Sleep Tight (Solatorobo)

Sleep Tight

A dark tunnel of train tracks stretched ahead. Dust littered the ground, sent from stonework from the roof, made loose with tremors. Dark green light cast weak shadows around a pair of figures as they ran. The tracks that just a few days ago were straight and laid for trains to use were uprooted and twisted, creating a narrow and winding path, just barely wide enough for the two of them.

Red was running, no, he was fleeing. He held onto Elh's hand tight, maybe a little too tight. There wasn't time to worry about that. He could say sorry later, assuming the both of them still lived.

"It's getting closer," Elh said, looking back over the twisted lanes of metal.

Red spared a quick glance behind him. Around the corner, he could see its shadow, as the sound of metal crushing metal echoed across the tunnel. As the metal scrapped together, it gave stainless steel screeches, sounding like the souls of the damned.

"Move," Red said hurryingly. "Move!"

Elh did indeed move, now running in front of Red instead of behind him. She ducked and weaved around and in between the larger gaps of the irons, moving quicker on her own. Red took to climbing over and following as closely as he could, even as the steps became quakes.

Whatever it was that was chasing them had apparently had enough. There was was a terrible moment of absolute quiet, broken only by their footfalls and breaths. Then, there was a sudden gust of wind, and a resounding whoosh of air as the metal thing spread its wings and launched itself around the corner.

Red drew his stun gun and turned to face the creature. "Keep runnin'!" he called. He could see it advancing on them. It spread its wings once again. With another dash, it would be upon them. Red squared his shoulders and squinted his eyes. With a small grunt, he pulled down his goggles over his eyes.

The thing swept its wings once again as it shot forward. Red pulled the trigger on his stun-gun, and a ball of plasma shot its way towards the creature.

With a shuddering creak, the creature tumbled down, unable to support itself as electricity danced across its frame. The still, slightly twitching figure slid and skidded as it landed, grinding to a halt just a few steps in front of Red.

Red was about to fire again, when he saw the figure in full. It was a robot that he was intimately familiar with. It had a large, top-heavy body attached to a pair of segmented arms, which looked almost like wings. Red stared at the robot. Mechanical green eyes stared back.

"Dahak?" Red asked disbelievingly. The gun dropped from his hands, clattering to the floor. After a moment, he heard a pair of footsteps coming back towards him, accompanied by the sound of large wheels propelling another robot that he knew, this time it was the Salamander.

A warm hand grasped his and pulled hard. "Red," Elh said. "Red, please. We need to leave."

"She's right," Béluga said from his seat atop the Salamander. "As soon as the Dahak regains power, it'll kill us all. We need to leave. Now."

Red knew their words for fact. He knew that the face of his most valued possession would soon be the face of his death. All the same, he could not look away.

The Dahak's eyes regained their brightness, shining with power and purpose. It was almost hypnotic, in a way.

Then Red felt a pressure in his skull, a sudden discomfort that made him gasp in surprise. He developed a headache not a moment later, before experiencing his head being split open by a thousand voices trying to force their way in. Elh gave one last pull before Red felt her hand leave his. She still called out to him; dimly he could hear her crying out his name.