, that's no reashon to quit."
Mima rolled her eyes as she rolled up her sleeves. "Forget the game. I'm going to go find Marisa."
"Phsawww," said Rikako. "Don't worry, she'll be fine."
"Of course she will," Mima said haughtily. "I've simply grown tired of waiting for her." And with that, she floated regally towards the ruins. And then they were four.
After a while, the remaining contestants continued the game, but the atmosphere had dropped quite a bit.
After half an hour, Kotohime suddenly said: "Be back soon, my beautiful barrage."
Nobody paid any attention to her.
Around three o'clock, Rikako laboriously stood up, her knees wobbling. She stared at the ruins.
"Thish ish too weird," she slurred. "It'sh been nine hoursh, I think."
When Kana had no reply to offer, she had produced some sort of oblong object from the pocket from her lab coat. "Thish looksh like a job for SHCIENCE!"
She hobbled towards the ruins, ignoring Kana's faint protests.
And then there were three.
Around four thirty, Kotohime had abruptly stood up, and, without a single word, tore the expensive silken kimono off her. Beneath it, Kana quickly discovered, was a blue police uniform, complete with a shiny badge on the front. Kotohime then inexplicably fished out a truncheon, shiny handcuffs, and a cop hat from the remains of her princess-y garments, and with a completely unexpected posture marched straight into the ruins.
And then there were two.
The first rays of sunlight cast their cast their pale warmth on Kana. She blinked and looked up, feeling uneasy.
Morning had arrived, and none of their friends had returned.
Kana got on her feet and looked around. Ellen had fallen asleep during the night and was now snoring softly next to her under the kimono Kotohime had left behind. Kana found herself smiling faintly at the sight: the other girl looked so peaceful. She then turned to face the ruins.
What is going on in there?
Her stomach churned. It wasn't just that five people had apparently entered the ruins without returning; it was that those five people could be considered her only friends on this earth. Even if it was stretching the definition a little, last night, even with all its uncertainties and dwindling party had made her feel real again, like maybe she could be a person and not just a magical annoyance. She didn't want anything bad to happen to those who had made her feel that way.
Of course, it was possible there was a perfectly innocuous reason to all this. Either way, she didn't want to be left behind.
What should she do? It had now been more than twelve hours since the shrine maiden had first walked into the ruins. She had already tried waiting. It probably wouldn't serve her any better.
Was there any help she might fetch? She knew no-one. Perhaps Ellen did, but she didn't want to disturb her angelic slumber. It would have to wait until the child-minded witch woke up.
And if she entered the ruins, would it do any good? If something bad had happened to the others, just sauntering into a trap after them was going to serve them in exactly no way at all.
And yet...
Even if it would end badly, she didn't want to be separated from her new-found friends. It was clingy; it was foolish. But right then, nothing else mattered.
Ellen was still there, of course, but if she had to choose between one and several, she knew which she'd choose. She didn't want to jeopardise Ellen, anyway.
She took the liberty of rifling through Rikako's abandoned backpack and as soon as she found writing implements wrote a quick message to Ellen, apologising for her sudden leave and urging her to send for help if no-one had returned to the camp-site by noon. Socrates looked on as she left the note under a small rock next to its owner.
She then adjusted her hat.
Right.
The ruins looked different in morning light, when one could see the patches of moss and verdant vines growing on them. They looked abandoned, not to mention uninviting. Nevertheless, she walked to them, and descended down the stony steps into the awaiting darkness. The first thing she noticed what the smell. She had been expecting something musty, mould and dust. What actually awaited her in the darkness wasn't exactly a bad smell, but it was decidedly unfamiliar: metal and soap, mixed in with something unfamiliar.
Kana reached out into the darkness and found a wall. Cold metal, sturdy. As her eyes began to adjust to the lack of light, she began to make out some hazy details. She was standing at the beginning of a narrow corridor, stretching further than she could see. The walls were grey-blue if her eyes weren't completely fooling her, decorated by tubes and lines. The floor and ceiling looked similar
Her hand met a button on the wall, and as if by magic, dim, sickly yellow light began to glow from the lines on the wall. Enough to see where she was going, anyway. She could now see a painted yellow line going down the corridor, as if showing her the way to go.
Certainly, these were no ancient ruins that she had ever seen. To say the place didn't look ominous would be a damned lie.
Kana swallowed and took the first few hesitant step forward. She was in completely unfamiliar territory now. Most of her life, she had spent in a decaying wing of an ancient mansion. She wouldn't had dreamt a place like this could exist even in her wildest dreams.
When no trap was triggered by her steps, she began to move more boldly, making good progress down the corridor. As lightly as her walked, every step echoed like she was an elephant prancing through.
Finally, she reached a corner. She gingerly extended her neck to peer forward. An intersection, nothing more. The yellow line kept going straight forward. She followed it. At least if she got hopelessly lost in this strange house of metal, she could follow it back outside.
Kana was hopelessly lost.
At first, she had kept a close eye on the yellow line, but as she grew more comfortable with her surroundings, she had let her eyes wander. And one minute the line was there, and the next minute it wasn't.
Was this the intersection from before or a brand new one? Kana didn't know. She twirled around, looking for a clue, and mark, anything that would allow her to distinguish these identical corridors from one another.
It was then that she heard footsteps approaching.
Kana's eyes darted around. There was nowhere to hide in this dinky corridor. She braced herself for whatever might loom ahead. With any luck, it was one of her friends stumbling towards her. With bad luck...
She hid behind a corner as soon as she recognised the direction the steps were coming from. And waited for the worst.
And then, when the steps reached the intersection, their owner without the slightest hesitation or pause turned around and crashed right into her.
"Ouch!" Kana said despite herself. She had managed better than the mystery person, who had fallen onto the floor from the impact. A mystery person that looked awfully familiar...
"Ellen?" Kana asked incredulously.
"Owie..." Ellen looked up. "Hello."
"Oh, Ellen..." Kana helped Ellen up. "Didn't you read my message? I asked you to go find help, not to come in here."
As a response, Ellen tilted her head, a blank expression on her face.
Kana sighed. "Oh dear. Do you remember how to get back out?"
Ellen hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah, you just follow the line." She pointed in the direction which she had come from. Sure enough, the yellow paint line was there. "And to get further in, you follow that one!" She pointed right. The missing guideline was indeed there, in the distance. How had Kana failed to notice it earlier, she couldn't say for the life of her.
"Good. You just go right back outside and find the message. I have things to do here." Kana hesitated before adding optimistically, "See you later."
But as she turned to leave, Ellen grabbed her by the hem of her skirt.
"It's dangerous to go alone," she said, her voice as airy as ever. "Take me with you."
Kana blinked. "It's dangerous. I'm a poltergeist, so I can't die or anything, but you...Besides, if there really is something bad going on inside here, you're the only one who can save us."
Ellen tilted her head. "You might still get hurt. Besides..." She looked at Kana pleadingly. "It's scary. I don't want to be left behind alone in here."
Kana hesitated. She knew all too well that both she and Ellen had been the first ones to drop out of the tournament, which meant that if something was indeed lurking inside the ruins, they'd have even less of a chance to make it out than the others. That, and there was something very peculiar about Ellen she couldn't quite put her finger on.
And yet, the look in Ellen's eyes made her heart melt? How could she deny the poor child-minded witch companionship, especially when she knew all too well what being deprived of it felt like?
"Socrates is still outside," Ellen continued. "He's a very smart cat. I'm sure he can do something if this place really is bad."
Kana gave her a resigned smile. She doubted it, but at the same time, she didn't really care.
"Alright." She took Ellen by the hand. Ellen squeezed her right back. "You've come this far. We might as well got together."
The most obvious thing wrong here, Kana thought as they trekked through the impossibly long corridor, is the noise. That is, the lack of it. There are at least five other people in here, and all I can hear is two pairs of footsteps? That, and the ruins didn't look nearly as big from the outside...
Ellen walked silently by her side, letting out a yawn every once in a while and rubbing her eyes.
"Do you need to rest for a while?" asked Kana.
"Nuh-uh, I'm fine. It's just that everything here looks the same, it's making me sleepy."
"I concur," Kana muttered, and meant it; during their time inside (how long had it been? An hour? Two? Kana had already lost count quite some while ago), they had encountered nothing but more and more corridors and a couple of strange pods over and over again. Every time they turned a corner, Kana half expected some sort of a terrible beast to ambush them, but by this point seeing yet another nondescript corridor almost felt like the worse option. What if it would never actually lead anywhere? Or maybe they'd be unable to find an exit despite the yellow line and had to wander around endlessly...
Kana's fear-fuelled daydream was brought to a halt by a sharp tug. She gave a jolt, only to see it was merely Ellen tugging at her sleeve and pointing forward.
"I think...something's there," she whispered, half excited, half worried.
Kana squinted her eyes. It was hard to say, but it indeed looked like the accursed corridor widened up not too far from where they were standing. Even better, she was convinced she saw a bright, almost white light coming from there, completely different from the sickly glow she was now intimately familiar with.
"I think you're right." She gulped loudly. "Are you ready?"
Ellen nodded, looking troubled. She reached out and grabbed Kana's hand, gripping it tightly. Kana returned the grip and gave Ellen a reassuring nod. After that, they continued onwards, hand in hand.
The light seemed to at first guard nothing but a dead end, but as soon as Ellen stroked the wall, it parted, revealing a large, dome-like chamber with steel-coloured walls. Gingerly, they walked in.
The room was a wreck. The floor was covered in various pieces of glass and metal, and the metal tubes spanning the room were bent in various angles. Someone had made an effort to sweep the worst of the rubble to the sides, but various bits and pieces of metallic origin still lay strewn on the floor. The back-most metal wall even had bumps on it.
And amidst all this, sitting on a metal bench, cursing softly under her breath, was a young girl with blonde pigtails and a skimpy sailor suit. Her right arm and left cheek were all but covered in bandage, and most parts of visible skin she was showing had a scrape or bruise of some description on them. In her hand she held a strange, metallic green gadget with red lights: Kana had never seen anything like it before.
The sailor raised her eyes from her feet and spotted Kana and Ellen. She didn't look surprised to see them.
"Yeah, that's exactly what we needed," she said, more to herself than Kana and Ellen. "More weirdos to mess this place up, just when things were getting calm again."
As confused and worried as she was, Kana felt a touch sorry for the sailor. "Excuse me, but what happened here?"
The sailor sighed and gesticulated lazily with her left arm. "This angry spirit just burst in and started blowing shit up. Ya wouldn't happen to know her, would ya? Green hair, funny hat, glares like all hell."
Kana nodded. For some absurd reason, Ellen shook her head. "Where did she go?"
The sailor looked at them darkly and pointed behind her with her thumb. Kana realised that one of the fixtures she had previously thought of was actually a door, just a strange one decorated with green lights. "Stormed through there. It was ages ago, though. I just don't feel like cleaning up."
This must have been the feeling humans got when they broke into cold sweat. "When she was that angry? Are you sure everything's fine?"
"Yeah, the professor got her to calm down."
"The professor?"
"Go in and see for yourself."
Kana exchanged glances with Ellen, and then, when the latter nodded, walked to the door.
"Just press the big green button and you're in," said the sailor. She had gotten up and walked to the opposite wall, right next to a small red lever. "I'll put the lights in the corridor for ya."
Kana nodded. "Thank you." She wasn't sure whether this was going exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly. At least the sailor, while surly, wasn't outright hostile. Perhaps her worries had been unfounded and there was a perfectly logical reason to why the others were yet to return.
She pushed the big green button like the sailor had instructed her to, and the door slid away. The corridor was pitch dark. She looked behind her. The sailor seemed to have encountered some difficulties with the lever.
She noticed Kana's eyes and shooed her towards the darkness. "Just get in, it's a straight corridor and I'll get this to work in a jiffy." She sneered at the lever. "Bloody malfunctions."
Kana followed her orders and stepped in, Ellen in tow. Even in pitch darkness, the walls were easy to find, and she began sliding down the corridor. Behind them, the sailor was mumbling to herself.
Just then, the door slid back down, and true darkness descended on the corridor. Ellen made a distressed noise and grabbed Kana.
"The door shut again!" Kana yelled.
"Don't worry, I'll fix it," came the response. There was a faint click. "There we go."
Suddenly, a powerful current of electricity rushed through the corridor. It struck Kana, erasing all her thoughts and filling her world with pain. She heard Ellen scream and assumed she was going through the same ordeal, but as much as she wanted to she couldn't do anything to help or even make a sound herself. Soon her legs gave in and she collapsed on the ground, and the darkness of the corridor was replaced with pitch black unconsciousness.
"-Seven should be sufficient for the time being. Never forget, Chiyuri, the importance of control groups."
"Sure, Professor."
Kana's eyes fluttered open. The world around her was hazy, but she could tell that she was lying down on a cold metal surface on some sort of a raised platform, without as much as a cushion under her head for support. She had a tremendous headache. She couldn't see the two speakers, one the sailor from before, the other an unfamiliar voice, cheerful and satisfied, but they had to be nearby.
She heard footsteps, and soon there was an unfamiliar woman leaning over her. She was dressed all in red, and her knee-length hair was tied into a smart braid. She was smiling, but there was a hint a strange hunger in her eyes Kana didn't quite understand. "She should be awake now, according to the monitors at least. Can you hear me?"
Kana hesitated, then nodded.
The stranger let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I was starting to get worried you had suffered some permanent damage from our security." She placed her hand on her chest. "I truly am sorry. I didn't realise the settings might be too high for most spirit-based creatures."
Kana cleared her throat. This was getting weirder by the moment, and she desperately needed some answers. "W-who-" she paused, her voice sounding embarrassingly weak and shrill in her ears. "Who are you?"
"Oh, that's right." The stranger flashed a benign smile at her. "I'm Professor Yumemi Okazaki, a specialist in comparative physics, and this," she gestured at the sailor from earlier, "is Chiyuri Kitashirakawa, an undergraduate and my assistant." Chiyuri didn't seem too pleased by the moniker, as she pulled a face behind Yumemi. "We're here on a scientific excursion. Collecting data and suitable specimen for our experiments. Nothing but the usual, honestly. You're currently in our ship."
"I see." Kana didn't see, not really, but it seemed like a safe thing to say. How could she be on a ship when there were no oceans in Gensokyo? How long exactly had she been asleep? She couldn't see Ellen anyway, and her limbs refused to obey her enough for her to sit up. "Is Ellen- is Ellen alright?"
"The witch who came with you? Yes, she recovered far before you, I'm happy to say. She's in the next room along with the others" Yumemi tilted her head. "If you don't mind, I'd like to check your condition by asking you some questions."
"Okay. I guess."
"Your name?"
"Kana Anaberal."
"What are you, exactly, if that's not too rude to ask? I can tell that you're some kind of a spirit, but unfortunately that's where my expertise ends."
"I'm a poltergeist."
"I see. Very interesting." Kana noticed that she was taking notes. "Finally, how well did you fare against the other contestants?"
Kana looked away. "I lost on the first round."
Yumemi put away the notebook and gave her an encouraging smile. "Do no worry about your loss. You're still a magic-user, and therefore of extreme interest to us." She turned towards Chiyuri. "Alright, that about covers it. Prepare for take-off."
Chiyuri made a mock salute. "Aye aye, captain."
"Take-off? Where?" Kana pushed herself up, only to hit her head on something invisible. After the initial confusion, she realised she was in a tube of clear glass, or at least something much like it, with a sheet of metal at the centre. She pawed at the glass helplessly. "What's going on?"
Yumemi gave Kana a funny look. "Naturally, we have to keep your specimen in safe containers for the duration of the dimensional jump. There is no need to fear, we'll make sure to keep you in hypersleep so that you will suffer from no adverse effects."
Something dawned to Kana. "Are you saying I'm a specimen?"
Yumemi frowned. "Why, yes. I thought it was obvious. We are conducting experiments on magic, you see, and naturally we require authentic magicians for our tests."
"But I never agreed to this!"
Yumemi smiled. "Fortunately, consent is considered an optional procedure in our home dimension. Heavens, how else could science make any progress? We'd be slowed down to a crawl if we had to concern ourselves with ethical questions all the time. Do not worry, however," she added when Kana started to desperately bang on her glass cage, "you and your friends will be taken good care of. After all, you're very valuable for our research." She nodded at Chiyuri.
"Wait! Stop this! I don't- Gyah! The tube she was in was being filled up by a green, jelly-like substance. "Make it stop!"
"It is simply to prepare you for hypersleep. Acacian Jelly breathes for you, so there is nothing to be concerned about."
Kana was about to say something very rude indeed as a response, but by the then the tube was absolutely stuffed with jelly, and opening her mouth would have filled it with the stuff. The mere thought was enough to make her shudder.
"Preparing for take-off. All living cargo put into hypersleep and placed in the storage." The jelly was translucent enough for Kana to see Chiyuri muck around with a whole array of buttons. "Hypersleep in three, two..."
Kana braced herself mentally. Perhaps, if she focused her magic, she could resist whatever means they were going to use to put her to sleep...
"Done."
The jelly around her turned into a shimmering blue. Kana felt her mind escape back to the darkness.
As she battled the inevitable sleep, she caught one final snippet of Yumemi and Chiyuri's conversation.
"Should I call ahead?"
"Unnecessary, I'd say. I've scheduled everything vital for today, anyway. The big lab, the x-ray, the vivisection chamber..."
"Vivisection?"
"In case it looks like we can sacrifice one of the weaker specimen. Time will tell..."