B1, Room 108: Shino | Emma | Ritona

[U SO MAD BRO]

The ceiling had caved, debris and a desolate fog settled upon the forgotten chamber within a centennial cortex. It was the floor that held the reflective ghosts of familiars; past and present. She was nestled, no, cradled within the mercury ocean. Stormy waters cold and dark, seaweed idly ebb and flow below a comatose victim seemingly out of frame. A soft silver glow in the cranium, a bulls eye made sedated.
Dust mites crawled up hollowed capillaries, irritating flesh to the point that slumber was no longer possible. Emmaemmaemma, each heartbeat sounded the name, giving all the warmth the humanoid girl could give.
Bloodthirsty orbs flashed, a fruitless gaze of her Mona Lisa smile. what side of the glass were they on? or was all the world made inside her head? The lines blurred and drifted into abstract. Someone approached, the dream fizzled into nothing and there she sat inseminating motives of lukewarm persistence, on a board of checkered chess. Though just as the area was given light, everything around the sitting form turned dark and only a small path was illuminated. She would have to venture forth. There was no way back now.

Populi of mushrooms birthed from the nothingness, aligning both sides of her path. Each one opened a beady eye, following the temptress.

Valentine Valtieri

 

[U SO MAD BRO]

Thinking, how odd, really, that people had to do this every day. Shut down and go somewhere else, leaving their bodies behind.

Inside the world, a brilliant emerald field of grass rolling for acres over hills towards a horizon of gray cotton, granted Emma's feet, the wet drops of dew cold on her skin, the morning mist pushing against her warm body-- she was warm?

Out of the corner of her eye, a tree, brilliant with autumn's palette, sun's golden and harvest's amber blazing in the strong, brown arms of atlas student, a beautiful oak shaking its leaves in the wind like an audience hushing itself for the moment they anticipated. Turning to look at this sudden monolith revealed a something dangling from the oak, just around its trunk, a glint peaking out from behind entrenched bark to flirt with Emma's curiosity.

 

[U SO MAD BRO]

As she pulled and pulled, a mighty and swift justification as any curious onlooker would be tempted to do. This world though, it was the venom that kept the killer in a constant euphoric numbness. What happened next though...through the perverse and contorted, great inky folds came jutting out, gurgles of black fluid oozed down the trunk, running rivers between the rigid spaces. A rather large pulp sac was visible, its surface a pearly iridescent as if oil had bedded water and their love intertwined simultaneously at the same time. Two rolling eyes came to the surface, just below the translucent flesh sac. They were grey, tired and expressionless. A solitary hand pushed at the surface, her finger pads spanning the cover, reaching for the face of Emma. The tree itself shuddered, trembling as the womb breathed, even the leaves turned a sickening shade of red...too red in fact and their minuet veins melted the membrane in between.

What she pulled was the umbilical cord, giving the being a chance at freedom but it wasn't ready, it was too soon and this one would most likely die off like all weak humans do. Even then, the mother would protect it's young. The large tree groaned, branches came swooping down towards the android-like female, it wanted to slice her into twain, quadruples even, flay her where she stood.

 

[U SO MAD BRO]

This towering wreckage of branches swallowed a thousand years of sucrose fears into its roots, fueled by a rotting legend. Underneath its husky trunk broad enough to hide elephants exists evidence of a colony that grew too soon for the world to handle. It is bleak, it is sterile, and underneath the cleanliness is the throbbing labyrinth that vomits out what she gave back to the earth. It was charred with blood and muscle, a rotting land of manic revenge. She had no idea what she was even fighting for anymore...was it for herself? What self did she have left?

Each slash broke away brittle bark, sprays of rich vermillion poured from new wounds until it congealed and a large sac formed. This process repeated until the tree was covered in blood blisters. The 'Emma' in the womb still peered out, without eyelids there was no shelter from the horrific stare, she'd see it all. Scream out, but there was no voice, nothing but silence...loneliness...it was growing cold. A permafrost forming over the area.

 

[U SO MAD BRO]

Every word fell on deaf ears, this other Emma heard none of it. She thrashed against the stillborn womb, nails forming deep lacerations. There was only pain, loneliness, nothingness. It all came tumbling down. Leaves splat in sickly blobs, the diseased trunk split right down the middle and folded on the ends. What was left was the fragile cargo, there she was, left to face this world on her own.

Shaking and trembling, eyelidless orbs stared until they ran glassy, her skin waxen and grey. Limbs turned rigor mortis, death rattling to the bone. Then time sped up before Emma, the whole process of decay spanning in only seconds to what would take months and the ending result? Dust. Posies grew in a makeshift burial marker, green fields once again growing before winter drew in and snow covered it all.

Unlike before, all warmth was discarded and a chill fell. Snow piling upon the ground idly. Ahead of her, iron spears jutted from the blank canvas, there seemed to be no where else to go unless she wanted to stay there, the only path was forward.

 

[U SO MAD BRO]

The large iron gate stood at attention but gave way to the lady, snow was pushed and compounded behind the jet columns. It looked to just be an ordinary field, covered and bleak. All around her was white, the horizon a slightly darker shade of. Rolling tufts of clouds passed overhead, just barely an overcast As she progressed through, her footfalls thundered. Something, beneath the layer of ice was metal and it was humming, though it was low in reverberation. It was still there, hanging on by a thread.

If she chose to remove the ashen shelter, Emma would spy different hues of alloy. Rich copper, silver, gold, all neatly layered on top of the other in a patchwork pattern. She could knock but only the hollowness returned. Perhaps she could bust through the metal? Or pry it away to see what lay underneath? There seemed to be nothing else here anyway.

 

[U SO MAD BRO]

Each square peeled back to reveal another layer, just of a different color and density. She made quick work of discovering the contents beneath...it was nothing. Black. Dark. Empty. That was when everything came crashing down, brittle alloy crumbled under her weight and she would assail through the pitch. Falling faster and faster, Emma could try her wings...but they weren't there. Which was peculiar but not the only thing to notice as the young woman rolled head over heels, spine bending and arching to perfect infinities.

Tick. Tock.

In a blink, there she was.

Sitting at a cafeteria table...

completely....

naked.

No piece of garb shielding her pallor. Just a stark beauty, splices of pinkish hair cascading down each shoulder. Even a rosy mauve gracing cheeks.

All around her were students, teachers, each and everyone of them staring at her...she was the enigma, a freak. Why in the hell was she naked? Against one of the window panes was a redheaded man, his mischievous grin spelling out all that his ovals were washing over. Like an apple of his eye, he wanted to taste the rotten core inside. Yet, he didn't move. As Emma gawked, moving from him to a familiar face.... jutting jet hair, a carnivorous smile...Darion...why wasn't he helping her? She had no one though, just herself and a simple blue lunch tray.

 

[U SO MAD BRO]

Laughter. She cried out and they all chuckled, gasped, doubled over and crooned. It was maddening, not to mention deafening, but as their blundering flaps quaked...so did the ground. It trembled, shook, some of the students even fell over. The redheaded man still grinned but it wasn't for long. One after the other, reverberations ricocheted her vision. There was two seconds of silence that seemed to stretch into eternity, Emma's ears filtering their laughter as static, a white noise as if this was all too much. Or she was starting to lose it?

BBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!

Through the windows, a giant sized fist shattered cacophony. Bodies went flying, blood spraying in rich mists, tables and chairs flew, defying gravity. It was Hunter, her saving grace, though on a much larger scale. His muscles bulged, sweat beading from a furrowed brow. He was smashing them all to pieces, beating each on to a pulpy mess, and all for her. Some though, like vampiric assassin were too quick, they moved, running up the walls and already attacking his arm. Their weapons sliced, their fists blasted and bruised Hunter's flesh. He roared, waving and thrashing his arm until the walls were completely ripped away and a serene blue sky reigned above.

The titan Hunter tried to smack the humans off of him, as if they were nothing but flies on the wall. Emma though, she'd find herself perfectly safe, her plastic shield standing between her and this massacre.