Chapter 003: Bump! (Part 1)

“Urgh!!”

“Oof.”

“Hya—?!”

“Kyaa—!”

The one who’d been fleeing her crazed and pale pursuers perked up at these voices, coming to a stop as the four before her were caught in rapt bewilderment.

Before she knew it, she was past the pillar and the room with the “lake” and stopped somewhere in the hall, where from the far left, purple streamed in, and a little further ahead, familiar auroral lights shined faintly. Surely these weren’t dark, pale and suspicious figures who wouldn’t look to sacrifice her immediately as well…?

Between the oddly-circular pillars, she stared at these four who were—as she squinted her eyes—strewn across the ground…?

Her steps were ginger, but she stepped forward nonetheless, mindful to peek behind her back too. Her breath was still hastened as her feet slowed.

Dull lines of pain shot through a blonde girl’s chest as she fell to the ground upon collision. “You…” she peered ahead at a type of shell, “where is this?”

Said shell withdrew her “feet” as she tumbled from the bump. Her oversized “body” rolled until it gnashed with the wall beside… no, behind her.

She felt no pain, encased within her shell, but it didn’t spare her head from rolling dizzily. “Who turned the world upside down…?”

From how the blonde saw it, tendrils serving as legs rose into the air momentarily before the shelled girl seemed to register her actual orientation, before turning to right herself.

The blonde exhaled as she pulled herself to her feet. Her body was so… heavy, yet light at the same time. “Hello.” She stepped up to it, giving the shell a few knocks.

The girl who’d been fleeing pale pursuers strode up to this ridiculous scene of two pairs bumping onto one another. “Uhh, hey… any of you seen those pale girls…?”

But her voice was yet too low, so the shelled girl turned not to her but the blonde knocking on her.

“Hello! Who’re you?” Her feet helped hoist her shell into the air, as if to “stand” upright.

The blonde’s head craned up further as the shell towered above her. “I’m…” she blinked with a slight quirk of her head, “I don’t know.”

“So you’re not Trenton?”

But the blonde kept mulling over the simple question before she shook her head curtly. “I don’t know where this is either, or how I got here… Are you the same?”

“I guess it makes sense…” The shelled girl then thought over the blonde’s words more. “I’m Madeline! But I dunno how I got here.”

“Trenton… sounds like a male.” The blonde pressed a palm to her heart. This pain… it came with cracks fracturing across her body. “It’s good to see someone else for a start, Madeline, but…” She turned to a gray-haired girl who seemed to be trying to talk to them, and another pair that’d evidently bumped into one another as well? “Seems like a good gathering place. Are any of you from here?”

One of the shelled girl’s tendrils pointed at the gray-haired idly.

“They… sa…id… they… wanted to sacrifice… me…” said gray-haired girl eked out.

Her voice was still too low. She tried clearing her throat.

The blonde quirked her head at Madeline, saw this girl try to speak, then peered over the other pair.

There was a blue-haired girl who yelped when the impact first occurred, still clutching her head.

“Uuuuu…” She felt slight tears in the corners of her eyes, a red welt evident on her forehead.

Inevitably, she found another girl before her, a blonde perhaps an inch or so shorter than her, lying in the dark, unmoving.

The blue-haired girl blinked at the crack across the unconscious blonde’s cheek. How strange. She palmed her own face—no cracks were felt. Her skin burned, sure, but then… Why was that girl…?

The gray-haired girl was still trying to get her voice to work. “Uhh, h… hello?”

“Maybe it’s a last name?” Madeline quirked her shell slightly.

The girl with bright blue locks stared down at the unspeaking girl on the ground for some seconds before turning to the other voices from a few paces away. Her head was half-ducked, hands joined together before her heart before she stepped up to them, almost on tiptoes. “Um… hello.”

She peeked at them from under her bright bangs. Another blonde… and a walking, talking submarine…

“I just woke up here… and, look, s…some people tried to kill me, and…” the gray-haired girl said.

Everyone’s heads turned to her.

“O-Oh, that’s bad!” Madeline said. “Why would they try to do that?”

The blue-haired girl felt her brows arch up. Kill? Why’d the angels…? No, if it were the Hereafter, there would be no more to kill. Her face fell. Then that means…

“Then, not everyone here may be willing to talk.” The conscious blonde tapped on the shell again. “You, Madeline, is this for combat?” She then glanced at the other two. “If something were to attack any of us, there’s not much for us to defend with.”

“They… wanted to sa…crifice me,” the gray-haired girl said. “Dunno why, though.”

“What’s your name?” Madeline asked. “It’s not Sacrifice, is it?”

“I don’t think so, no… but I can’t be sure; don’t remember anything.”

“Guess not…” Madeline blinked within her shell. Who’d name a girl Sacrifice?

“This might not be the best time for me to join in,” the blue-haired girl raised a hand… or rather, a blue lock of her hair, unbeknownst to herself, “but there’s another one here, out cold…”

“Did you knock her out?”

“She was attacked too?” The blonde tilted her head in her direction. “Maybe we should escape from here.”

“Yes, and no, um…!” the blue locks waved frantically over her head, “I mean, sorry, I think she got knocked out when we bumped in the dark.”

“I… I didn’t attack anyone, I promise!” the gray-haired girl said.

“She doesn’t look too different from us.” The conscious blonde glanced at the unconscious one. “Let’s call it an accident. We could drag her too. Were any of you going anywhere? We might benefit from staying together.”

Madeline shuffled toward the unconscious girl.

Something clicked or was it a tap? The blue-haired girl was the first to turn to the big pillar behind the gray-haired one. Is there something…? She tried to peek beside its corners. Or someone, just behind it…?

Then another click, and the other three turned to the pillar too.

A click, a tap, or rather… a thud? Of what?

“You… blue one,” the blonde called out. “Is that coming from where you two came from?”

Madeline was poking the unconscious girl with her tendrils, but her gaze flitted back and forth between her and the pillar, turning between two of her portholes.

“No clue where she came from,” the blue-haired girl then pointed to her right as she faced the blonde, “but I think I came from over there.” She then glanced back at where the sounds were coming from. If I wait here, will I see them—the angels…?

The shelled girl had escalated to shaking the unconscious girl now!

The blonde girl spotted a seeming doorway a little further beyond another big pillar. It wasn’t exactly a door, but it was a path. As for the corridor the blue one referenced, a kaleidoscopic light was streaming out of it… so it was probably just another room with a “bed” of shiny rocks as before.

“Was there anything nice over there?” Madeline was still shaking the unresponsive cadaver.

“I saw a door,” the blue-haired girl said, “but I didn’t open it.”

“It was the same for me too,” the blonde said. “But my door was locked so I simply moved on.”

“Oh,” Madeline perked up, “you couldn’t just open the door? They aren’t very strong.”

“I don’t have a key for…” The blonde then knocked on the shell. “Did you just break your door?”

“We… could just try to open that?” The gray one pointed at the opening the blonde was eyeing further to her right, beyond another pillar. “Look, we can maybe go there, find ways to defend ourselves from the pale ones, and…”

Though at this point, they should’ve caught up. Did they give up…?

Madeline blinked. “…Maybe?”

The blue-locked girl stared at Madeline. Huh—?

The shelled girl was meanwhile leaning toward the ground, limbs soaring towards the top, as if the submarine was trying to catch its head in mock embarrassment.

“Smart. I should’ve considered it…” the blonde whispered to herself.

—Eh? The blue-haired girl blinked. Is that how a girl should be behaving…?

But then Madeline rotated with her shell still bent low, grinning inside with no care for the world.

Another click sounded from where the gray one pointed, then another from where she’d fled from…

Her spine chilled and stiffened, eyes widening ever so slightly.

“We gotta hurry… please, all of you!” The gray-haired girl’s voice shook, hissing, face broken up. “They’re coming for me…!”

…But she—no one else wants to see. The blue-haired girl looked down. A shame.

“Then let’s go and see what’s in that doorway over there.” The conscious blonde led the way ahead of the group.

The blue-haired girl followed quietly with a slight sigh, her locks falling back into place, gaze trailing along dark corners.

What came before them past the other rounded pillar was… not a door at the doorway, but rather an… arch? A marble one at that.

Darkness loomed beyond.

Something thudded at the back, and the gray one’s chest spiked and burned!

She clutched her heart with a whimper. “M-My chest hurts… Forward, come on!”

The blue-haired girl squinted her eyes at the arch, feeling for slight contours with her palms as she bent down. Or, if there are no angels, and we’re still of the living…

“A gateway like this could lead to an exit…” the blonde sighed, “but I can’t see much. Do any of you have a light?”

“Uh…” a pair of limbs patted her shell as Madeline was checking for pockets, “don’t think so?”

“There are steps leaning up just past this arch, be careful,” the blue-haired girl said.

The blonde gave a slow nod before stepping up cautiously. “I’ll go ahead and check, then.”

The gray-haired one basically stuck to the blonde’s back. There won’t be another ambush here too… right?

The blue-haired one followed closely too, steadily feeling the curvature of the steps with a palm rustling along the walls. And if we’re alive, and this is a mine…

The blonde watched her and felt for the right-hand wall too. Slowly but surely… they inched to a single door at the end of the upward incline. Her hand flitted over it for a handle. It definitely didn’t crack open as she pushed… It wasn’t so simple being a head-rushing Madeline, it seemed.

Speaking of the shelled girl, she too came up gingerly, numerous tendrils working in tandem to probe and slip through the steps to said door. She had a pair of extra limbs dedicated to dragging their unconscious companion by the neck of their head, wrapping it just enough to prevent banging against the steps as they moved up.

There weren’t too many steps to this incline at the end of the day, but they were somewhat curved and smooth.

Someone… or some miners? Carved these to move up. The blue-haired one remembered the first set of steps she’d labored through when she was exiting the room she awoke in. But why so smooth? You could slip. She gulped, eyeing the crack on the blonde’s center, which was no doubt larger than the crack on the unconscious blonde’s cheek. If I didn’t notice these…

Then, as the three beside the blonde moved up, there it was: a second set of steps, and finally just before her—a black metallic door.

She peeked back at the others, nodded to them, and tried turning the handle…

She clicked her tongue; it didn’t open. Then she remembered what Madeline was saying, and planted her foot before the door with some force, pressed the handle again and puuuushed!

A magenta shimmer spilled and splashed over the girls and the steps as she shoved and shoved, expanding this light but nearly blinding their eyes as they turned away reflexively!

…When they put their arms—and tentacles—down, there lay a room with a ton of complicated-looking machines and equipment, most hanging by the center.

Wasn’t this… just like that other room with its purple glowing crystals? Madeline blinked from inside her shell as she peered closely, trundling in slowly as she dragged the unconscious girl. Then, she glanced at the door and how it was opened—and promptly applauded Pandora’s display of strength with not her hands but her tendrils, a stony clap echoing!

The conscious blonde was just a step ahead of her, blinking as she drank in the sight as her eyes adjusted rapidly.

She caught no other doors, no places to hide, only strange items dangling from threads attached to the ceiling.

“A new place.”

She took another step forward when her gaze fell on a glowing magenta crystal from the ceiling.

No one to ask questions but… we’re safe?