Sorry it took me ages to get this up! We just had mid-terms at school, and I'm the stage manager of the play, and my choir is going on tour... oi vey, I have too much on my plate! Anyways, if I have any readers left, please enjoy!
Oh please no! Not the dream again! Sydney was drowning in an ocean of pink goo. She gasped, or at least tried to, but there was something on her mouth. She reached up and felt a metal tentacle attached to a claw, which was covering her mouth. She pulled it off and tried to breath again, but only succeeded in swallowing a mouthful of the pink liquid.
Then she realised - this is no dream.
She sat up, hoping - praying - that she would sit up in her bed instead of in this hellish gelatinous goop. Instead, she broke through some sort of membrane, and took her first free breath of air in her life.
She realized she was in some sort of pod, and when she tried to move to the side, she realized that there were dozens of black metal tubes attached to her arm, chest, legs and spine. She retched, but nothing came up. Or, if it did, it was too similar to the liquid she was already sitting in. Then, she looked around.
"Oh . . ." There was nothing to say. She looked up and to her sides - everywhere was the same thing. Thousands, millions, billions of pods, filled with pink goo and, in each one, a person. They stuck out of massive black towers like spikes on a mace, ugly and mechanical. Who did this to us?
"They're all . . ." But suddenly a strange hovering machine dropped down out of - What? thought Sydney. Because you certainly can't call it a sky. That was just like her, thinking of something cynical, pointless, or stupid to say in the face of danger, or very possibly death.
The machine folded out two long, claw-like arms that made it resemble a praying mantis. Then, it lunged forward and clamped around Sydney's neck. She grabbed it, and tried to pry it off, but she found that her arms were about as useful as two spaghetti noodles. She had no strength.
She felt something drilling into the back of her head, spinning and spinning, and she screamed, hoping someone would come and help her. If she hadn't been half-mad with pain, she would have taken the time to scornfully tell herself that everyone was asleep, or dead, or whatever. No one could help her now.
Then, inexplicably, the pain stopped. The mantis-robot released her and she fell with a splash back into the goo, reminding her how weak she really was - she had been relying on the machine to hold her up.
There came several popping sounds from behind her, and her spine arched in pain. The metal cords attached to her where detaching, ripping themselves forcefully off from her skin.
She heard a mechanical thunking sound, like the hatch of a submarine opening. Then she felt it - the liquid was most definitely draining out of her pod, taking her with it. Sydney had time for one extremely offensive and descriptive curse before shooting down a pipe that scraped painfully against her bare skin.
She had no time to react when the pipe ended, or she would've tried to grab onto the opening. As it was, she shot out into the dark, cold air and landed with a splash in a seemingly endless underwater lake of what she fervently hoped was water.
Sydney's foot brushed against something rubbery as she tried desperately to kick and keep herself afloat. She gasped, which only ended up in her swallowing more of the greyish liquid. Her mind briefly flitted across wondering what the thing was, but she made herself focus on not drowning. Her strength faded quickly though, and, taking one final gasp of air, she went under.
Vaguely, she made out a ray of light penetrating the icy cold water. So that's it - I'm dead, Sydney thought. And that's just the light at the end of the tunnel. Okay, that's good - so this wasn't real. It's just . . . purgatory.
And, wondering idly whether she'd be in heaven or hell when she woke up, Sydney closed her eyes.