Cracks in The Storm

The Truth in the Storm

Anita's awakening didn't feel real. It felt as if it was just a transition between scenes, going from one part of the dream to the next. The Museum she woke up in wasn't the same one she was knocked out in. This Museum felt even more hostile than the last, the air humming with dread. Anita felt words dance in the back of her head, as if someone was chanting rituals and then pouring them into a dark corner of her mind. She would've preferred returning to the nightmares that had plagued the space between when she had been knocked out and now.

This was a dying dimension. Something was killing it, ripping apart the seams that carefully threaded reality together. Anita felt the ground shiver, the death throes of a creature taking its final breaths before the end. Suddenly, the ground shook violently, causing dust and debris to fall from the ceiling. She had to move now; she had to either find what was killing the dimension, or an exit to return home.

Anita had a sinking feeling, allowing herself to be guided by the déjà vu, a subliminal path to a place that she'd much rather not go to: the keynote of the Museum. The Weapon that ended the First Millenia. Anita wasn't sure what it would be, but it couldn't be good if it could end a millennia.

Anita found a map and let it show her to where the Weapon was being kept. The path wound deeper and deeper into the Museum, with fewer and fewer windows, until it felt like she was in a cult's temple and she was the unwilling sacrifice to some unfeeling eldritch being. Maybe that was EXACTLY what was happening. Before making it to the keynote, she tried radioing into Gamma one last time. Nothing. What was she really expecting. If it didn't work in her own dimension, it sure as hell wouldn't work here.

The closer she got to the keynote, the more disconcerted she became. Her déjà vu tickled her mind, reminding her that there was something devastatingly wrong with everything going on. That there was something that she just couldn't remember that was so very important. The walls started to show signs of some malignant, organic growth, some being covered in some kind of flesh. More and more started to appear as she grew closer and closer. Unspeakable things grew on the walls, gazing at her, whispering things that were a heresy to reality itself. The flesh pulsed to an unknown beat, a beat Anita would rather not find the source of. Unfortunately, she knew that was exactly where she was going.

The Weapon was an abomination, barely even fitting the description of a weapon. It was a grotesque heart, not even human anymore, if it even was to begin with. It sat upon a pedestal in the center of a large chamber, designed to make one think of a church. All around it inhuman growths spread, veins pulsing sick blood through whatever ungodly organism it was. The smell it exuded managed to somehow find its way into her suit, making her automatically throw up. The suit cleaned her and itself in an auto response.

Grimacing and resealing her suit to ensure no more smell snuck in, Anita knew that this was what was destroying this dimension. She also knew that it wouldn't stop here and would find it's way to her home dimension. It had destroyed many other dimensions before this one. Whatever reality this thing had come from, she would send it back in pieces. Flicking her finger slightly, her sword unlocked itself from her hip sheath. An emergency program causes it to lock itself there in the case Anita becomes incapacitated so that nothing can take it while she's unconscious. Striding forward, she was prepared to order the sword to fly forward and end the infection. She stopped for a moment, sending something, before flinging herself to the left to avoid a swinging bat from behind.

Whirling, she found herself face to face with a minimum of 9 Addled individuals. However, these Addled were covered in growths, some being almost completely unrecognizable as previous humans. The one with the bat, probably the one that had knocked her out, stood in front of her, an ugly bastard whose only recognizable feature at this point was a single eye on the right side of his face.