The change was instantaneous, and it took a full second for the emotional jolt of the transition and the physical jolt of the energy she had spent to get here to hit Asclepius.

Unfortunately, they both seemed to hit at the same moment.

With a sound too vocal for a sigh and too soft for a shout, the girl collapsed to the stone floor; her eyes remained wide to take in the scenery, however. Beneath her, the hallway stretched ahead and behind, too wide for her to be able to touch opposite walls at the same time. It appeared to have been carved through grey-brown stone, with veins of white and black and the occasional color in the rock. Either feet had worn the floor smooth, or it had been intentionally polished to a gloss.

Though she was certainly underground, the girl could still see, as light filtered in through square windows carved at regular intervals along one wall. When she could stand again, the senshi got to her feet and walked over to one, the sounds of her footsteps echoing down the hallway.

The view almost knocked her over again. Of course Asclepius had known that she would be going into space, but actually being there and seeing it was something else entirely. The sun looked much like it did from Earth, but the stars were so much clearer, and the girl could see thousands, millions of them. She had certainly never seen anything like it before, but ... somehow, a part of her felt an odd sort of familiar feeling, like one of those threads of nostalgia that connected a person to an old classroom or house.

Asclepius shivered a little, the cold of space noticeable through the windows on this side of the hallway. Or maybe it was the emptiness of the place. Like it was not supposed to be this quiet.

She moved on down the hallway, turning her attention to the doors spaced along opposite the windows. Examination of a few of the rooms revealed beds of curling wrought metal, usually in pairs in each room, with other various equipment, the use of which she could not fully discern. They all seemed to be the same, more or less, though some had gauzy shrouds as curtains positioned in various arrangements around or between the beds.

They looked like hospital rooms, she thought, venturing into one last room before she figured she could skip some doors until she found some that looked different. Sure enough, this one looked like the others, with a single bed hidden by another of the curtains. Asclepius held her phone up with one hand to cast some light into the dim room, and used one finger of the other hand to pull the curtain aside.

The hollow eyes of a dessicated body stared back at her from the bed.

Asclepius shrieked and recoiled, stumbling back out of the room and pulling the door shut behind her. Back in the hallway, she staggered back to the windows and gasped for air.

A hospital full of dead people? An obvious explanation for the silence. Not a comforting one. How could an entire hospital let all of its people die? ... Were there more dead people? Did Asclepius want to go looking for them? The thought of being the only living thing on the entire asteroid was deeply disturbing, and the senshi half-wished she had brought someone along.

She could always go back, she reminded herself, leaning her shoulders back against the cold glass of the windows to space and letting the chill bring her back to herself. However ... part of her really had to try to find out more regarding the condition of the place. This facility was hers, and, now that something had gone wrong, it was her responsibility to find out what. Or at least more information.

The hallway curved up ahead, sort of meandering off to the right rather than cleanly turning a corner. Asclepius headed for the bend, and found a tall open archway not too far along. There were no more doors between her and it (thankfully), and she walked to stand in the opening. A carved snake coiled around each of the pillars that framed the doorway, and something in a language she did half-recognized but not know was engraved into the lintel above it. The light from the windows did not reach far into the new hall, however, which gave the senshi pause.

Suddenly, the brown-haired girl caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Pulling her arms in closer to her chest worriedly, she moved to stand close to one of the pillars, and peered back the way she had come. No one was there. The place was empty.

... Unless it was the dead man.

It was stupid, but Asclepius did not realize it until she was about five steps down the dark hallway with her phone open and shining onto the path ahead. And once the light from the windows behind her had waned, she had only that LED screen to rely on for light. If she ever came back here, she was definitly going to have to bring a flashlight. And maybe a jacket. She shivered again; the open air touching her shoulders, her back, her uncovered arms and legs... it made her feel quite vulnerable here, even as the small part of her brain that seemed to know this place tried vainly to reassure her that it was okay.

Especially as the hallway opened into a room. It was pitch black inside, save for the cell phone's vaguely bluish glow. The sound of her footsteps changed to indicate the size of the place, though her feeble light could not touch any but the nearest wall. Hesitating, she stepped straight forward, moving slowly and keeping a watch for anything that she might trip over. The floor was better polished here, which helped the light somewhat, but not nearly enough to be a comfort.

After walking perhaps fifteen paces forward, the girl caught sight of something metal up ahead, like a brazier or something, on a small step up. As she moved closer, it proved to have three legs and a deep bowl; with the step it stood on, the brazier came to about Asclepius' waist. Shining the light off to both sides did not reveal for sure if there were others like it nearby, but she thought she caught something shiny.

Just as she was turning to move to what might be one of the next braziers, the senshi again caught some sort of motion out of the corner of her eye. Impossible in this darkness! It was far beyond the reach of her light, unless it had a light itself, which it obviously did not because Asclepius saw no other light. None but her own. And that was barely there as it was. She edged away from where the motion had been, back the way she had come again, her breath quickening with fear.

She had to get out of here. Or, whatever, fine, maybe it was ultimately safe, and home somehow, but she really wanted to get out of here. Asclepius' feet were already moving foward again, in the direction she had been going originally when she first reached the brazier. There would be another hallway opposite in this huge room, and she could run down it and at least be back into the light again.

Heels clicking entirely too loudly, she moved as quickly as she could in the darkness, and sighed in relief as she found matching snake-pillars on the opposite side of the room. Her body still felt tired and did not want to move too fast where she could not see, either, but the girl tried to hurry as much as she could. More hints of motion the next time she ventured a glance back over her shoulder urged her foward, down the hallway, as she tried her level best not to scream or freak out right then and there.

Light! Up ahead! The opposite hallway! Or the same one. It ran all the way around the perimeter of the asteroid, with its welcoming windows--

The perimeter hall was filled with beds in neat rows along under the windows. More of the white filmy curtains had been hung from the ceiling to offer some privacy between them, but they had fallen in places, revealing the bones of those who had died. Dozens of them, right there in front of Asclepius. Dead. Dead. Dead. In her hospital.

Clenching her hands into fists, the girl sank to her knees and covered her head with her arms, squeezing her eyes shut. This was too much. She took great gasps of air to try to calm herself down enough to make the trip back.

Fumbling with the phone, she worked to enter the keystrokes that Chaonis had told her would bring her home. He would see her flustered and upset, but at this point, she did not even care. Finally (was this relaxed enough?!) Asclepius touched the final key, and found herself kneeling on the library carpet again.

And then she screamed.