April stared at the giant red crystal infront of her. It seemed to have pulled her into some sort of trance. Circling the crystal, she noticed a weird lump at the base of the crystal. It looked as if the floor had risen and became softer. And along with its already weird look, it had little chunks of the red crystal in it. That was weird, but of course she had never seen the crystals this close before so everything was weird.
Looking up, she saw many more crystals. Some were on the roof, some on the walls. But the majority was on the floor. All of them were different sizes, but one thing seemed to be consistent in them: the shape. All of the crystals had the multiple crystals with spiky tops. April wondered if it would hurt trying to sit on top of one of the crystals, but just shrugged it off.
Every now and then, she looked around her. Even though her dream had finally come true, she had to be alert. There were still goos running amok around the laboratory. But at the moment, there wasn't one in sight.
April eventually decided to walk around the cavern, observing each and every crystal. After looking around for a bit, she came across a stack of splintered wood planks. These were far from being just broken in half. No, there was splinters of wood scattered everywhere, not many big chunks of wood remaining. And after staring at it a bit, there seemed to be a bit of emerald green goo on it. But what caught her attention the most was the cracked slime pup mask. Obviously, a goo had hunted down a slime pup and killed it here, destroyed the wood in the process.
After walking a bit more, she came across sealed garage-type door with the words 'Safety Bunker' above it. So there had to be humans in there. April immediately started banging on the door, yelling for help. But no one answered her crys. But she immediately froze when she heard growling come up from above her.
Looking up, she swear she saw a small flicker of red. But after checking the spot where the growling came from, she saw nothing there. April tried to shrug it off, but something seemed off about it. The only goos that could climb well were the squirrel goos. What could it have been? Shaking her head, she continued walking around the cavern.
The floor seemed to be a bit lumpy, rising and lowering in certain spots. But nothing had done any harm to her yet. Yes, she did hear the cries of goos coming from down the hallways, but nothing seemed to be in here. Were the goos afraid of the crystal cavern? Looking around once more, more and more red crystals shards were popping up. Eventually, April ended up back infront of the crystal she started at.
After staring a it for awhile, that same trance feeling from earlier came back. She edged closer and closer to the crystal until the point where she was nearly touching it. She did all she could not to touch it, but she finally gave in. What harm could it do? She thought to herself.
She got up and just hugged the crystal like it was some sort of person. But then the music seemed to fade out. April looked around, trying to figure out why the music stopped. But then she felt weird. Falling back from the crystal, she felt some weirdly cold but soft substance crawling up her leg. But as it did, she heard a cracking noise. As she tried to look for what had caused it, her vision was blotted out. The weird substance was now all over her body, and the snapping sounds started becoming more frequent. April tried to cry out, but it was no use. The substance had glued her mouth shut in some way. But then she felt weird in the head. Like something was coming out of it. Then that same feeling started to affect her shoulders, legs, back, neck, hands, feet, and teeth. April felt exhausted, finally giving up on struggling. Just when she thought she might be dead, she opened her eyes. Everything was blurry, and a tint of red surrounded the edge of her vision. But after blinking a bit, the effects faded and she lifted herself up a bit and looked around.
The first thing she noticed was the crystal. It was still fine, but it looked to have a bit of the red goo on the part she touched now. Then she noticed her lab coat. Why was it lying ripped up beside her? She then realized that if that was ripped, she wouldn't have much on. Looking down at herself, she didn't see any clothes. But saw plenty of bluish-gray fur. Wait, fur? She wasn't a gootraxian, why was fur there? But as she went down to touch her leg. She noticed a paw. Blinking with wide eyes, she turned it over to see bright red pawpads and claws, similar to the color of the crystals. The same thing had happened to her feet aswell. Then, she touched her neck. There was now a giant heap of fur with shards of the crystal in it. Then she realized she had a fluffy tail with a red crystal-like part on the top side of it. Then she touched her head. She felt a pair of ears and two sharp horns.
April panicked. Oh no, what will Jay think when he sees me? I'm one of them now! Just as she was about to stand up, a Plantix walked by. But before it passed April, it stopped and looked at her. April froze and braced herself, thinking the Plantix would attack her. But instead, it just walked over to her, smiled, and held a paw out. April hesitantly took its paw, and it helped her up. The Plantix then nodded and continued its walk. So the goos weren't afraid of here, there just happened to not be many here.
Walking around a bit, she got used to her new paws. They weren't very hard to get the hang of walking in them. Now knowing it was safe, she felt hungry. But she had a strange craving for meat. Shaking it off as she walked to the cafeteria.
She rummaged through the kitchen, finding a steak. But when she went to pick it up, it slipped away from her paw. After multiple attempts of trying to pick the steak up, she gave up and walked back to the crystal cavern defeated.
After getting back to the cavern, she decided to wait by the safety bunker. Maybe once the power was fixed, a human could come out and help her. But now that she was a gootraxian, wouldn't human see her as one?
Just as she was about the walk off, the lights can back on an the intercom went off: Attention all Laminax employees, you may exit your safety bunkers now. We thank you for your cooperation. Then it shut off.
A new feeling surfaced in April, the kind that told her to run. At first, she didn't run, because she thought the humans would help her. But once the bunker door opened, her trust for humans went falling down.
Jay was in front of all of them with a guard armed with a pistol. April made direct eye contact with Jay before he looked towards the guard. "That's a new species, and it looks aggressive. Kill it."
April immediately turned around and ran, falling onto all four immediately. She felt bullets whizz past her as the guards shot at her, but just when she was about to make it to a corner, she felt a splitting pain in her stomach.
Collapsing, she fell down onto her stomach. April whined in pain, looking for where she had been shot. And then she saw the huge puddle of blue goo forming under a big wound in her stomach. As she tried to move a paw to it, her muscles failed her. She was too weak from blood loss.
As her vision started to fade to black, she knew this was it. She was going to die here. Just before she blacked out, she heard a thud, saw a flash of black and grey, and heard the screams of people. Then, she blacked out.
(Wonder what that flash was?) 1415 words
YOU ARE READING
☆× Lights in the Dark ×☆ (Carneline×Panther)
Random~ April's a 21 year old who's looking for a job. While looking at the options, she sees a job for Laminax Laboratory... it seems interesting... ~ (Gonna shout this out, this is wlw. If you don't like that then this isn't for you. And the two in the...
