Hey groovy people of the Internet, school is oveeeer! I've been working on this chapter for a while but then finals hit so I couldn't finish it up until now.
A/N PLEASE READ: This chapter might seem a little confusing at first, but hang in there I promise it will all make sense in the following chapters.
Bulma Falls Down the Rabbit Hole
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Bulma awoke in a daze, her mind groggy and her head pounding. Gripping her forehead with a sweaty palm she tried to steady herself. Even though she could feel the coolness of a floor pressed against her back the room seemed to be spinning all around her, colors swirled together as the lines between objects blurred, leaving Bulma nauseous before she could even stand. For the briefest moment she expected to see Capsule Corp come into view before her eyes, but as memories of recent events flooded her mind the harsh white lines of her cell came into view and any hope of Capsule Corp was gone in an instant. Every muscle in her body tingled painfully, as if they had all fallen asleep as her legs so often did when she conducted long experiments in her lab. Like a legion of angry ants the neurons under her skin sent needle sharp pricks of pain to her brain. But as Bulma lay still the angry prickle beneath her skin began to recede and soon she didn't feel them at all.
Groaning she pushed herself into a sitting position, releasing her forehead to rub her temples. As she sat up she felt the bile rise in her throat and for a moment she feared she might be sick, but the moment passed and after a few shallow breaths she bravely looked up to engage her surroundings. The room was a standard 8x10 cell, with no windows and a lone metal door. Swaying slightly, Bulma stood on shaky legs and staggered toward the door. Leaning forward heavily she gave the handle a hard tug, but when it refused to give she could not say she was surprised.
Slumping against the wall by the door her eyes found the floor beneath her feet. The stone was perfectly smooth, without so much as a crack or bump from corner to corner. As the stone met the wall it seemed to melt away, seamlessly sloping upward into the concrete-like wall. But as the walls continued their vertical climb they encountered no ceiling, climbing upwards indefinitely until blackness swallowed it whole.
As her eyes gazed upwards into the darkness the door beside her swung open suddenly, but her exhaustion only granted the intrusion the laziest of glances. At first only light flooded through the doorway, filling the room until it too was devoured by the darkness of the endless ceiling. But then two blood red eyes met hers and the cow like beast slowly entered the room. His flat bovine head was level with her porcelain face where she still stood slumped against the wall. In shock Bulma stumbled backwards, fleeing as far as she could go as her muscles finally came to life beneath her skin.
Without warning her back slammed against the opposing wall, knocking the breath from her lungs and flooding her brain with pain. As her body fell to the floor of it's own accord her mind was back on that stone cold table, staring up at the stark white ceiling. Those two red eyes seemed to sparkle as the cold at her back was quickly driven away by heat - heat that ate away at her flesh until she felt as though she was melting. Lying on the table she could feel her flesh turn to liquid, pouring over the edge of the table and onto the floor. No! she screamed, trying to hold herself together. Then she could feel her life's blood pouring from her melted veins, washing like a wave over the flesh that had fallen to the floor. As every layer of her slowly melted away in agonizing pain she flowed over the edge of the table, falling top the previous layer of herself that had already found the floor. Soon only her mind remained atop the table, and soon enough that too melted away, and as her mind poured into the remnants of her body on the floor she found herself crumpled in a heap in the corner of her cell. The evil meuhevache was slowly entering the room; its movements were slow, as if it were moving through molasses.
Bulma could feel her fingers tracing the scarred battlefield of her back, her once perfectly smooth back that had been unmarred by neither bump nor crack from shoulder to shoulder. Yet now the blisters had left craters while her melted flesh had coalesced into hideous mounds. Rage raced from her fingertips as the blood in her veins boiled. Bulma felt her anger swallow her whole and she made no move to stop it. As she stood she felt adrenaline flood into her muscles and with a barbarian like scream she threw herself toward that evil monster.
As she hurled toward the monster she watched as it's eyes went wide, but only for a moment before her fingers found them and tore them from their skull. The monster cried out in pain and stumbled backward but Bulma was consumed with blood lust. As it fell back into the doorway Bulma seized the door and slammed it upon the meuhevache's skull, trapping its head between the door and the doorframe. Without hesitation Bulma pulled the door momentarily before slamming it forward again, and again. Panting she gave the meuhevache another savage kick before staggering into the hallway, the blood dripping from her porcelain face.
To either side of her the hallway stretched on endlessly, with countless doors aligned along each wall, all the exact same as the one she had come from. As the floor seemed to stretch and pull before her eyes Bulma found herself at a loss. What do I do now? She thought in despair, Where do I go?
As she stood dumbly in the hallway she became aware of a warm but wet sensation creeping up her arms. Holding them out before her the breath rushed from her lungs in an ear-piercing scream as she witnessed the sticky blood that coated her arms in their entirety. Stumbling back against the wall she frantically tried to wipe the blood from her arms but every attempt only spread it further.
What have I done?
Before her eyes the blood seemed to pour off her arms in an endless fountain, pouring onto the floor and pooling at her feet. Screaming Bulma frantically stumbled backwards, keeping one shoulder on the wall as she tried to stop the blood from falling. Every attempt she made to cease its flow resulted in more blood than before, whether it was hers or not she could not tell. As she looked up, desperate for somewhere to go she could only see the walls closing in around her, trapping her, threatening to drown her in blood.
Screaming once more she squeezed her eyes shut with as much force as she could muster and when she opened them again she found herself still standing in the hallway before the door, the floor unscathed by blood other than the few droplets that had fallen from her arms and that which pooled around the meuhevache's head.
Was I dreaming? Did I just fall into a nightmare without even being asleep? Bulma's mind raced, asking itself questions to which she had no answers. But as her brain whirled away something on the floor in front of her drew her attention.
Blood. Dark and dry, the stains were too far away to have come from her. But a sharp tug in the depths of her brain brought up flashes of memory, of her being dragged along the floor leaving a path of her own life's blood behind so that she may find her way back. Speechless Bulma wearily approached the dried stains, examining them closer. The blood pooled slightly on the right side before continuing in a streak to the left that ended with a smear. Crouching down Bulma placed a blood-covered hand on the ground at her feet, dragging her hand slowly along the floor from right to left. In her wake she left a pool of blood that flowed into a streak.
Looking down the hallway to her right she swallowed the lump in her throat forcefully. Pulling herself back onto her shaky legs she followed the trail down the hall. With each step her heart fluttered and she found her pace quickening every passing moment. Soon enough she was sprinting down the hall, her tangled blue locks flowing behind her as her saiyan boots quieted the sound of her frantic steps.
Turning a corner Bulma stopped dead as the trail ended. Looking up at the endless hallway before her she paused to catch her breath. I had already passed the door when I began to leave my trail she remembered, but which door was it? Her hope faded as she looked down the expanse of hallway, containing numerous closed doors without a single one open.
With a cry of despair Bulma sank to her knees, tears threatening to flow from her eyes. But as she looked up again she realized there was something odd about these doors. They're not doors at all, they're just outlines…she realized, just like that dream at Capsule Corp…
"Am I sleeping?" she asked aloud, but even in the empty hallway no echo reached her ears. That must mean….
But just then her train of thought was derailed as a door ahead of her swung open, beckoning her forward with an ominous light. Pulling herself from the floor Bulma half run, half stumbled to the door way without even pausing to think. As she entered the room her mind whirled as an expanse of computers and their monitors stretched out before her. Sitting at the closest one she gave the keyboard a sharp slap, causing the monitor to slowly fade into life. As the darkness of the screen was formed words Bulma felt her stomach drop into her heels.
My work, she gasped, all of it! Scrolling with the arrow-like keys she found all of her life's work displayed before her, from hover cars to capsule technology it was all there. Every blue print, every experiment, every make and model, they had it all. And that wasn't the worst of it. As she continued further down the page she found a section that at first only seemed to be a list of names. Reading through the list Bulma realized it was a list of just about everyone she knew, from her parents to her coworkers to the Z fighters. To her horror Bulma discovered that all of the names were hyperlinks, each one redirecting to a full-page bio.
As she scrolled through the list she found Goku's name in bright blue letters. Half in fear and half in wonderment she clicked his link. In an instant his face was before her, that child like grin and that big spiky hair. Her heart throbbed painfully as she looked at his picture, oh Goku I miss you so much. Wiping away the tears that had suddenly sprung from her eyes she noticed some words in big bold letters beneath his picture.
Saiyan. Contestant. Prize: Chi Chi. Retrieval: standby, awaiting approval code.
"NO!" She screamed, a burning rage lighting the blood within her veins aflame. "You can't have them! I won't let you do this to them!" she screeched as she hurled the monitor to the floor with her blood soaked hands. As the monitor crashed to the floor the others flared to life, each proudly displaying the photographs of someone near and dear to her; her mother and father, Yamcha, Chi Chi, Krillen, everyone. For a moment she stood in disbelief, but as the moment passed she was filled with a blood lust she had never known before. Snatching a nearby keyboard she began violently smashing everything in sight. As the keyboards snapped like twigs she would pick up another, swinging them like baseball bats at every monitor in sight.
As she stood amidst the wreckage she heard a soft hum, coming from a door at the back of the room. Marching over she flung the door wide and coming face to face with the motherboard – the computer brain of the entire complex. Without a moment's hesitation she picked up her foot and smashed the large computer part to pieces. It was brittle and shattered after the first blow. As it fell to the floor the humming ceased, the whirl of hard drives spinning stopped abruptly and even the lights flickered slightly.
"No one messes with Bulma Briefs." she declared, kicking a nearby shard violently.
Suddenly she felt so very tired. Her eyes drooped and her limbs fell limply to her sides. As she tried to think, to process her current situation, her thoughts were stolen away by fatigue and her mind went numb. She felt her limbs moving beneath her and she made no move to stop them, although she really couldn't say where they were taking her. Her eyes transfixed themselves upon the floor, and all she saw was the shuffling of her feet.
She somehow carried herself out into the hallway, but as she tried to continue on she felt as though she was being pushed and shoved without any other presence around. Struggling with every step she pushed forward down the hallway, shoving past unseen obstacles while trying to stay on her feet. Then she found herself before a door, and as the pushing sensation continued against her back she grabbed the handle and fell through the door. Barely catching herself Bulma found the strength to lift her eyes, and found herself in her bedroom. Confused Bulma looked back over her shoulder but only the hallway of Capsule Corp. lay behind her.
"Bulma!" Yamcha called, "come here baby" patting the bed beside where he lay. Exhausted Bulma collapsed on the bed beside him, breathing deep his scent. "Hey now we just got you back, we can't have you running of again" he laughed, wrapping a strong arm around her and pulling her close.
Yes, Bulma thought as she drifted into sleep, can't go running off again.
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Stay tuned for the next installment of Dragon Ball Z!
A/N: I promise it will all make sense soon!