"No Life 'Til Leather"

Hangar 18

guess what

another chapter lmao

EEENJOY !!!

A cell.

A little cell makes its grand climb.

The journey upstream, a tale old as time. Against all odds, the cell claws its way up the mountain. This cell, however, came into contact with a helper halfway through.

The cell met a speck of dust on its way past a field of mighty glacier ravines. Where ice and snow met nothing, where the paths cut and fell into the icy void that separated them horizontally, the cell got stuck. "Whatever should I do?" The cell asked. Nothing came to its rescue – not the flowing rivers that swam across the never ending ice rinks, not the shining sun, not even the stars that watched the cell climbing at night. Nothing, but a speck of dust flying right past. It landed by the cell and said that they should mold into one. A cell in a tiny speck would be lighter than air itself, thus flying over the mighty dangers should come with ease. Fly over, then simply un-mold back into separate pieces, that was the deal - a mutual agreement. The cell took the helper up on the offer without hesitation. Crossed the ravines with no problem at all, then asked the speck of dust to stay. It did stay, helping the cell frequently by taking over, molding into one and then simply returning control back once the gales stopped blowing and the horizons flattened. Whenever the cell needed, it was easier to let the dust handle whatever flew its way. Whenever the cell started losing control, the dust would hug it from all sides and simply allow itself to take over for a minute or two. The cell and the dust soon turned into inseparable pieces. The cell never even noticed when the dust started taking control far more often than it was needed. When it started spinning the steering wheel around for the fun of it, the cell stepped in and asked to stop, to get off this hellish ride and continue the horrid climb on its own. At that point, the speck of dust had its fluffy body all around the cell. The cell was more dust than cell, more alien than itself. The dust laughed and refused, so the cell tried to fight. The cell fought, and it fought bravely, but it was eventually the speck of dust that had reached the mountaintop on its own, carrying behind a carcass, a vessel, a dead cell that served its purpose. A cell reborn anew.

Andy woke in a hurry, rubbing the visions of cells, dust specks, and grand mountaintops from his eyes. As if injected with a fresh dose of adrenaline, his heart kept beating out a steady breakdown rhythm, much too fast for his liking. Before it could even stabilize, his gaze fell upon the white, shapeless blob that presented itself right before his very eyes. A mass of light, as if it was the famed tunnel the dead crossed on their way into the heavens – but it was no tunnel. A moment or so later, his otic capsules had finally stopped spinning his head around like a careless carousel, letting his eyes focus and immediately narrow, hurt by the brightness cast by a myriad of LED bulbs. Once he got used to them, his eyes scanned the ceiling – unfamiliar, surgically white, maybe even grayish, had the lights been turned a little dimmer. Underneath himself, a bed. The last time he felt a bed this professionally put together was a blurry period of his life, that now barely even graced his mind with its presence – the Lateran days of idyllic peace, now buried beneath a pair of blackened horns and a flimsy tail. The moment he tried to shift on the bed, a voice clicked its little, non-corporeal tongue, then spoke.