[Continued from New Nightmare]

Penelope, still wearing the fuku of Super Sailor Pasiphae, stared at the bare landscape around her as she arrived after her space travel, wondering if she had done the right thing. It had seemed correct minutes before, when she had transported herself directly from her bedroom to her moon. Now that she actually wandered across the craterous, pink surface, she wasn’t as certain. What was she doing? She didn’t know where to go or what to do--and it wasn’t like the moon would directly answer her if she spoke to it. It didn’t in her dreams, where it was obviously trying to communicate something to her; why would reality be any different?

When she had been here last, a compulsion had seized her to dig in Pasiphae’s pink dust. She had uncovered a chunk of statue, rough and worn, but of a statue nevertheless, one that showed a mask like her own. That was really her only clue, and despite not feeling the same desire now, she dragged the side of her heeled boot across the ground every few yards. So far the efforts had revealed nothing. Maybe she wouldn’t find anything this time. Maybe she would be forced to go back to her room, back to her nightmares, with nothing more to comfort her. Maybe her moon was done sharing with her. ’Just a little further,’ she told herself as she picked at the detailed lace of her gloves before moving to fidget with one of the ornate bracelets on her wrists. ’Just a little while longer, and if I don’t find anything, I’ll go home.’

Penelope dragged her left foot through the powdery dust, telling herself it would be the last time…until she hit her ankle on something that felt jagged and hard. The girl withdrew her foot, kneeling down and brushing away the soil to see what she had found. Her quasi-excavation revealed the corner of a stone. She followed the edge first down and then across, ignoring the ache beginning to form in her knees, thighs, and lower back as she worked. Poofs of pink dust surrounded her and made her cough, but she didn’t care. She had to find what it was, uncover something during her trip here.

The object she revealed, however, was somewhat ambiguous. Penelope, though observant, had no real measurements for what she had uncovered or any real clue as to what it was. For her, it was ten hands down and fifteen hands across. Large enough to act as a door or to seal off the entrance to something. Also large enough to just be a very large floor tile or the base of a statue or a lump of raw material…although the flatness of the rectangular stone made the last of those options somewhat unlikely. She rose after fully uncovering the perimeter of the stone, sliding the bracelets off of her wrists so that she could pull off her dirty gloves. She began to use them more as a pair of clothes to sweep away the dust that remained in the center with one hand while the now bare fingers of the other sought any detail, any shape that might indicate the stone’s function.

As she worked more, she did feel some amount of carving, and she began to work as fast as her tired body would let her, even blowing to try to reveal the details quicker. Circular swirls formed of half-spheres increasing in size formed a border, of sorts, one that led further inward. Penelope followed the pattern with her fingers, crawling carefully on the stone and eventually finding the end of the pattern in the center of the stone slab. All of the borders increasing in size ended on this centralized point, a smooth, round half-sphere about the size of her palm. She gently ran her fingers over it. Whatever it was, it was not made of the same material as the rest of the half-spheres; they had been carved in relief of the stone, pieces chipped away around them until they stood out. This larger piece was added after, of some separate material--maybe marble or a piece of a large shell--Penelope had no real idea. She just knew that it felt different beneath her trembling fingers. Smoother. Colder.

Penelope licked her dry lips, ignoring the slight grit of the dust. More decoration? Or…a button? Still out of breath from the effort it had taken to even find this much, she waited. Waited until her heart stopped racing. Waited until she could breathe normal, shallow breaths. Waited until her head was clear. She had to be certain that she wanted to proceed, to continue investigating. But there was only one clear choice. She had come to see whatever it was her moon wanted. She had to continue. When she felt she had waited long enough, the girl pressed down on the large half-sphere, feeling it half-sink beneath her efforts. A button, then. Time to see what it would do.

The Senshi yelped whenever the panel that she was crouched on began to move to the left, and she clung to the rough edges even though it was moving very slowly. After a few moments its sliding stopped, and when Penelope peeked very carefully to see what had been revealed. An opening had been revealed, one that she could not see too far down due to the lack of light. She could see, however, the first few of a series of stairs. She shakily rose to her feet and moved towards the opening.

Penelope descended the staircase slowly, carefully. There was no railing to the stairs hewn from rock, and the further down she looked, the less visible her path became. She pulled off her high-heeled boots in favor of her stocking feet, too afraid of tumbling down into that darkness to chance losing her footing. As she moved down, step by step, she could see no end to the stairs. She had no way of knowing how far down it would take her; she couldn’t see anything below but darkness. Her exploration would have to come to an end soon, if she could not find a source of light. The teen berated herself for not bringing a flashlight; just because she hadn't thought she would need it was no reason to come unprepared, especially to somewhere as far away as her moon.

Speaking of unprepared--the slab she had slid open to begin her descent was starting to close! Penelope dropped her boots, ignoring their clatter down the steps as she raced back to the top, her voice frantic and increasing in volume, "No, No, NO, NO!" She climbed as fast as she could, panic rising to the point where she screamed wildly, but her efforts were in vain. She had gone down too far. The panel slid back into place just as she reached it, her bare hand hitting solid rock even as the last glimmer of light disappeared. Frightened and angry, the Shame Senshi felt desperately for a button like she had felt on the outside, but whereas the top had been ornately carved, this underside was bare, nothing but rough rock. Tears began to roll down her face as she searched, and they only increased when she sought to dig her fingers into the side of the panel to try and force it open once more. Nothing worked. For now, she was trapped underground with nowhere to go but down.

Penelope tried to regain her calm, tried to rationalize her predicament, but all she could think of was how stupid she was for coming to Pasiphae alone. She should have known that something was going to happen, should have been prepared. It would have been a huge imposition to ask one of her fellow Jovians, or any of her allies or friends, to come with her, but at least then someone would know where she was! That line of thought, strangely, began to bring a cold calm to her mind. At least it was just her. At least Harper and Christa, Paris and Chris, Tallulah and Aurora, and so many others were safe. At least they weren't trapped because of her. No, they were all back on Earth, completely unaware of what had happened. But if she stayed missing, then they would come looking for her.

If they came looking for her, who knew what would happen? They could run into danger, not necessarily from her moon, but from exposing their energy signatures down on Earth. Because that’s where they would be searching--on Earth, as they had no idea that she was here or even any ability, that she knew of, to get to her moon without her. But Earth was dangerous enough all the same. That many on the side of Order out patrolling so soon after the Negaverse had framed them for their crimes, so soon after Ares had begun her corrupted court? The forces of Chaos were dangerous and problematic enough, but they were no longer the only dangers. Her friends could get caught on film by reporters or arrested by the police! Penelope knew she wasn't worth the danger--but she also knew that some of those she held dear, if not all of them, would risk it in spite of her reasonable objections.

Then she thought of her Momma and Daddy. Her poor parents would be terrified if she was found missing. They had just taken her out of the hospital, had just heard news reports about the missing (though now returned) children. Then she had come back from the Surrounding with fresh, new injuries, both physical and emotional. And of course, they would have every reason to be concerned, even if they hadn’t been in Destiny City. A seventeen year old girl found missing from her bedroom? That was a situation that could bring fear to any parent anywhere. Her stomach flipped with guilt, and even in the darkness she squeezed her eyes shut to combat the rising nausea.

No. The teenager pounded a resolute fist against the stone that refused to budge. No, she wouldn't let that happen. She had to be strong, now, and be brave even though she was all alone. she had to figure out a way to get back to Pasiphae's surface so that she could return home. For all of her loved ones’ sakes.

When she opened her eyes again, Penelope still felt sick but also determined. She would find a way, and for right now that meant climbing down to wherever the stairs led. Whoever had built this place had to have more than one way in or out--it just made logical sense. The teen began to descend slowly, and when standing and hovering her bare foot in empty air to try and find a step proved too much for her nerves, she shifted strategies. She carefully sat down on her current step and gripped it with both hands while stretching her legs to find the next step. Then, she scooted onto that next step and repeated the process.

She did not know how long she descended the stairs in this fashion. In the dark, with nothing else on which to focus her attentions other than her own breathing and the rock she grabbed with her sweat-slick hands, she had no perception of time. She just wanted to go home. It didn't matter how much time she took at this point, as long as she made it home. Eventually her feet felt not an additional step but a dust-covered floor. Penelope wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, rising stiffly from her seated position. For what it was worth, she had reached the bottom.

As she stood, a portion of the floor sank beneath her foot, and the girl yelped whenever she smelled fire. The lone torch that had lit up on what she could now see was a wall made her eyes, which had grown accustomed to the dark, tear up in response. Mustering the remnants of her courage, Penelope walked over to the beacon and pulled it off the wall, using it to investigate her surroundings further. A line of identical torches lined the wall, but whatever mechanism had activated the one she held had been broken. Some of them had fallen to the ground; others smelled of fuel but had just failed to spark. She was lucky any of them had lit at all. The light may be small, but it was far better than trying to stumble her way through the darkness.

Penelope stood and waited for her eyes to better adjust to the light, her tired brain frantically searching for information on what she was supposed to do now. She had survived the staircase and been rewarded with a light, but the torch alone wasn’t going to help her get back. ’I’ll just…have to keep going. Keep going and…look for more light, or some air currents or….or a map or something.’

As she sucked in a breath and continued her trek, Penelope soon regretted having her torch. Despite its usefulness, it also cast shadows, shadows that her overactive imagination told her could be filled with dangers even though her logical, rational side knew the moon was dead. The dark had been terrifying enough, but at least it had enveloped her completely--she blamed, perhaps unfairly, Harper’s insistence on watching walkthroughs of atmospheric horror games like Amnesia for this new terror. Her fears gradually abated as she walked, seeing nothing stir, hearing nothing beyond her own movements. She could not make out much of her surroundings other than what was immediately in front of her, but that was fine with her. ’If I…when I get out of here, I can always come back. If I ever want to.’ At the moment she couldn’t imagine that she would, but Penelope knew she might not have a choice. This alien, yet familiar, place was linked to her, had cried out to her twice. Maybe…all of this was what it wanted her to see? She couldn’t fathom why, but that was true about much of her life as a Senshi. Why shame? Why the particular decoration of her fuku? Why choose her at all, when there were already so many other, better Senshi? Asking why would not change what she knew, or what she was still learning, about her powered life. Penelope had to accept all of these things that were beyond her control and just concentrate on what she could control, however small.

The teen stepped over shattered pottery and hunks of rock as she walked, regretting losing her shoes at this point as her stockings tore. Yet, she pushed forward, her gaze resolutely searching for anything that would indicate an exit. At some point she felt herself beginning to walk uphill again, and she took this as a good sign. Up was toward the surface--and the surface meant home. A feeling of deja-vu began to overtake her as she climbed, the unmistakable miasma nagging in the back of her mind, telling her that she had been here before, that she had walked this path that she was sure she had chosen at random. Her lungs and her legs burned from the effort, but it was not wasted. Soon she felt a cooling current of air against her black hair, and better still she could see a light, one far brighter than the one provided by her torch. The surface! Penelope broke into a sprint, stumbling forward on her bleeding feet but refusing to fall back below. It was right there--right there! She was going to make it!

The gentle breeze on her face as she finally emerged almost made the reserved girl cry out with joy. Almost. But she was just too tired from her back to back ordeals to do anything but sink to her knees in the dust, just as she had in her dream. Her torch fell from her limp hand and went out, but its light was no longer needed now that she had made it back to the surface. All she had to do now was get the cellphone back out, concentrate, and she could go home.

Penelope grit her teeth and forced herself to her feet, shuddering as a sudden chill ran through her. Almost. She was almost done. She pulled out the cellphone and let her thumb hover over the return button. But she did not press it immediately. No, something held her back. A sensation of familiarity. The feeling of being…watched, even though she knew she was on the moon alone. Something compelled her to slowly turn around, to look back. The teenager herself didn’t know why she did it. She was ready to be home, and no matter what anyone, Senshi or otherwise said, that did not include Pasiphae. Pasiphae was her moon, the source of her power, but it was not her home. She had told Carnelian as much when he asked. Yet, she turned all the same, and in a split second her uneasiness turned into paralyzing fear. She realized that she was not alone. A figure stood at the mouth of the cave she had just discovered, a hazy figure except for one detail that immediately caught the girl’s terrified gaze. The figure was wearing a mask as ornate as her own. A few seconds more and she realized that the figure was moving forward, out of the cave, not quite in her direction. But the direction didn’t matter--it was there and it was moving

Penelope screamed, slamming her eyes shut and pressing down on the return button as hard as she could. She had to get out of here. She had to get home! Whether she had found or not what her moon wanted her to know no longer mattered. She just had to get away. As she began to transport, the girl was still screaming, even if no one was around to hear her. Not on Pasiphae, at any rate…

[Continued in Parental Control]


[OOC Note:
Participant: Penelope Seneca/Super Sailor Pasiphae
Player: Quicksilver the Archangel
Word Count: 3,019 (not including the links to the additional solos or this OOC Note)]