Dimension Of Perfection (And Its Flaws)

Chapter 24 - Utopian Flip

The thumping of my heart beats harder upon loud crashes from the opening I came through, leading me to regretfully look back and see that the whole area has disappeared, replaced with a small view of a glass building mostly shattered and leaning to one side.

This area adjacent to where the bunker was seems to be an in-ground shopping mall, but certainly not as glamorous as any that I saw in that brochure. None of the shops are open and a majority of them are actually defunct and abandoned, closed off and inherently empty.

Down here posters from years ago lie in wait for someone to finally look at them again. One bright yellow one in front of me is torn apart and unreadable, apart from only two words missing half their letters.

At the intersection, I don't hesitate to sprint left with my pain becoming constant and tiring. 4663 dashes right down another corridor where I can barely catch her bag's strap whipping around the corner.

I hasten my pace while zooming past blurred darkness in the shops. One peeking from the hall I'm expecting to turn into is boarded up and currently scattered with supplies sprinkled around, half-open and frayed.

Getting closer, I brace my foot for a spike of beaming pain, until suddenly the weight eases from under me in a giant groan that spins the entire space to throw me forwards, all the way past my turn and tumbling into another corridor.

Crashing on the floor and rolling uncontrollably, in grunting garbled swears, I prepare my claws to latch onto something, only to miss everything except the lip of a corner on the furthest corridor. A harsh clang ebbs through the labyrinth of stores with my claws stabbed into the metal and holding my body precariously.

Chunks of the ceiling fly down where I was heading before, which has now been turned into a skylight as the space has spun a full ninety degrees to look into the clouds.

The direction I was running is now where gravity is trying to send me, far down out another hole kilometres down to the ground.

A grinding gulp tunnels down my neck, as my teeth and front fangs grit with my tongue sliming along the inside of my mouth restlessly.

The building leans right and begins to teeter down, being forced to stop by another structure pushing it back. Tumbling balls from the higher corridor bounce over the edge, followed by a wooden box full of oranges sliding off the wall-turned-floor and dropping past my dangling form.

It whooshes down, surrounded by orange specks spilling out. My eyes clench shut and my limbs retract in a desperate effort. A cold splat of juice squirts in my face like an ice bath, forcing me to open my eyes again to find that one of the fruits fell into my big horn, and skewered itself with rotten mushy skin drooping down.

Its smell is that of a dead carcass, growing worse as it slides down like solid jelly. Despite its abhorrent stench, I've smelled worse.

My other hand stretches to the wall to attempt to pull myself up, making me realise how heavy I really am.

The space shifts again, and stays rotated the same while only moving down toward Craftworld's actual surface. "WAAAAH!!!" The force of gravity lags behind the building so that my hands are not strained as much anymore, and so that when it stops falling I'm thrown into the corridor with an unexpected but very convenient jolt.

Now oriented and somewhat able to understand which way is actually up, I clamber on the wall and begin trotting with one arm holding my stomach to jump over the boxes which have fallen into my path. Some smaller ones are easy enough to hop over, but one big one planted against the barricaded shop door is too high and requires me to shimmy up against the patterned floor to ease past.