Space, traveling, new colony, lone surviving ship (like that one game "EPIC" with the Klingon looking medical ship that I had survive and from where I derived that romanticism about small ship groups.) Perhaps I could swap, you know, have character swaping like some books have...
Drip...drip...plunk.
"Uh...wha..."
Light...dark...a scream of pain...a blood curtling-- Darkness...cold.
He gasped, trying to get breath. Breathing deeply, his eyes shut, he jerked up to a sitting position in a world of darkness. He gasped, taking in air in big gulps as if his lungs had never worked before. A boom of thunder followed by a flash of lightning and another sonic boom followed, the light entering the room from a small, high, gated shut window. His head hung limp from his sitting form, his alburn hair, caked dark brown with dirt, hung down over his face.
As his breathing steadied, he felt a powerful surge of weariness sweep over him and he fell back. He seemed to feel himself falling through the air, as if he had fallen from a high clif and was plunging through the sky...no, it was more peaceful than that, as if drifting through space or gently floating over an ocean in a peaceful blue sky with puffy white clouds scattered. But the sky turned black as night, and the clouds rose to become dark thunderheads, spewing forth sharp javilins of light, rocks of ice, and booming echoes. Then he felt the cold of the icy water as he plunged into the ocean beneath him. He could sense the jagged rocks ready to beat on his frail body or buffet him like a pinball between them. Then he felt himself come to rest, surprisingly gently, on a somewhat smooth plate of stone, but still lost in an enveloping darkness only broken by the flashes of light from the sky.
What came to his eyes as he opened them was horrible. There were tubes filled with liquid and...things inside. Some even appeared to be human, but, how could they be? Beings cloaked in darkness stalked the lands all around him, some above, some below, bringing torture and pain to those that were not of their kind. He could feel in them something dark, something evil. They were cold in many ways, one was they posessed no heat. Another was their calous treatment toward those they wrought their atrocities to.
A flash of light showed him rooms of stone, many many rooms of stone. Another flash showed him the instruments of pain, but a sharp sensation hit him, and they were stolen from his eyes before he could focus. Then he saw rooms, a great many rooms, dimly lit, having no windows, where there lay people in various states of decay and drained life. Some were tied down as they struggled to get free out of desperation, others struggled to get free out of rage and insanity. Some just lay, not even tied down, all had something or other pumped into their bodies through their arms, legs, chests, stomachs, foreheads, necks, everywhere...some were even in conditions that would seem imposible for them to still be alive, some with a chest wide open, either writing in agony, or passive, out of active life and their minds somewhere else entirely...if they even still existed. Some had missing (or partially missing) limbs, some of these were still connected in some way or another. A few even had the top part of their skull removed revealing their still active brains. A few were totally encased in some sort of liquid filled tubes as these things and more were done to their poor, naked bodies, unable to fight back.
Then he saw them...the beings of darkness were finally coming for him. Although he didn't know if he was destined for one of those rooms or not, he didn't know what had happened to him, he didn't know what they were going to do, all he knew was, they were coming for him.
He sat up. He was...back in the room he had been in. Was it a dream, he thought to himself, was it...something more? He blinked several times, then his eyes opened wide. He was in a cold room of stone. He saw the small, high window with the bars preventing escape. He saw a raised metal table in the center of the room, the sterile insturments connected to it, the rusted and the sterile ones that were larger hanging from the walls. He saw the vials of liquid in cases and containers and tubes on the wall. He saw his bare legs, only covered by a pair of boxer shorts, plaid of white, blue, and navy, that he wore, his legs having some cuts and buises, though nothing compared to what he had seen in his dream. He saw his arms in the same condition where they protruded from his white T-shirt which was sterile and clean despite what of his blood should be on it. He saw, and then felt, the cold needle stuck into the underside of his left arm as he sat on his cold, clean, hard, and uncaring bench. He could feel the cold ickor that ran from it into his arm. He again suddenly felt an imense wave of wearness and sleepiness wash over him, but he fought it off. He could hear something. It was quiet, but slowly getting louder. It was the aminous echoing of steps from heavy boots outside the wooden door to his room.
He looked down at his left hand in a daze as he moved his fingers, feeling a tingling in his arm, but no real pain. With his right hand, he reached over to the needle imbedded in his arm. As his fingers closed on it, he could hear a voice echoing in his mind...
"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" It asked him.
He sleepily nodded and lazily took hold of it and slid it out. Following it was a bubbling of blood that trickled down his arm and onto the previously clean white sheat that lay benieth him. The needle hung from its cord and sagged to the bed, pumping out bits of liquid that it was too dark for him to even see the color of.
A bright light flooded the room from above the table, setting all the blades and instruments there alight threatening to blind his eyes, highly sensitive to the illumination after being so long in the dark. At the same time, he could hear machinery powering up under the table, above the light in the darkness he couldn't see, and even in the very stone around him.
His heart leped in his chest as he saw the IV lift up and lunge at him. He fell off the bench and rolled along the ground away as it lashed out, stopping just short of hitting him as it reached the end of its tube.
His head jerked and his heard pounded in his chest as he heard the latch thrown and the door jerked open. In a flash they were on him, before he could even see them, he was thrown and tied to the table and his clothes ripped off of him as he felt a cold wash over him and even into his brain and mind was he engulfed by icy fingers from a cold touch. Inside of him, he felt something build to a point, and then, he felt it blast, a blast he could not control or stop if he had wanted to. From his very mind, out poured power, fueled by hopelessness, fear, and anger. A powerful rage filled the room and he heard screams of pain, then, nothing...
A spurt of sparks shot from overhead and landed on his bare chest in the otherwise dark. He felt the heat for just a moment before it disipated. The room shook somewhat as he heard the sound of thunder. Another spurt of sparks shot from the wall. A dim light flickered along one wall, a low blueish white hue, casting only a slight glow. He sat upfinding his under shorts still on him and blinked before looking around. It was all dark except near the glow, although his skin seemed to glow the same shade of blue where everything else seemed to only exude darkness.
He shivered as he felt the cold air on his skin, but the shiver seemed to eminate from an icy cold in his very mind rather than the sense of touch along his skin. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he began to make out the forms of this room, a room that seemed so familiar, and yet so different. He couldn't recall having been here before, but as he thought back to where he was before here...he suddenly became aware of two lumps of black laying on either side of the bench, mere heaps on the ground. He drew his knees to his chest and now felt very cold. It was more than him just seeing them, for in the darkness, all he could see was black, it was almost as if he could feel their very presense.
He rocked gently back and forth, then shook his head. "I...I will not be afraid..." He seemed unwilling to say this aloud to himself in this dark, closed room, although he was alone. His own quiet and shaking voice freightened him, but he managed to slowly edge off the end of the table. The pads of his feet slapped against the cold stone as he forced himself to make a slight hop off the end, that sound too seemed so distant, foreign, yet familiar. He crept to the lump on one side of the bed. He reached for it with his right arm, but as he touched the black cloth cloak, his hand recoiled.
He closed his eyes and took a breath, then took a hold of the cloak and jerked it up. He couldn't make out what was underneith in the near total darkness, but he could see something. As far as he could tell, it wouldn't bother him, it was sleeping beyond his realm, a sleep beyond time, although he didn't feel it was dead in the sense humans consider it.
He stood up, the cloth in his right hand, and set his left hand on the table. He felt cloth. Lifting it up, he found it was his shirt, which was in surprisingly good condition. Taking a few steps away from the table and two quiet forms, he quickly slid it over his head. Afterwards, he threw the cloak over his shoulders. It seemed to make him a bit cooler, carrying an unholy chill with it, and none too comfortable after where he had gotten it. He slid it back off and, kneeling by the dark form, threw the cloak back over it.
He was startled as the room shook again from another boom, sparks flying from several different places in the room this time. He turned his head toward the door. He stood and quickly made his way to it, carefully opening it. The wood was rough to the touch of his fingers and very heavy, though it wasn't cold like the hard floor against his feet, or the chill air that surrounded his knees and arms more than anywhere else. The door creaked loudly as he took hold of the cross beams and pulled, unable to find a handle. He looked back toward the bed at the dark forms, almost fearful they had heard the sound, then back to the door as he pulled it open.
There was a dim white light illuminating a narrow stone hallway. The ground was rough hewn, though the cracks between the stone were smaller and not as sharp as the room he was in due to more extensive wear. His right hand on the wall, he slowly crept out. The hall walls and floor were grey stone, as the room before had been, the cealing he couldn't see due to the light source, strips that glowed a very slight shade of green tint to the white, were mounted on slight overhangs, so no light went above them.
The hall rocked, violently, after another boom, sending the walls and cealing to his left crashing down into the passage. He turned to his right and clasp his eyes close at the same time holding his breath to keep the dust out of his eyes and lungs. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and took a breath, looking at the pile of rubble. It was apparent he wasn't going to get anywhere that way, so he turned his head back to his right.
Another boom signaled the room shaking slightly, but not nearly as rough. He felt his heart jump as he heard a noise in the room behind him. Without much thought he dashed down the hall in the direction he was facing. He passed more doors like the one to his room and places where the lights flickered, but there were no junctions, nor end to the hall. He began to panic thinking he was trapped without a way to escape the shadowy forms when he began to hear noise from ahead.
As his eyes pierced the dimly disturbed darkness, he began to see lights flashing on and off in the distance. He COULD hear sounds, the sound of battle, of gunfire, and something else. With a desperate burst of speed, he darted through a long patch of darkness where the lights were down to get to the far side and whatever was going on there.
From behind him he could hear noises in the dark, noises that scared him out of his wits. Strange feet on the cold stone, stranges calls of persuit, something was closing on him. He looked back over his shoulder to see something dark after him. All he could tell was it was black in the darkness, like a flood of ink bareling down on him. He fell forward with his weight, leaning to dash faster and with all his might. He felt it breating down on the back of his neck, a cold icy chill, and in a moment of panic yelled out.
From before him darted streaks of yellow light amidst the sound of thunder and yelling. His eyes looked forward to see a light and a half dozen gray forms from which the spurts flew. As he did so, his right foot caught an outcropping in the stone floor, one that still remained after all this time of wear, and he went down. On his knees first and then his side, landing hard on his right arm. He felt a pain shoot through his leg as his kneebone hit the cold stone, and then in his arm as he landed on it at the same time the air in his lungs was forcefully pushed out by the impact. And over his momentarily limp form went the back sweep. He was dazed by the fall and could only feel the waves of pain from his throbbing right knee, but his ears detected the gunfire even though the battle going on was vailed from him by darkness filling the hall. He blinked his eyes and lay on the cold stone, although he felt something was moving. Another loud boom shook the hall and knocked loose some bits of stone and dust, knocking out the lights.
"I know you're in here. You may be invisible to my eyes while you stand still, but as soon as you move, in this light, I will see you. And I'm going to walk around this room until I bump into you, and then you will be mine. It is unavoidable."
He sat crouched as his persuer began walking the room, looking for any sign of motion. I have to do something, he thought. But if I move, he'll see me, my invisibility isn't perfect. He'll see the distortion of my motion in this light...in this light...?
His eyes looked up to see the light source far above. There were nine lights connected by cable, but if he was to shoot his gun, he would be seen in the distortion, then it hit him, his bow. He very slowly set down his pistol, then took his bow from his back, took a tech arrow and notched it, and then fired it at the middle light He let loos the string and the arrow flew, shattering the light on impact, and then bursting into a blue explosion. Both in the room looked up at it, then Matt jumped into motion, not wanting to be caught by the trail of the arrow. In his haste, he ran past one of the doors that opened by the motion sensor.
"There you are!" Matt's heart jumped and he looked too see his enemy upon him. He drew an arrow and jumped to the side. He turned, about to let the arrow fly, but stopped as he saw his enemy run through t doorway. His enemy had thught that Mattran through the door invisible! He relaxed his grip. He had to find a shuttle or fighter and get off the ship, but if he ran across his foe again, he might not survive. He had two options, go on the hunt, or make for the shuttlebay. In an instant he made his choice...the shuttlebay.