Inception

Chapter 34: In the Depths

Several times Lena felt herself coming to like a bauble floating up from the depths. A fuzz of light, a hum against her ears, a taste like metal and phlegm at the back of her throat. But her own utter exhaustion would pull her back down to the depths.

Down there, something not solid enough to be dreams and too fast to be thoughts flickered. Dirt beneath her fingernails. A fat beet on her lap. A laughing blond girl and a silver-haired boy jabbering about stew. Brightly colored linoleum from the fifties. A sky full of lights. The smell of metal on the wind. The sea, rising up to swallow her whole.

The sea swished her around like Listerine in a dark, musty mouth. Leno never remembered on his own to brush his dumb freaking teeth. He cost her a fortune. Dweeb should just get dentures, except those would cost another fortune. Wait, had that been Leno?

The first coherent thought started her final rising from the deep waters. She rose up, chest first, higher and higher until the light turned to the dark red of her eyelids and the low murmur reached her ears. Her throat and nose felt thick, like a bad flu, and when she tried to take a deeper breath it closed in, making her hack and cough.

"Oh good. She's alive. Didn't think that would work on her."

The voice sounded strange. Not quite right. She couldn't put her finger on it.

Too-hard hands rolled her on her side, allowing her to clear her airway. She managed to expel a deeply salty mucous that made her coughs turn to gags. Thankfully, her stomach didn't have anything to bring up, but somehow the mixing of bile with the mucous made it worse.

"Huh. That's funny."

"I think she needs a drink. It can't taste good," said another voice, one that sounded much more recognizable. They were female, probably young.

"Ah. Yes. I suppose I've never seen a human eat it before."

Something hard and hollow was pressed to her mouth, uncaring for her fight for oxygen. She could feel the water in there, cold and wet against her lips, but it took all she had to still her lungs and stomach long enough to swallow. She wanted to open her eyes, but they seemed stuck shut and she couldn't focus on both swallow and forcing them open.

The water did the trick in washing away whatever had filled her throat. Some still lingered in her nose but her...fit had managed to clear enough of it out there. It hadn't smelled much of anything, except maybe skin with a hint of dirty ocean brine.

"Kay, she good enough yet?" asked the feminine voice.

"Hmm. Perhaps."

She tried to open her eyes. She tried to raise her hands to rub them free so she could see, but her arms felt like lead.

Lena tried to talk, but it only turned into a groan. Not only was she weak, but she ached. A lot.

"What's wrong now?"

"Probably some residual weakness. To be expected. We'll give her a minute. Get twenty-seven."

"Yes!"

A patter of steps signaled the exit of the feminine voice.

Lena tensed. It had been the only familiarity about this situation. Even what she lay on felt clammy and soft, like a bees wax made into a sponge. It smelled strange. The voice was strange. She felt even stranger. Hadn't she—wait, she'd been bleeding out in the lab. She'd been trying to get to the first aid box. Then...then...

A tremor of her heart gave her the lurch of strength she needed to unstick her gooey eyes.

It was dim. Extremely so. What little she could make out against the dark was just a few shades lighter and made up in lumpy columns, ghostly lit by a faint light given on whatever she lay on.

That faintest of lights shown on the being leaning over her.

Her breath hitched. Her spine bunched to the back of her head.