Post by zer0gravitea on Oct 23, 2019 1:04:22 GMT -8
When Savina became aware of her own existence, she knew only a drifting darkness. Conscious and infused with enough basic information to understand that she was a living creature, she was left to wonder whether or not she had somehow died. It was a curious thing to her, to become aware of her own life only to experience what she assumed was the aimless floating that was nonexistence. She could not properly comprehend how it was that she was capable of thought in this state, but she knew that she felt… simply nothing. There were no images to greet her eyes, no sounds to hear- not even her own heartbeat within her ears; as far as the girl could tell, she did not even possess the organs required for those experiences. She knew what sight -was-, but had no recollection of ever experiencing it for herself. Her awareness included basic notions of life such as those senses, yet still she could not so much as feel herself floating in the inky blackness that encompassed her awareness.
Her instincts commanded her to fight against the nothingness that so filled her existence. Every fiber of her being, as meager as it was, screamed wordlessly into the void, but they were little more than thoughts. She had no voice with which to formulate her displeasure, though she knew of words. Yes, there were words within her mind- she knew their meaning, how to string them together in patterns to convey ideas. Savina knew that words were meant to be spoken and heard as much as they were to be thought, but she did not know the sound of them. As one might expect, conversations with herself proved confusing and jumbled, often resulting in her attempting to convey ideas with imagined fragments of herself with little more than the emotions that she felt. Above all of the other emotions she was allowed to feel during her reflections, she knew anger and confusion the most intimately.
Is this truly what life is supposed to be? Why have I been allowed to live? Who wished me into being, only to have me suffer this terrible silence? These were the questions that haunted her in the blackness. Ruminating on her existence allowed her to understand the meaning of fairness enough to know that her ‘life’ was unfair. It was unjust- she had done nothing wrong that she could remember. Or perhaps was that exactly it? She could not remember being alive before that darkness, and so she was being punished for her lack of memory. How valiantly she attempted to remember what came before, to no avail. Her mind begged forgiveness to the nothingness around her, and was answered only with silence. Her confusion lead to panic, to a frantic attempt to reach out with just her mind and grasp onto anything that was not deaf numbness- and that, too, morphed slowly into despair. What was she to do in such a sorry state? Could she even earn her right to live as her instincts told her that she should? Or… could she even earn her death? Surely death… the nonexistence, the inability to think or conceptualize would be a welcome reprieve. Where she once begged for life, she then begged for death. If the darkness was punishing her for the arrogance of believing that she deserved to live, perhaps it would grant her even a slow, painful, demise.
Still, Savina was afforded nothing. From nothingness, she began to feel anger- and it was unlike anything else she had experienced before. Anger had… warmth, such that she could almost imagine the flush of her cheeks in her rage. When the girl’s anger began to shift into hate, the warmth began to slip away into chilling resentment of her own existence. That cold frightened her. It was not brisk, it was not refreshing, it felt as wrong as the blackness that grasped her. Savina did her best to allow herself anger, but never again the frigidity of hate. Hate meant accepting what had, or had not, been done to her. Hate was surrender, and when the blackness did not accept her surrender to death, she knew that she had to fight. To rage, to feel the heat of anger, that was to fight, and fight she would. Somehow, she knew that part of herself was Saiyan- whatever that was- but she also knew that to be Saiyan was to fight. She did fight, to the best of her ability, to keep herself from resigning to the darkness. When she felt the numbness of surrender seeping into her consciousness, fiery rage flared into existence again. Savina would survive that hell, and when she was free, she would tear the world that had inflicted such an existence onto her asunder. She would leave only this darkness in her wake, stealing away all of the world’s light for herself- and never again would she allow herself to succumb to such a bleak existence.
It was impossible for her to tell how much time had passed since she had awoken to the blackness, but eventually, somehow, she experienced something. Light. Blue-green-- it was a dim thing, that light. In the darkness, she willed herself toward that light. Perhaps it was death, at last rewarding her bravery for persisting so long. Perhaps it was life, true and full… but she dared not hope. Savina mustered forth all of the fury that she could, riding it like some roaring rocket toward that dim light, and soon, it grew larger. Her awareness expanded as the light grew closer; she could feel things that had previously existed only has faint imaginings, like the scent of a memory haunting her dreams in that terrible darkness.
Eyes. At last, Savina had eyes, and she could blink. It was a terribly strange thing, to be aware of herself before sight and to suddenly gain it- and what she saw, at first, was only that light… but she could feel her eyes… adjusting. Adjusting might not have been the proper word for it, but it was the closest she could conceive; in truth, it was more as though her eyes were learning. After an eternity without, her mind was learning to see. A bubble slipped past her vision once, and that elated her. A bubble!
She understood then that her eyes were not adjusting, but rather she was learning to comprehend what it was that she was seeing. Then, she felt herself for the first time. It was an experience similar to that of the drifting darkness- she could feel herself floating in place. This time, however, it was not nothingness that she buoyed within- it was fluid! That explained the bubble, she was submerged. Savina realized that she had a face, and she felt somewhat foolish for not realizing it sooner; of course, to have eyes was to have a face. It made sense, after all.
Against her face, Savina could feel something pressed against her nose and mouth. It was a mask of some kind- and when she learned to move her eyes, she looked down to see the mask. What Savina saw was so much more! There was a semi-transparent mask covering the lower regions of her face, of course, but beyond that--! She had a body! Now, if she could just… ahah! A command fluttered through her mind, down the body that she was slowly coming to experience in its entirety and she felt a finger twitch.
It took considerable focus, but she was soon able to guide her hand forward through the viscous fluid encompassing her body- to bring it forward enough to observe her palm’s metallic contours. Her fingers curled gradually shut, forming a fist. It was not the fleshy thing she had dreamed of bending the world with, but it would suffice. Those digits clenched tighter and tighter until her body registered that she was at risk of damaging herself. For a moment, she felt the inferno of her rage flush back to to the forefront of her mind. She pulled her arm back and prepared to strike out against the fluid that held her, but as she prepared the first punch of her previously horrific existence, Savina felt something most curious.
Her anger faded- but it was not replaced with the cold of hate, nor the numbness of resignation. She felt a fluttering within her chest and a tingling that expanded across the whole of her senses. Savina felt as though something heavy had been lifted away from her body, like she had been freed of the constraints of something terribly oppressive. Another realization hit her- she -had- been liberated from something oppressive: the blackness! What Savina was feeling was nothing other than pure, unadulterated relief. It trickled down the whole of her being, filling her with a sensation so light and… joyous! She could feel herself grinning, even as her hand uncurled from its fist and again returned to simply floating in the fluid that suspended her. This was not anger, this was not hate- she was happy! This was life! She had been delivered from the darkness and was allowed to experience glee!
Bubbles erupted from the outer seal of her mask, letting the pressure that had built up from an increase in her breathing escape without risking the integrity of her breathing apparatus breaking. She realized, then, that she was laughing. How wonderful a feeling that was, to laugh! To feel the air surging out from her lips, to see it made manifest in effervescent spheres fluttering past her very eyes! This was life! She was alive! She was laughing!
It took some time for her laughter to subside before she realized that there was a world beyond the fluid that she floated in. She pulled her hand forward and placed her hand upon something solid, something smooth. It did not register to her as metal, but… glass? She tapped thrice on the solid thing. It was definitely glass. And, if it was glass, then she could peer through it. Savina pushed her face forward to press her forehead against the thing she perceived as glass and attempted to view what was beyond it. At first, she could see nothing, but her eyes did slowly come to register things in a room beyond. It was dark, illuminated primarily by the dim light provided by her holding tank. To the left, she noticed a faint blinking- an orange… no, a red light flashing gently into the darkness. It was barely noticeable against the glow of her tank. Poor thing, she thought to herself. How long had that light been going off in the dark? It was a kindred spirit, contained entirely within itself, able to do nothing but rage against what contained it. She felt empathy for it- pity for it. Perhaps if she could free herself from her tank, she could also bring that light into a true life.
Gradually, the information buried within her subconscious reached her active thought, spelling out the reality of that light’s situation. It was not like her, it was just a thing. A thing attached to a console. A warning light, yes, that’s what it was. What was it warning of, though, she wondered? The light was surely trying to tell her something. Was she in danger? Was it blinking down the seconds until her tank was drained, flushing her back into the darkness again? Panic gripped her for a moment, forcing her head to dart from side to side in a terrified search for some escape. None was to be found, she was trapped, and soon she was to be sealed away in darkness again. What a terrible fate…
Fortunately, in her desperation to find a way out, she noticed something reflecting against the flashing light’s hue. Savina pressed her face against the glass again and squinted-- right, the light was attached to a console of some kind… and the console was damaged. There was a crater in its far side, a rather large dent where a keypad looked to have once been. Of course, the console was damaged. That was why the light was flashing, and again did relief reward her with such a delightfully weightless feeling.
As the relief faded from her consciousness, facts began to piece themselves together more cohesively within her mind. She had experienced the blackness for so impossibly long and now she was truly awake-- in a lab of some kind, yes. The console’s proximity to her tank meant that it was what had controlled her access to her body, and it had previously been undamaged. Then, whatever had damaged the console had granted her access to her body; whatever had inflicted that mechanical injury had given her the gift of life. That console appeared to be made of metal, and as far as she knew, metal was stronger than glass.
Savina looked down to her hand again. Her hand was metal. She looked back to the glass that held her back. Metal was stronger than glass… Her body was the key to her own cell! The girl pulled her hand back as she had before, closing her fingers into a tight fist- this time filled with the hope of freedom rather than the flames of anger. WIth a punch, with her first show of violence- her first true fight -Savina would be free. So, she struck the glass--
-- and she heard the thump of her fist connecting with her tank echo through the fluid around her, but she did not feel the glass give way. With a frown, she pulled back her hand to rethink her strategy and in doing so, was able to see a small sequence of webs forming where her knuckles had struck. Cracks, she realized. Savina stuck again, and again, and again… she beat against the tank’s glass until she could actually hear the cracks spreading away from their source. One more punch and. . .
The android crashed forward when her tank’s glass buckled and her stasis fluid flooded outward. Her head got caught briefly on her breathing apparatus’s cords, but the sheer weight of her mechanical body eventually tore away from the mask and she spilled fully out onto the ground below. FREEDOM!
But, boy, did freedom feel heavy. Or, rather, gravity felt heavy- a lot heavier than when she was in the darkness, and just a bit heavier than the stasis fluid. No matter! She resolved to fight against gravity and slowly pushed herself off the ground. Once or twice, Savina slipped and clattered loudly back against the ground, but the time she had spent learning motor skills within the tank allowed her to much more rapidly adjust to the world beyond. She grasped the ledge of a nearby table and pulled herself up, bracing against its length for a long moment while her legs wobbled. Standing was weird. It was not at all like floating. The sensation of standing itself felt more constricting than swimming in the tank, but the knowledge that she could now walk was more than enough to make up for the restrictions of terrestrial movement. She began to look around, wishing unconsciously that she could see in the dark better-- and suddenly, she could! The world took on a strange hue, one that she quickly realized was green. She began to perceive the room around her in its entirety, artificial eyes changing their perception to match her desire. How delightful!
Savina pushed herself off of the table and took one step on her own, though it was a terribly uneasy one. She warbled from side to side, unsure if she was going to fall again- but wholly sure that she would look absolutely ridiculous to anyone watching. Fortunately, nobody was. Actually, did anybody else even exist? Was she the first thing to be conjured into life? Surely not, because something had given her life. Something had made this room that she was in; something had trapped her first in the darkness, and then again in the stasis tank. No, she was not the only living thing that existed, that was preposterous- and exciting. So exciting! People existed! People that she could talk to, people she could touch… people she could fight!
Oh, that last thought was an odd one. Why would she want to fight someone, especially if they did not threaten her existence? That didn’t make any sense, logically speaking. But… it felt right, as right as the anger that had sustained her in the blackness. Of course! Savina was saiyan, and to be saiyan was to fight. Just… maybe in moderation. After all, she didn’t want to scare away others with her aggression before she could make some friends. Friends would be nice, she wouldn’t be lonely with friends. But… oh! The light! Savina spun and moved to the damaged console, bending forward to gently touch the blinking red with the tip of her index finger.
“Don’t you….” the words spilled out of her mouth unintentionally, surprising her with their sound. So -that- was what words sounded like! They sounded much better than she thought they might have, while stuck in the blackness. Yes, words were good, so she would continue, “.... Don’t you worry, little guy. After I get this whole locomotion thing sorted out, I’ll find out how to get out. Then, yes- yes! Then, I’ll come back and get you. I know, you’re just a light, just blinking away. Blink, blink, blink, that’s what you do…” Words sounded so damn good!
“... blink, blink! That’s your name, Blink. Blinky? Blinkleton? Blinky sounds best, so that’s what I’ll call you. Don’t you worry your little light, Blinky. I’ll find a way to stick you onto something I can take with me, and then we’ll go explore together. You’ll be my first friend! Too bad, though, you’ve not got any arms or legs… All that blinking, you’ve got so much vigor! I bet you’d be really fun to fight. Maybe we’ll find someone that can put you in a body like mine, then we can hug- and we can fight! Yes, yes, I’ll find a way to take you with me- and we’ll find you a body, and then we’ll fight! Good, you just sit tight there, Blinky. Don’t blink yourself out before I get back, ‘cause that’d make me really sad. Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can!” She grinned and turned away from the light, more confident in her ability to move then. She moved toward the room’s doorway, which was… open. There was a door attached to it, sure, but it was caved in the same way that the console had been- just, bigger. Something strong had broken the door open, surely. Perhaps it was another friend? Had to be- if it broke the door, it probably broke Blinky’s console, which gave Savina life. If it gave her life, it had to be her friend. Right? Right.
Savina stepped brazenly out beyond the broken door, into the space beyond. She looked around, realizing that it was… a hallway. There were many other doors along this hallway, and only some of them were open-- some even were open normally, without any signs of being broken open! That was good, someone had the ability to open doors. Everything was turning up good so far. She began to look down the other direction of the hall, but found her attention grasped by the sound of something at the far end of the side she had just peered down. Something was moving. Maybe the person that had opened her door? Her gaze snapped back to its previous location and she squinted again, attempting to make out what had made the sound.
“Hello? Is anyone there? My name is--” she paused. DId she have a name? Of course she did, it was… Savina. Yes, that was what felt right, “-- Savina! My name is Savina, and I would very much like to meet you. You don’t need to be scared, I won’t fight you, even though I want to! Just come on out and we can shake hands!”
She heard the sound again. It was a scraping sound, like something heavy being dragged along the ground. It was growing closer to the door at the farthest end of that side, but the room beyond was too far- and too dark- for her to actually see in. If only-- before she could finish the thought, her eyes shifted their perception again, this time to infrared. She saw a large source of heat moving toward the door from the room beyond, but it was still just a little too far off for her to make out clearly.
“Hey, hey! I think I see you down there- don’t worry, I’ll come to you!” she called out and began to walk down the hallway, but managed only a small handful of steps before she froze in place. Her eyes allowed her to perceive more clearly then what it was beyond the door, and it did not look anything like her. The thing was vaguely humanoid, sure, but one arm was dramatically larger than the other- enough so that it had to drag its forearm and knuckles along the ground. The thing’s gait was lopsided, as though it struggled to hold up the weight of is disproportionately large- and curiously hot -arm. Whatever it was did not meet existing criteria within Savina’s subconscious databanks. It was something wholly new, something… wrong. More wrong than the blackness, more wrong than hate.
Her instincts commanded her to fight against the nothingness that so filled her existence. Every fiber of her being, as meager as it was, screamed wordlessly into the void, but they were little more than thoughts. She had no voice with which to formulate her displeasure, though she knew of words. Yes, there were words within her mind- she knew their meaning, how to string them together in patterns to convey ideas. Savina knew that words were meant to be spoken and heard as much as they were to be thought, but she did not know the sound of them. As one might expect, conversations with herself proved confusing and jumbled, often resulting in her attempting to convey ideas with imagined fragments of herself with little more than the emotions that she felt. Above all of the other emotions she was allowed to feel during her reflections, she knew anger and confusion the most intimately.
Is this truly what life is supposed to be? Why have I been allowed to live? Who wished me into being, only to have me suffer this terrible silence? These were the questions that haunted her in the blackness. Ruminating on her existence allowed her to understand the meaning of fairness enough to know that her ‘life’ was unfair. It was unjust- she had done nothing wrong that she could remember. Or perhaps was that exactly it? She could not remember being alive before that darkness, and so she was being punished for her lack of memory. How valiantly she attempted to remember what came before, to no avail. Her mind begged forgiveness to the nothingness around her, and was answered only with silence. Her confusion lead to panic, to a frantic attempt to reach out with just her mind and grasp onto anything that was not deaf numbness- and that, too, morphed slowly into despair. What was she to do in such a sorry state? Could she even earn her right to live as her instincts told her that she should? Or… could she even earn her death? Surely death… the nonexistence, the inability to think or conceptualize would be a welcome reprieve. Where she once begged for life, she then begged for death. If the darkness was punishing her for the arrogance of believing that she deserved to live, perhaps it would grant her even a slow, painful, demise.
Still, Savina was afforded nothing. From nothingness, she began to feel anger- and it was unlike anything else she had experienced before. Anger had… warmth, such that she could almost imagine the flush of her cheeks in her rage. When the girl’s anger began to shift into hate, the warmth began to slip away into chilling resentment of her own existence. That cold frightened her. It was not brisk, it was not refreshing, it felt as wrong as the blackness that grasped her. Savina did her best to allow herself anger, but never again the frigidity of hate. Hate meant accepting what had, or had not, been done to her. Hate was surrender, and when the blackness did not accept her surrender to death, she knew that she had to fight. To rage, to feel the heat of anger, that was to fight, and fight she would. Somehow, she knew that part of herself was Saiyan- whatever that was- but she also knew that to be Saiyan was to fight. She did fight, to the best of her ability, to keep herself from resigning to the darkness. When she felt the numbness of surrender seeping into her consciousness, fiery rage flared into existence again. Savina would survive that hell, and when she was free, she would tear the world that had inflicted such an existence onto her asunder. She would leave only this darkness in her wake, stealing away all of the world’s light for herself- and never again would she allow herself to succumb to such a bleak existence.
It was impossible for her to tell how much time had passed since she had awoken to the blackness, but eventually, somehow, she experienced something. Light. Blue-green-- it was a dim thing, that light. In the darkness, she willed herself toward that light. Perhaps it was death, at last rewarding her bravery for persisting so long. Perhaps it was life, true and full… but she dared not hope. Savina mustered forth all of the fury that she could, riding it like some roaring rocket toward that dim light, and soon, it grew larger. Her awareness expanded as the light grew closer; she could feel things that had previously existed only has faint imaginings, like the scent of a memory haunting her dreams in that terrible darkness.
Eyes. At last, Savina had eyes, and she could blink. It was a terribly strange thing, to be aware of herself before sight and to suddenly gain it- and what she saw, at first, was only that light… but she could feel her eyes… adjusting. Adjusting might not have been the proper word for it, but it was the closest she could conceive; in truth, it was more as though her eyes were learning. After an eternity without, her mind was learning to see. A bubble slipped past her vision once, and that elated her. A bubble!
She understood then that her eyes were not adjusting, but rather she was learning to comprehend what it was that she was seeing. Then, she felt herself for the first time. It was an experience similar to that of the drifting darkness- she could feel herself floating in place. This time, however, it was not nothingness that she buoyed within- it was fluid! That explained the bubble, she was submerged. Savina realized that she had a face, and she felt somewhat foolish for not realizing it sooner; of course, to have eyes was to have a face. It made sense, after all.
Against her face, Savina could feel something pressed against her nose and mouth. It was a mask of some kind- and when she learned to move her eyes, she looked down to see the mask. What Savina saw was so much more! There was a semi-transparent mask covering the lower regions of her face, of course, but beyond that--! She had a body! Now, if she could just… ahah! A command fluttered through her mind, down the body that she was slowly coming to experience in its entirety and she felt a finger twitch.
It took considerable focus, but she was soon able to guide her hand forward through the viscous fluid encompassing her body- to bring it forward enough to observe her palm’s metallic contours. Her fingers curled gradually shut, forming a fist. It was not the fleshy thing she had dreamed of bending the world with, but it would suffice. Those digits clenched tighter and tighter until her body registered that she was at risk of damaging herself. For a moment, she felt the inferno of her rage flush back to to the forefront of her mind. She pulled her arm back and prepared to strike out against the fluid that held her, but as she prepared the first punch of her previously horrific existence, Savina felt something most curious.
Her anger faded- but it was not replaced with the cold of hate, nor the numbness of resignation. She felt a fluttering within her chest and a tingling that expanded across the whole of her senses. Savina felt as though something heavy had been lifted away from her body, like she had been freed of the constraints of something terribly oppressive. Another realization hit her- she -had- been liberated from something oppressive: the blackness! What Savina was feeling was nothing other than pure, unadulterated relief. It trickled down the whole of her being, filling her with a sensation so light and… joyous! She could feel herself grinning, even as her hand uncurled from its fist and again returned to simply floating in the fluid that suspended her. This was not anger, this was not hate- she was happy! This was life! She had been delivered from the darkness and was allowed to experience glee!
Bubbles erupted from the outer seal of her mask, letting the pressure that had built up from an increase in her breathing escape without risking the integrity of her breathing apparatus breaking. She realized, then, that she was laughing. How wonderful a feeling that was, to laugh! To feel the air surging out from her lips, to see it made manifest in effervescent spheres fluttering past her very eyes! This was life! She was alive! She was laughing!
It took some time for her laughter to subside before she realized that there was a world beyond the fluid that she floated in. She pulled her hand forward and placed her hand upon something solid, something smooth. It did not register to her as metal, but… glass? She tapped thrice on the solid thing. It was definitely glass. And, if it was glass, then she could peer through it. Savina pushed her face forward to press her forehead against the thing she perceived as glass and attempted to view what was beyond it. At first, she could see nothing, but her eyes did slowly come to register things in a room beyond. It was dark, illuminated primarily by the dim light provided by her holding tank. To the left, she noticed a faint blinking- an orange… no, a red light flashing gently into the darkness. It was barely noticeable against the glow of her tank. Poor thing, she thought to herself. How long had that light been going off in the dark? It was a kindred spirit, contained entirely within itself, able to do nothing but rage against what contained it. She felt empathy for it- pity for it. Perhaps if she could free herself from her tank, she could also bring that light into a true life.
Gradually, the information buried within her subconscious reached her active thought, spelling out the reality of that light’s situation. It was not like her, it was just a thing. A thing attached to a console. A warning light, yes, that’s what it was. What was it warning of, though, she wondered? The light was surely trying to tell her something. Was she in danger? Was it blinking down the seconds until her tank was drained, flushing her back into the darkness again? Panic gripped her for a moment, forcing her head to dart from side to side in a terrified search for some escape. None was to be found, she was trapped, and soon she was to be sealed away in darkness again. What a terrible fate…
Fortunately, in her desperation to find a way out, she noticed something reflecting against the flashing light’s hue. Savina pressed her face against the glass again and squinted-- right, the light was attached to a console of some kind… and the console was damaged. There was a crater in its far side, a rather large dent where a keypad looked to have once been. Of course, the console was damaged. That was why the light was flashing, and again did relief reward her with such a delightfully weightless feeling.
As the relief faded from her consciousness, facts began to piece themselves together more cohesively within her mind. She had experienced the blackness for so impossibly long and now she was truly awake-- in a lab of some kind, yes. The console’s proximity to her tank meant that it was what had controlled her access to her body, and it had previously been undamaged. Then, whatever had damaged the console had granted her access to her body; whatever had inflicted that mechanical injury had given her the gift of life. That console appeared to be made of metal, and as far as she knew, metal was stronger than glass.
Savina looked down to her hand again. Her hand was metal. She looked back to the glass that held her back. Metal was stronger than glass… Her body was the key to her own cell! The girl pulled her hand back as she had before, closing her fingers into a tight fist- this time filled with the hope of freedom rather than the flames of anger. WIth a punch, with her first show of violence- her first true fight -Savina would be free. So, she struck the glass--
-- and she heard the thump of her fist connecting with her tank echo through the fluid around her, but she did not feel the glass give way. With a frown, she pulled back her hand to rethink her strategy and in doing so, was able to see a small sequence of webs forming where her knuckles had struck. Cracks, she realized. Savina stuck again, and again, and again… she beat against the tank’s glass until she could actually hear the cracks spreading away from their source. One more punch and. . .
The android crashed forward when her tank’s glass buckled and her stasis fluid flooded outward. Her head got caught briefly on her breathing apparatus’s cords, but the sheer weight of her mechanical body eventually tore away from the mask and she spilled fully out onto the ground below. FREEDOM!
But, boy, did freedom feel heavy. Or, rather, gravity felt heavy- a lot heavier than when she was in the darkness, and just a bit heavier than the stasis fluid. No matter! She resolved to fight against gravity and slowly pushed herself off the ground. Once or twice, Savina slipped and clattered loudly back against the ground, but the time she had spent learning motor skills within the tank allowed her to much more rapidly adjust to the world beyond. She grasped the ledge of a nearby table and pulled herself up, bracing against its length for a long moment while her legs wobbled. Standing was weird. It was not at all like floating. The sensation of standing itself felt more constricting than swimming in the tank, but the knowledge that she could now walk was more than enough to make up for the restrictions of terrestrial movement. She began to look around, wishing unconsciously that she could see in the dark better-- and suddenly, she could! The world took on a strange hue, one that she quickly realized was green. She began to perceive the room around her in its entirety, artificial eyes changing their perception to match her desire. How delightful!
Savina pushed herself off of the table and took one step on her own, though it was a terribly uneasy one. She warbled from side to side, unsure if she was going to fall again- but wholly sure that she would look absolutely ridiculous to anyone watching. Fortunately, nobody was. Actually, did anybody else even exist? Was she the first thing to be conjured into life? Surely not, because something had given her life. Something had made this room that she was in; something had trapped her first in the darkness, and then again in the stasis tank. No, she was not the only living thing that existed, that was preposterous- and exciting. So exciting! People existed! People that she could talk to, people she could touch… people she could fight!
Oh, that last thought was an odd one. Why would she want to fight someone, especially if they did not threaten her existence? That didn’t make any sense, logically speaking. But… it felt right, as right as the anger that had sustained her in the blackness. Of course! Savina was saiyan, and to be saiyan was to fight. Just… maybe in moderation. After all, she didn’t want to scare away others with her aggression before she could make some friends. Friends would be nice, she wouldn’t be lonely with friends. But… oh! The light! Savina spun and moved to the damaged console, bending forward to gently touch the blinking red with the tip of her index finger.
“Don’t you….” the words spilled out of her mouth unintentionally, surprising her with their sound. So -that- was what words sounded like! They sounded much better than she thought they might have, while stuck in the blackness. Yes, words were good, so she would continue, “.... Don’t you worry, little guy. After I get this whole locomotion thing sorted out, I’ll find out how to get out. Then, yes- yes! Then, I’ll come back and get you. I know, you’re just a light, just blinking away. Blink, blink, blink, that’s what you do…” Words sounded so damn good!
“... blink, blink! That’s your name, Blink. Blinky? Blinkleton? Blinky sounds best, so that’s what I’ll call you. Don’t you worry your little light, Blinky. I’ll find a way to stick you onto something I can take with me, and then we’ll go explore together. You’ll be my first friend! Too bad, though, you’ve not got any arms or legs… All that blinking, you’ve got so much vigor! I bet you’d be really fun to fight. Maybe we’ll find someone that can put you in a body like mine, then we can hug- and we can fight! Yes, yes, I’ll find a way to take you with me- and we’ll find you a body, and then we’ll fight! Good, you just sit tight there, Blinky. Don’t blink yourself out before I get back, ‘cause that’d make me really sad. Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can!” She grinned and turned away from the light, more confident in her ability to move then. She moved toward the room’s doorway, which was… open. There was a door attached to it, sure, but it was caved in the same way that the console had been- just, bigger. Something strong had broken the door open, surely. Perhaps it was another friend? Had to be- if it broke the door, it probably broke Blinky’s console, which gave Savina life. If it gave her life, it had to be her friend. Right? Right.
Savina stepped brazenly out beyond the broken door, into the space beyond. She looked around, realizing that it was… a hallway. There were many other doors along this hallway, and only some of them were open-- some even were open normally, without any signs of being broken open! That was good, someone had the ability to open doors. Everything was turning up good so far. She began to look down the other direction of the hall, but found her attention grasped by the sound of something at the far end of the side she had just peered down. Something was moving. Maybe the person that had opened her door? Her gaze snapped back to its previous location and she squinted again, attempting to make out what had made the sound.
“Hello? Is anyone there? My name is--” she paused. DId she have a name? Of course she did, it was… Savina. Yes, that was what felt right, “-- Savina! My name is Savina, and I would very much like to meet you. You don’t need to be scared, I won’t fight you, even though I want to! Just come on out and we can shake hands!”
She heard the sound again. It was a scraping sound, like something heavy being dragged along the ground. It was growing closer to the door at the farthest end of that side, but the room beyond was too far- and too dark- for her to actually see in. If only-- before she could finish the thought, her eyes shifted their perception again, this time to infrared. She saw a large source of heat moving toward the door from the room beyond, but it was still just a little too far off for her to make out clearly.
“Hey, hey! I think I see you down there- don’t worry, I’ll come to you!” she called out and began to walk down the hallway, but managed only a small handful of steps before she froze in place. Her eyes allowed her to perceive more clearly then what it was beyond the door, and it did not look anything like her. The thing was vaguely humanoid, sure, but one arm was dramatically larger than the other- enough so that it had to drag its forearm and knuckles along the ground. The thing’s gait was lopsided, as though it struggled to hold up the weight of is disproportionately large- and curiously hot -arm. Whatever it was did not meet existing criteria within Savina’s subconscious databanks. It was something wholly new, something… wrong. More wrong than the blackness, more wrong than hate.
And then she heard it scream.
wc: 3608