A monotonous beep sounds through every empty hallway, cranny, and crack within the integrity of the cold metal building. The sound, that lets the ones who once used this place for experiments and acts of knowledge, know that everything is still working in its current state. It sounded for all to hear everyone so often to let the ones who used it know that everything is fine. Now the beep is there to only fill the void in a lifeless, cold husk. The beep with no meaning other than to beep and make a constant sound. A husk that holds secrets unknown to the ones above it that live their lives like nothing will ever change. And the ones that have been left inside feel the same as well. Though they rest endlessly.
The last beep dies down in a sad waning tone with the pitch going from a high cry to low sad moan as if saying good bye to the world. As the energy of the faculty dies. the lights die out and the last sound disappears purging the world of the building into complete and utter darkness. The void is now complete. Lifeless, still, silent, and dark. A horrible place to be awoken in no matter the case.
Down far deeper into the faculty than many would venture, the lost of power affect containers bigger than the creatures that once ruled this faculty. One to the far right of the small rectangular room gives off a dying beep before releasing air pressure feeling the air with a long and continuous hissing sound that echoes through out of the building. The world inside the pod fades away and turns completely dark. No red light. Not a single sound. Absolutely-
Nothing.
The first of the five unopened chambers is awaking to a world no longer ruled by lights and sounds that keep creatures like it sane. And with it the heavy drop of the chamber's door, a story.
A man drops from within the contraption onto his knees making a wet slapping sound of flesh against metal. His eyes open wide as he gasps for air. He grabs front of his clothes that stick to his chest. The last thing he can really remember is that of being thrown into the tank after he had a bit of a change of heart. Apparently the others didn't agree with his decision.
"Damnit guys!" He manages to yell out as he gets up,sits on his legs, and his his knees dig into the metal. He leans back and stares at the dark ceiling that he can't even make out. His dreads stick fast against his brown face darkened from the lack of light. He face is completely wet from the liquid of the chamber he had been locked away inside of.
He stairs up into the darkness and finds himself uncomfortable as the silence comes at him with a vengeance. It's sudden and only the echo of his shout keeps him from completely quieting himself. He has almost entirely stopped breathing as well for the shock that starts to settle into him. He suppresses it against his better judgment.
"H-Hello?" He asks standing up slowly trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness.
The only thing that answers back is his echo. The lone voice of his. He moves forward and kicks the heavy plastic lightly but not hard enough to really cause permanent damage. Though it stings a lot for the moment. The inhale of air proves so as he backs up from the object in front of him. He moves to the right feeling the area around him so he doesn't end up slamming his toe into something hard. Again...
He can feel the slender and smooth surface of something, but at the same time it doesn't really prove to be much space in here. From what he can make out, which is almost jack shit, there is a table most likely against a wall in front of him, probably, that might have things on it. He stumbles across to it shuffling his feet the entire way to make sure nothing goes into the bottom of his foot. He manages to get there and feels across the table hoping nothing too bad will happen. His hand rolls across a few things that scrape him with their sharpness and he pulls back wondering where a light might be in this never ending darkness. He thoughts than turn to wonder where everyone is in this place. Somebody should be here to great him after all.
Right?
It has been awfully quite as well. Way too quite. People working should've been the first thing he hears.
A thought slowly creeps into his head. It isn't a nice thought either, but after all the games he has played when he was younger...
"Hey!? Can anyone hear me!? Say something please!" He yells out panic slowly settling into him.
He has been trying to keep away from such thoughts since he felt the shock take him a bit. But the darkness seems to creep in on him more and more making him feel small and defenseless. So his thought soon turn to think that maybe everything isn't so great outside of this facility. His thoughts change drastically from the thought of the place being shut down to an entire nuclear war.
"Oh god... Oh god! Oh... god..." He says falling to his knees his entire body shaking with fear and sadness, "Am... Am I alone?"
He shrinks in on himself. He falls to his ass and stares forward realizing how alone he is. He rolls his legs up into himself and wraps his arms around them for some sort of comfort. He continues holding his legs shaking and letting tears and sobs escape from his body. The tears roll down his face and burns his eyes. His mind is coming up with all the worse scenarios and his body is reacting to them. He cries out more for himself to be wrong, yet nothing changes it.
He sits on that floor in his own world crying and assuming the worst. He considers himself all alone and a worthless person. He figures god has done this as some sort of divine punishment against him.
He's cut off by a hissing sound behind him. He jumps and stands up suddenly while looking behind him. He begins backing up as the hissing slowly dies down and the sound of something hard hits the ground and echoes in these empty halls. He feels his back hit a wall and soon finds himself wondering if what ever is in front of him took the others away from this world.
A gasp of breath sounds and soon follows panting with a tone of femininity. A small light flicks on in his heart. He doesn't want to startle her so he keeps quiet for a moment while she tries to figure out what's going on. She takes deep breaths before a coughing fit. He scratches the back of his head wondering if he should check on her.
"H-Hello?" She asks out in a Italian tone, "Is someone here with me?"
"Yes. Don't be scared by the dark. As soon as we find some light we'll see what we can do. Okay?" He says trying to reassure her though not really sounding confident in himself.
"O-Okay." She responds.
The man start walking along and feels against the wall. His brain is starting to work again and now he realizes he should've been checking along the wall for a box full of flashlights like some places have them. His hand hits something metal and feeling along the metal he finds a handle. He opens it up and fills inside to find only one cylinder object. He feels along it and finds it's a push system of a bulge and empty socket letting the person know which is on and which is off. He presses the bulge and a light flicks on and the room is filled with an ever so dim light that sparks a bit more of hope and confidence in himself.
"Aha!" He announces to his great excitement.
He look over to her and keeps the light pointed up so it lights up the room a bit more than it would being pointed forward. The woman stands there with her blond hair clinging to her puffy cheeks. She's a chubby woman with a big rounded bosom, slight belly, and a thick behind. All around she has a charming look about her that many would find, as all the manga he has red would say, kawaii. Though he would put as fuck after that.
"Uh... H-Hey." He says rubbing the back of his head and rustling up his dreads a bit more and trying to wipe away the tears from his face.
She looks towards the ground while holding the hem of her shirt and squeezing her abundance making them look slightly smaller. And yet their still so lovable and seem to be calling out to him to lay his head within those comfy looking pillows. If he could he would come up to her and ask her to go steady so he could feel her great weight. Though his confidence has always failed him when it came to woman. Other guys he can easily handle, but the woman. Oh how frightful woman are to this man. Twenty three and afraid of woman.
"H-Hello." She responds in that same Italian tone, but only quieter.
He can feel his heart lurch just a bit from that tone. Oh the things he would-
Hissing feels the room louder than his and hers. They both turn towards the sound which seems to be coming from the pod next to hers. Unseen smoke shoots out from all direction of the door cracks and covers the floor as well. The two take a step back from the pod as the glass door way opens and it falls to the floor filling the room with the echoing sounds of something heavy and the hissing once again filling the void that their voices has been trying to fill. The two look at each other before back at the pod where am man wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans walk out stumbling a bit. He has rippling muscles and front styled hair.
He shakes his head before looking around. His eyes stop on the Italian girl. He smiles and speaks up in a British accent, "My my. What do we have hear? A beautiful flower in the dark?"
The man with dreads keeps his mouth closed as the Brit, as he would like to refer him as, walks forward to her, pulls her chin up, and they lock gazes, "I'm guessing your presence awoke me from my dreamless sleep. And what an awaking it is."
She stares into his deep crystal like eyes with a blush coming across her face as she takes the man in entirely.
"I-I-I-"
"No need for words doll. What matters right now is that we're both okay." He says in a oh so charming way.
The dreaded man can already tell he's not going to like him. No matter what he says. Especially with his honeyed words... trouble indeed guard. Trouble indeed.
"So what's your name?" He asks taking up her right hand and giving it a kiss.
"Re-Regina..." She says almost breathlessly.
"Mine is Marctello. Marctello Anthony." He says their eyes never wavering or leaving from each other.
Well seeing a lost cause, the brown skinned man starts looking for an exit which comes in the form of a opened doorway. He sets the light down behind him, not wanting to leave the other two in the dark and peers his way down into the darkness as best as he can. He can't make out anything and is unsure of how safe it is outside of this room. He pulls back and sees Marctello and Regina looking around Marctello never leaving her side.
"Did the scientist close up shop?" Marctello asks.
"Let's hope not." He replies as he picks up the flashlight and shines it towards the last unopened pod and two opened pods.
Apparently two others are already out of here as it is. Early delivery he supposes. But that just means there are two others in here that are probably in the dark like them. Or either have some light source of some kind and are doing alright for themselves. Or they could be dead.
He hopes for one and two.
"And who are you I may ask?" Marctello asks walking towards him.
And the under minding tone that he has heard so many times in his line of work returns to haunt him even in this time of darkness.
"I'm Antonius Brook. Though a lot of people in the gaming industries know me as Shade."
The man tsks, "A man that wastes his days away on video games is not a real man."
"Maybe I don't wanna be a real man. Being a grown ass man is hard work. I'd rather be a kid man really." He replies like he always has with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Well you're wasting your life away." He says walking up to the unopened pod, "Who do you think is in here?"
"If my guess is right, which I doubt it, This should be that Korean girl we got. I mean they did kind of shove me into one of this tubes to preserve our science and fascination with the advancement of the internet and gaming so. Hard to say. I've been brooding over that for some time now. Than again when I came here I was... shit... I can't remember..." He says tapping on his right leg.
"Who knows when it'll open up. Regina's didn't open until some minutes after mine. Yours nearly seconds. The two over there opened up already who knows when.." And with that, Antonius walks to the table of where the sharp objects are to be found. Scissors and all sort of tools lay out about the table face. He sets the flashlight on its butt and stretches popping his back in the process.
"So we wait!? Ugh. How about you stick around here and me and Regina here go looking around real quick."
In Antonius' mind, it sounds way more of command than a question. He knows if they have to go out they'll have to take the flashlight with them and that'll leave him completely in the dark.
"No can do. This is the only light we have. So this light stays in here until we either A: Find a new one. Or B: The person to awaken awakens... How the hell do I know that...." He replies calmly his right leg shaking out of nervous habit.
"I don't like those options. Look, we won't be gone long. We'll take the late and we'll be back before you know it." He says stepping towards him.
"Look. I don't like our situation and I really think-' Antonius start becoming agitated as his memories and actions start conflicting himself.
"I don't care what you think. Plus you're not the leader. Now, if you would ever be so kindly enough to hand me that damn lantern." He says holding out his right hand.
"Flashlight. Not lantern. Well in America it is. Last I checked, this facility was built on American soil. So if you want a lantern you'll need to find one on your own."
"Buddy. You listen here and you listen well. I don't like you."
"The feeling is mutual. Buddy." He replies staring him in the eyes as they get more and more into each other's face.
"G-Guys... Please don't fight." Regina says intervening, "Please? We'll be back soon."
Antonius damns those eyes. They're full of innocence. He hands over the flashlight to him reluctantly.
"Thank you very much." He says with a smug grin before turning.
"Thank you." Regina says a small smile on her face.
He says nothing as he look at the pod that the light shows faintly. He watches the pod as the light on it slowly shifts from its soft light to a think darkness once again. He sighs and unclenches his left fist that had managed to curl around a screw driver. He had never been a real conversationalist. Fighting is where he excels. Some of the time.
"I hate everyone." He breathes out to the nothingness listening to the fading footsteps of the two, "Yet I love everything."
He looks at the pod as strange things start playing in his mind. Oddly enough his actions earlier seem to go against him now. He doesn't know why he would forget he helped... helped...
"What the hell..." He says shaking his leg badly.
He bites his bottom lip and lets his thought roam once again. Though no longer on dark thoughts. No. Thoughts on what his memories are doing .
Outside of the hull a forest rests where two ponies walk about outside of it trying to figure out a way inside. The discovery of this massive metal contraption led to a major speculation among their race. They think that this can bring them closer to the ones that were here before them. The building that once stood and all the stone path ways they made can finally be revealed.
First they have to figure a way inside. Which comes as a loud winning noise as if something is powering off. The leader of their expedition, a earth stallion with an brown coat and brown bowler's hat on that pushes his black mane to both sides of his head, looks to see the door to the facility opening for their access despite half of the entrance way being covered by the ground. His associate, a pegasus mare with a light green coat and yellow mane that holds a flower in it, makes a noise between a yelp and a squee at this wondrous sight.
"Finally." The stallion says walking towards the dark hallway that presents itself, "We can finally go inside."
"See! I told you the answer would come today!" The mare says sounding much like a female teenager while clopping her hooves together as her wings shoot out behind her, "O-m-c! I can't believe this is finally happening!"
"Now calm down Lily." The stallion says taking on a britches accent for a second.
"S-Sorry." She says lowering he head down a bit. Though her wings stay erect.
"Now go grab the hats and we'll be set." He says running a hoof down the opened doorway.
"Right!" She says running off.
The stallion shakes his head not believing even for a second that something so wondrous could happen to him of all days. The very day their princess, a white Alicorn who goes by the name Celestia, was going to call off their mission. He truly has the maker to thank for this. He continues staring down into that darkness wandering what type of discoveries lay buried within this hull. If it's anything like the stadium a researcher found a long time ago, this could really advance them again.
Lily come flying back and hands him his hat. The stallion takes of his bowler cap and places it on the ground. He dawns the miner's hat, as they would be referred as, and makes his way inside carefully due to the angle of the entrance way.
Thus many stories come together to entangle each other within each other.