One Word Prompts

Ghost - Ghost in the Machine

She sped through a knot of rusted pipes and twisting cables deep in the underbelly of Falbrook City, her bag of scavenged treasures bouncing on her hip as she scurried down the long-forgotten corridor.

Falbrook was an ancient fortress city, who built it, or why, no one today still knew. But what was agreed upon was that the world could end, and Falbrook and her hundred-foot-tall walls of steel would still be standing.

That wall had done interesting things to the development of the town, though. Unable to continue growing outward, the residents had built up, building one building above the next. How many generations of buildings was it? How many had collapsed and sunk beneath the city? She certainly couldn't say, but it had given rise to the twisting corridors and meandering tunnels she now slipped through.

Most considered these places beneath the city to be dangerous, filled with disease-carrying rodents and insects, made up of deteriorating architecture, frequented by criminals and ne'er-do-wells. It was not a "good" place by any stretch of the imagination.

But she had grown up popping in and out of the undercity. She knew it, and its dangers, like the back of her hand. Moreover, she knew the rewards that exploring the forgotten depths could bring. The bag hanging over her shoulder was a perfect example of this. It was half full of strange parts from long broken devices, from broken metal plates covered in strange markings to strangely articulating joints to wads of wires. Most were junk, what purpose they might have served lost to time, some she recognized, bulbs or batteries mostly. Some still worked, most didn't. All of it she could sell as scrap to the people of the city above.

However, as much time as she had spent down here, even she was not immune to the dangers.

It was a pathway she had traversed a hundred times before. A beam she had skittered across countless times with no issue. It should have been no different than any other trip.

Yet the beam gave way beneath her.

She was falling. No warning. Just a sudden crack as the beam's structural integrity gave out. Just a clang as the debris on either end bounced off the walls as they plummeted with her. Just the sound of her screaming in shock as the world gave way beneath her.

Pain erupted in her chest, her fall momentarily slowed, as she hit and broke through something.

This was how she died. Her mother had told her to stop coming down here. If she had listened...

She bounced off something else, her shoulder screaming in pain in response.

This was the end. How far down was the bottom? She still couldn't see it in the dark. But she could feel it coming, approaching faster than the wind ripping past her ears.

She hit the water, still screaming. Pitch black, it swallowed her. Filled her. Pulled her down.

Panic sent her thrashing. She was still sinking. Oh god, she was going to drown. She was going to drown. Oh god.

She clawed her way up, her shoes gone, her bag abandoned. She kicked and she thrashed and she knew this was the end. She was not rising. She was never going to reach the surface like this.

And then her head broke the surface. It wasn't enough. There was water in her mouth, there was water everywhere. Sputtering and struggling, she bounced at the surface, not able to keep her head above water for more than a couple seconds at a time, desperately trying to cough up the water in her lungs while simultaneously inhale the sweet oxygen she needed for life.

All the while, the water kept pulling her down. She could feel it. Could feel herself sinking. Could feel herself falling further and further.

Her head dipped under again, despite her thrashing attempts to stay above. She didn't know if she had the energy to claw her way back up. Her soaked clothes pulled her down further. Her toes brushed the ground beneath her. This was surely the end...