Abyssal Road Trip

The opening chords of AC/DC’s ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ rolled across the sea of faded burgundy cubicles. The pulse of the drums and sharp rifts echoed in the stillness of the office. Julia snatched the last page of the report from the printer’s grip and dashed for her mobile; the ringtone indicated a personal call. Her hand trembled, and her even heartbeat suddenly thumped hard at the displayed caller ID. Its backlight suddenly felt too bright against the aged fluorescent tubes overhead. The long habit of focusing on odds and actions forward stilled her hand, and Julia’s voice sounded calm. “Hi, Doctor Danh, this is unexpected.”

“All the important labs came back clear, Julia,” the doctor reported brightly.

“Thanks, Doc. You didn’t have to call. I had promised I’d drop in on Saturday,” protested Julia.

“It would have been three more days of worry for you,” Dahn replied, his tone undimmed.

“I don’t let stuff worry, Doc. It is what it is. You can only do what you can,” replied Julia, the words rolled freely off her tongue. “Now, what about the unimportant ones? Am I low on iron, or did something else cause my fatigue? Or should I come in for those so you can scold me in person?”

The question led to him repeating the list of supplements he wanted her to take, but he didn’t mention the psychologist referral provided during her last visit. When the call ended, Julia slipped her mobile away and refocused on her computer to check the last problem tickets with updates due. Once her list was clear, she quickly shut off the laptop with a relieved sigh.

Snatching up her backpack from the floor while the computer shut down, she planted it on her seat and waited. As soon as it completely shut down, she hustled it into her bag and listened to the familiar thump of its weight against the thinning seat cushion. Once she’d finished packing for the trip home, Julia habitually scanned the cubicles to confirm no one else had lingered on. Turning back to her bag, she tried to look past the faded outline on her cubicle wall, only for its faint presence at the edge of the family photos to hook her gaze.

“Fuck you very much. I need to get a new photo of something.”

It was advice she knew she’d given herself for too many years, but Julia turned away and headed for the lifts. Surveying her appearance in the polished steel of the lift doors made it clear that she needed to go to the hairdresser, but she pushed that thought aside; the awful bushfire season made her split ends a problem for another day. With the matter decided, Julia brushed her long brunette locks over her shoulder. Taking in the chimes that echoed from distant floors, she retrieved a scrunchie from her bag and tied her hair up. The cool breeze of the air conditioning across her nape was pleasant, but also a reminder of the heat outside.

Her heart jumped again at another buzz from her phone. As nausea spiked, she clamped down on her reactions and retrieved it with deliberate slowness. Julia looked at the SMS and snorted in disbelief. She murmured to herself as she replied. “One date doesn’t warrant taking a break. If you’re not interested in going out again, it’s not the end of my world.”

The phone’s buzz announced a one-word reply of ‘Fine’.

The familiarity of the situation brought forth an easy laugh and washed the tension from Danh’s call away. “Mate, that’s my line.”

You suck, but I’ve no hospital visits on the horizon, so I’ll take that as a win.

Deleting the thread and his contact information from the phone, she tucked it away and considered herself again in the polished steel. Aside from the split ends she didn’t see what was wrong with her, and those were something a straight guy wouldn’t notice. Her bust fit her tall and lean runner’s build, but she was a fairly stereotypical white Aussie with no obvious physical issues. Her complexion was fine, her chin was tight, and her face was strong without being hard. Maybe her bow-lipped mouth was fractionally too wide, but if her face appeared too strong, that was their problem.

Swivelling on the spot, she caught how the change in position showcased the muscles in her thighs, and she patted her toned butt. A red blink from the security camera in the corner had her hurriedly return to squarely facing the lift.

“It’s because your two major interests are gaming and the dojo. Face it, J: you’ll be an eternal bachelorette.”

The doors sighed open to reveal a polished empty interior, and Julia quickly hopped in to double-tap the lobby button before leaning on close. The mechanical whir of the neighbouring lifts and chiming floor signals filled the ride from the fourth to the ground floor.

Ignoring the sterile vacancy of the lobby, Julia headed straight for the side exit. Her heels clicked on the clinical white tiles, and the sound echoed off the high ceiling. Swiping through the security gate, she grunted in pain when it closed too quickly and trapped her back leg. It was caught between the security gate’s teeth. Again. Ignoring the pain throbbing in her thigh, Julia freed herself and cursed under her breath, only to have to stop again to untangle her bag’s straps.

No one else gets caught in this damn thing; it’s been one thing after another lately.

Weariness weighed her shoulders, and she glanced at the slowly revolving doors that featured prominently in the foyer’s front wall. In the quiet, the brush seals at their base rasped annoyingly on the carpet within their circles. Like the gate, the rotating doors had trapped her previously, and with no security guard in sight, she had no plans to become a summer barbeque.

Approaching the side door, Julia winced at the heat that radiated from it like a heated oven door. With a quick push to work the latch, she shouldered it forward to avoid burning her hand. The harbours salty air, the sad cries of the gulls, the charcoal smell, and the oppressive heat hit her like a sandbag. As she stepped outside, Julia breathed through her nose, futilely endeavouring to lessen the bitter taste of the ash-filled air. The ongoing state of Sydney left her once enjoyable walk across Pyrmont Bridge to the parking station an unpleasant prospect.

Out from under the building awning, it was the first time she’d seen the vicious-looking sky all day. The clouds of ash looming overhead had started months ago, and they blotted out what should have been a blue summer sky. Instead, it was as if some bizarre hellscape had descended on Sydney, enveloping it in black and grey clouds. The sunlight that filtered through them carried an angry, otherworldly tint that lent the familiar buildings a surreal, alien feeling.

The urge to hurry home hit hard, and as a strange shiver ran up her spine, Julia dragged her eyes from the sky. A lingering dread quickened her pace, but the absence of sound beneath her heels and a clinging pull called her attention to the softened bitumen. The first tug at a heel prompted Julia to slow her pace and wish she hadn’t left her sneakers in the car.

The lateness of the day had her exiting the parking lot with barely a pause for the gate. The traffic flow through the city was fine, leading Julia to the faint hope that departing the office after six would give her a smooth run home. As Parramatta Road slowed to a crawl, however, the news of a major breakdown on the M4 wasn’t a surprise. Soon, with nowhere to go, the heat that radiated through the window wilted her energy and strained her car’s AC.

A few kilometres into the slowed highway-turned-parking lot, a thoughtless motion had her cursing as she yanked her forearm from the side window. She kept her foot firmly on the brake as she grimaced at the fresh burn on her forearm; another addition to her collection of scrapes and bangs.

“Fucking stupid thing to do in this heat, J.”

The intro of AC/DC’s ‘Highway to hell’ started up, bringing a smile to her lips.

“Now we’re talking. Someone in programming has my kind of humour.”

The pumping music felt as though it had boosted the traffic, and a group made it through the intersection ahead. As the last notes closed off, Julia had the privilege of being first at the red light. The lights flipped and some cars sped across the intersection while others crept forward to block the road in front of her. Though she knew it wasn’t personal, it lessened the odds of her getting through the next green. With a glance upwards, she considered a prayer of patience, only for the looming ash clouds to mock her unvoiced plea.

One boring song turned into another, she was still stuck at the lights, and the drivers from the side street took every gap in the traffic, so when the announcers began to babble without first providing the vaguest clue about what route to take home, she almost turned it off. Eventually, the news started; it wasn’t about what she wanted, but word on the firefronts prompted Julia to turn the volume back up.

Sweltering in her car was better than in the oven the firefighters dealt with day after day. The fires were beyond anyone’s control now, and it had been clear since before Christmas that they’d end when the weather finally turned and not a day before. It was the affected families and firefighters she reserved her worry for, among them her insane brother and crazy cousin. Julia admired their courage, but what they did was madness. They were volunteers, yet the effort had been a constant unforgiving slog. Despite that, after weeks of raging fires and mounting bills, the politicians waffled and refused them any financial aid.

Julia hoped Sally hadn’t told Mal she’d covered some of their family’s bills. They would have a heated discussion if or when he discovered what she’d done, but his wife had enough to worry about with him at the fire fronts, and she’d looked sick from stress when Julia had found her with a stack of red-stamped bills. Julia had taken them from Sally and paid them with money she’d earmarked for the Euro trip she kept putting off. Europe wasn’t going anywhere. Yet Sally had grumbled and retorted, ‘Neither are you if you keep giving money away!’

When the news moved on, Julia went to change the station. As she stretched to hit the seek button, her world tilted. Swaying, Julia felt the car lurch and forced herself to yank on the handbrake, making it just before her foot slipped off the brake. A whirlpool of vertigo threatened her with losing lunch, and she scrambled to move between handbrake and gears. Amidst the worsening pressures, the rush to put the car into park didn’t help her to regain any control over the spinning horizon.

A sudden rush of strange sensations shifted inside her, and the world twisted. Gravity seemed to weigh her down and spin about her, a brutal graviton amusement ride.

The heat in the car grew distant and divorced, stolen away. Pain churned in her brain and even the smoke-muted daylight became a searing agony.

The vertigo intensified and bile rose in the back of her throat, the taste and sensation making her gag before a wall of gloom smashed into her mind. A wave of heat rose from deep in her guts and tore through her flesh before it boiled her brain. Julia was dead when she slumped against the wheel, and her body ignited. A blaze of flame that the rearview mirror reflected to the terror-stricken driver behind her. Her still-idling car shifted slightly against its leash but remained safely behind the line.

As the essence of darkness crept into her pores and smothered her eyes, the agony abruptly vanished, and nothing remained but a nightmare of fatigue. The absence of pain was as sudden as the onset, and she gasped in relief, only for the torpid gloom to ooze down her throat like a living thing. Julia gagged reflexively and then deliberately coughed in a desperate bid to force it out, but the alien shadow had enveloped her and invaded every cell. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even feel the need to breathe, let alone cough or scream. There was no heat or pressure, no itches or tingles, just… Nothing.

After an eternity that might have been a moment, the formless void was … bypassed by a bright blazing message in her disembodied mind:

Unlocks:

[Damned

Details: Just that, damned. A cursed state inflicted by someone with access to an object of significant power.

Reward: Race changed; see ‘Profile’ upon planar arrival for the outcome.

Note: Knowing who was responsible won’t help you now.]

She didn’t have time to read that first notification properly before being hit with more. It was like the worst advertising pop-up spam, with never-ending windows appearing in her mind’s eye. Though they brightened inside her mind, they did nothing to ease the darkness. Each seemed to tag memories as they catalogued her life, and the invisible force peeled her life open like an onion, drawing scalpel-thin slices through one layer at a time. The torrent of messages was too fast for her to snatch at more than a few.

[Purity

Details: Died a virgin with a large [600+] positive karma rating.

Reward: +1 attribute bonus.]

[Jaded purity

Details: Cheated on by significant other after engagement announced.

Requirement: The individual has previously obtained Purity achievement.

Reward: +1 attribute bonus. ]

[Defiled purity.

Details: The individual died a virgin through another’s evil action.

Reward: +1 attribute bonus]

[Forever the bridesmaid

Details: This is the gold edition of ‘Always the Bridesmaid’, awarded for having been a bridesmaid over five times.

Reward: Some advice from me, get a life, wait... yeah, it’s gone.]

[Selfless.

Details: Took action to prevent injury to others while you were in great danger

Reward: +1 attribute bonus.]

[Please, sir, may I have some more?

Details: Throughout a career, an individual managed to gain a reasonable wage raise from a miser.

Reward: +1 attribute bonus.]

[Gainfully employed

Details: Having had full-time employment for more than five years.

Reward: +1 wealth option unlock - option negated by your curse.]

[Greater tertiary education achieved

Details: Completed and passed with distinction. Three (3) or greater years of tertiary education.

Reward:

+1 attribute bonus.

+10 knowledge skill points.

Class options unlocked.]

[Sock your body.

Details: The individual gained a degree of proficiency in a combat form. Met through martial arts training in full contact style to the rank of black belt.

Reward:

Additional class options are unlocked.

+2 attribute bonus.]

[Solo feline care

Details: Declined the offer of a one-night stand with a 10. Well, he was at least an 8.

Not just ice cream was involved in the self-consoling that occurred that night.

Reward: +1 attribute bonus.

Note: At least you got an attribute bonus.]

[Unlucky in love

Details: Having had 30 or more bad dates.

Note: No reward, just learn to make better choices.]

[Coitus interruptus

Details: You found your significant other engaged in coitus.

Reward +2 attribute bonus

Additional bonus conditions met:

1) Did not injure any involved party.

2) Destruction of property impulse resisted (Action withheld: Keying car).

Additional Reward: +3 attribute bonus (Willpower)

Note: I could have kept it at +1, but I gave additional points because a childhood, now ex-friend, was the one in bed with your fiancé.]

WHAT THE HELL?!

The list continued to scroll through Julia’s awareness, even picking up speed after digging into the bitterness of her engagement finale. The fast pace from the initial dissection of her life turned into a sprint. Messages hammered against her mind, and while their contents varied, all were a persistent mocking commentary on her life’s events regardless of what was in her control.

The last one clicked into place and stopped.

[Lack of engagement

Details: You caused your mother to endure an eighteen-hour labour by failing to engage properly in her birth canal.

Note: You should learn to connect better socially.]

Well, fuck you very much!

So much for getting my life flashing before my eyes when I died, instead, I get a load of spam.

[Realm transfer update: waystation arrival]

Cold rough stone underfoot was the first sensation that gouged at her awareness, and then the whispers began around her. The suppressive darkness faded away into something more natural, and Julia could make out a shadowy figure at the edge of her vision. They vanished, and suddenly, smooth hands groped possessively at Julia’s back. She spun with a quick elbow, and snapped a probing jab towards the feminine shape of a moving shadow, but she struck only air. The figure shrunk and reappeared a distance away, only to lunge with inhuman speed, hands outstretched.

Julia spun from their path, and as cold air caressed the memory of her naked flesh from head to toe, the awareness of her vulnerability felt like it drove the surrounding cold right through her stomach. A flicker of motion in her peripheral vision provoked a block, but the contact only disrupted a disembodied limb formed of a cold oily mist.

The shadow flickered sideways, and clawed hands struck from the darkness before she could react. They grasped her breasts, and sharpened nails drove inwards. Though Julia felt like they’d torn open flesh, no blood ran, and she leapt away from their touch amid rapidly fading pain. In the smothering dark, she stumbled and hit the floor before she could catch herself, and the hands tried to force her flat. As she rolled, Julia lashed out with a foot, elbow and knee through her turn, yet though she felt no physical contact, the hands released her.

A kip-up snapped her to her feet, and Julia vaguely sensed something solid nearby. An outflung hand found rough stone beneath her abraded fingertips. Its flat sturdiness pressed into flesh and contrasted with her foe’s untouchable form. Julia used its position to guide her, putting her back flat against what felt like a seamless stone wall. As she oriented herself, a bestial panting resonated out from the surrounding darkness. The harsh sound shivered up Julia’s spine, painting it with a feral lust-filled heat.

I need to act rather than react.

As her eyes gradually adjusted to the shifting darkness, the sound jumped about, but she held her position. Her clearing vision showed a shadowed gap to her right that stretched away as the sound drew closer, but as she glanced in the direction of the noise, Julia couldn’t spot the figure.

Bitter fear mingled with the scent of chilled stone and sweat. With another jump, the whispers stabilised and crept forward around where Julia had initially stood. She retreated from the presence with quick sliding steps to keep her balance, ready to block its strikes. A glimpse of dull light registered in the corner of her eye and highlighted the gap to reveal a shadow-filled tunnel. As her attention fixed on it, the panting stopped, and Julia caught a flutter of movement closing in.

“Fuck off!”

The snarl solved nothing directly but pumped enough anger to convert her fear. Julia pushed off hard with a smooth balance shift and dashed for the opening. Riding the fury provoked a reaction akin to adrenaline, and the feeling further spiked through her awareness to push back the fear that tried to slow her responses. Her feet slapped against the harsh stone floor, but Julia was still a fraction too slow. Clawed fingers tangled in her hair and yanked her off balance. Julia tucked her chin in against its force, and the handful of phantasmal hair tore painfully free.

“Mine.”

The possessive growl tickled her from behind. It licked Julia’s skin with a sultry heat and nipped at the fears in the shadows of her mind. Lunging hands grasped at the back of her thighs, and fingers of hard bone and sinew dug at her churning legs, only to slip off and leave channels of pain in their wake. Behind her, the maddened pants carried an alien hunger that stabbed along Julia’s spine from tailbone to skull.

Julia’s hand slapped against a stone corner, and she surged ahead along the curve of the shadowy passage. Barely able to see where her next step would land, each footfall teetered on the edge of disaster, but Julia pushed harder. Through her first turn in the passage, a whip-crack split the air, but a fleshy impact against stone gave her hope that buoyed her feet, and then the tunnel around her lightened. Unsure if there really was more light or if her eyes had simply become accustomed to the deep twilight, Julia sprinted forward and shut the dangers behind her from her focus.

The dull illumination was barely enough to make out the wide and tall passage ahead. The undulating corridor was interspersed with long perfectly straight stretches which let her reach a pace that brutally slapped bare feet against the stone, and her stride left her unrestrained hair streaming almost straight back. As a curve slowed her, a shiver up her spine prompted a sidestep. Her rapid shift in weight left strands of hair floating in her wake and a sharp snick aligned with where her neck had been. A tuft of hair fell away from the thing’s claw and dissolved before it reached the ground.

A massive steely clang echoed around her, and the stone underfoot hummed with the intensity of an industrial jackhammer. The shifting force staggered her against the wall, and though the rough stone tore at her, Julia didn’t slow her pace. Again, the foe’s hands delved into remembered flesh, chilling and grasping at her soul. Struck by the foe’s fleshless pressure, Julia tucked her shoulder and tumbled forward. The rough stone scraped skin, whole and wounded alike, but she shunted aside her form’s pain messages and focused on the priority—survival. As she rose from the tumble, she kicked off as if leaving a starting block.

Breathe through it, and more steps will get you out of here, J. Run faster!

Julia forced her breath into a hard, steady pattern and leaned into the motion as her legs and arms pumped in time. The air that hadn’t come when suspended in the darkness rushed into her throat. Though stale and soured with sweat and fear, every inhalation was a welcome experience. Her soul’s memory of flesh provided the sensation of a heart that pumped with anger and fear along with activated flight reactions. When the whisper came again, its scraping sound seemed further behind her.

There wasn’t a hint of sound, but a shift in air pressure was enough warning. This time, as metal rang against metal, she kept her balance despite the floor dancing. The creature’s scream was unmistakable through the impact, and Julia jinked across the passage. A shift fortuitously well-timed, as a small, ghostly, winged form snapped past her with claws outstretched, and fire streamed along her skin as a wingtip parted flesh. Julia glimpsed what appeared to be a straight tail trailing behind it, so she seized the tail and the opportunity; it pulled her for a moment, but without missing a beat, she raised her hands, shortened the slack in her grip, and dug her feet in to pivot and hammer the winged form into the hard wall.

Run!

Desperation lightened her limbs and set her heartbeat racing as she powered through the waiting darkness. As if obscured by something overhead, the dim mocking light flickered. Julia ran on. Years of training and memories of pains endured helped her persist through her phantom desire to rest. Not knowing if it was hope or folly, Julia focused on shadows that seemed to show the passage continued ahead.

A reverberating clangour sang like a hammer the size of worlds striking the sun, and darkness briefly clung like a second skin. Within the dimness of the passage, forms flickered in and out of focus, slowed and drew out the instant. Outlines of doorways appeared only to vanish even before she stepped forward. Mocking echoes of hope, they seemed determined to draw attention and cost momentum each time she moved towards one. With the long passage ahead of her becoming clearer, Julia pushed herself to ignore the doors and continue her headlong sprint.

The leathery whispers that nipped at her heels grew harsher, gaining undertones of confusion and rage each time the metal rang out. She ignored the pain as each racing step scoured the soles of her feet, her focus on the rhythm of her breathing. Unknown to Julia, an ethereal cord trailed behind her; hooked onto her soul, it dragged the entity back and forth across the floor with every jink in her stride, and her blistering pace hauled it off balance as it struggled to follow. The darkness swelled and gained a near-physical presence every time the hammering resonated across the surface of her soul. She didn’t know why, but it reminded her of a smithy she shouldn’t go near. An icy dread shivered along her skin and knocked away the thought, yet the dread spurred her fear harder and poured molten fire into Julia’s veins.

I will get out of here!

♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

The Titan’s Forge

Miniature conceptual models of entire solar systems or individual worlds hovered freely in the air. Various angelic beings and strange entities crafting ideas attended countless rows of crafting stations, millions of artisans working toward a singular purpose in a hall that stretched beyond the reach of any mortal eye. Among them, a faceted crystal sphere popped into existence and raced through the working groups. As they blurred along, their facets fluctuated, the number ever increasing, and they pinged out instructions and bursts of concepts.

In the distant corridor, a temporal stasis wrapped around a running figure and the parasitic shell that pursued her. An angelic being nodded, her ethereal black wings shifting as the gaze of eternity shone from her eyes. The entity beside her, a haze of probability that blurred in and out of existence, turned and chimed out a playful query. “Gideon, has this reincarnation mellowed, or does she still favour tough love?”

It was a query that Gideon ignored. They already knew what option the personification of luck would pick from her tone, and Gideon had no desire to make things even worse. Having already disrupted a few teams working on solar systems, Gideon updated projections and vanished. When they reappeared, it was at a point defined only by the will of the being they’d appeared beside and the rules he’d set forth with one who’d long been absent from the realm.

The Titan was a giant bull-horned figure, somewhat like the legend of the Grecian Minotaur in appearance. Grey fur covered him from head to toe, and his horns curled upwards from each side of his head. He differed from the traditional depictions in that he had broad but handsome human features and feet. His attire was a simple brown hide kilt and sandals laced up to mid-calf. At his command, streams of energy lifted from the white primordial flames that formed the heart of his forge. As they reached the anvil, he compressed the energy towards his envisaged reality, and his hammer descended.

Despite Gideon’s appearance beside him, the Titan continued to work, the rough grey stone around his forge absorbing vibrant sparks of starfire and antimatter.

“Nicholaus, someone’s used the token again. You should know-”

Gideon cut off as Nicholaus glanced from his work. “What should I know?”

“She’s back.”