Alexandria's Genesis

The Vortex and the Void

It happens again. Swirls of time and space. Distortion of all matter and every moment. He entered the vortex again, only this time he had no one to guide him. But he does have a hand like last time. The hand of someone he trusts more than anyone else, even himself sometimes. And Aleissia had jumped before. Whether on accident or by chance, she came out fine. Avrel just hopes she can do it again and bring him with.

Avrel grasps at time somewhat better than before. A few seconds in, the alarms went off and he could hear the loudspeaker. They quickly distort in speed and pitch. He heard yelling. Also distorted. A little later he heard himself. He heard past Avrel call for Aleissia, in reverse speak. Then Aleissia's voice was back.

They stop shifting in time so much and focus more on space. Their path winds back and forth as they force the energy around them to move. The vortex curves and weaves back and forth, but finally curves to the other two rooms, with Sevantei and Nikal. They go past them a ways and stop. Avrel squeezes Aleissia's hand and they take a second step. He can feel the vortex pulling at him, like he was exiting a soap bubble.

The concrete floor is exactly where he would expect, and time is set normally again. Everything is tranquil. Then Avrel falls over. The travel wasn't worse but definitely didn't feel any better either. Then he looks over to find Aleissia staring curiously at him. She didn't appear affected at all.

"W-Wha?" Avrel stammered.

"Are you ok?" she queries.

Avrel just lingers on his thoughts for a second. "Ye-Yeah, I'll be fine." Down the hall, the floor patters with the sound of feet and the revolutions of squeaky wheels. "Ok, we're hiding," Avrel orders. They look around for anywhere decent to hide their vibrant color. There are some crates, so they take refuge there. The feet get closer, but have yet to round the corner. Avrel turns to Aleissia and whispers, "there are already three of you here in this time, so we have to be careful. We don't want to screw up and have to bring a fourth." Aleissia nods and they watch carefully.

The stepping continues down into their corridor. Their stomping gets extremely close. Avrel and Aleissia hide themselves away the best they can when four men and someone else on the slab appear in front of them. They hurry past, paying no attention to them. Then Avrel and Aleissia realise the person is Nikal. Aleissia gasps and tries to move forward to attack the men and free Nikal, but Avrel holds her back and covers her mouth. Their sound is muffled by the stepping, but they stop to open the door.

As she struggles against Avrel's grip, Aleissia heatedly whispers, "I have to save her. I have to get to her. Let go. I can't let her die." Avrel tries to interrupt as forcefully as he can while still hushed, "No, you can't. You can't do that. Alex will save her. No. Aly stop."

Finally Avrel gets to Aleissia and she stops moving. "Listen to me! If we go the alarms will go off early. Alexandria will jump for no one. And even if we save her, how is she going to react to us. She might not even react at all because we would never be this way anyway. We wouldn't exist." The corridor is empty once again until footsteps of four more men come down the hallway. Avrel continues to whisper, "We are here to get Sevantei. And much like Nikal, we can't save him until after the alarms go off from us. The first us." Aleissia sits back and waits with Avrel again.

In time the men roll into the other room with Sevantei and leave. It's silent for a time, but then Sevantei and Nikal see each other and begin to struggle.

Then they can hear the woman from before coming down the hallway from where they were. Avrel gets up and pulls Aleissia with him. They get to the opposite side of the crate just as she turns into the hallway. She walks up to Nikals room and enters.