*Ugh... My head, it feels like it's ringing...
"Loud... too loud" The palpitating, bashing sound in my head won't stop as my vision slowly regains; the fog slowly unveils
"What...w-where am I?!" In distress and great confusion, denial swept by me; deep within my soul, I won't believe this is happening right now
The choking on air that tasted of rust, oil, sewage, and something chemical that burned the back of my throat
I slipped, sprawled across a cold metal floor slick with condensation and grime, and for several long seconds I could do nothing but stare into the blackness above me, where enormous pipes and cables vanished into a ceiling so distant that I could barely make them out, while somewhere beyond the darkness machinery groaned like a dying beast and great ventilation turbines thundered endlessly through the foundations of this place
When I finally pushed myself upright, in the distance a church bell echoed throughout, BONG, my hands trembled against the filthy metal, and the sound of my own breathing seemed unbearably loud, BONG, because there was no sunlight, no sky, no horizon nothing but endless walls of rusted ferrocrete, broken walkways, hanging platforms, ancient machinery and distant flickering lumen-strips that cast sickly pools of yellow and red light across a city buried beneath a city, BONG while far below me an abyss disappeared into absolute darkness, crossed by bridges and pipes and countless improvised structures where tiny points of light suggested that people actually lived down there.
Picking myself up, I staggered forward, trying to understand where I was, only to find that the streets around me were little more than rusting plates and broken concrete surrounded by overflowing gutters, chemical runoff, mountains of refuse and abandoned machinery, BONG with immense manufactorums rising around me like cathedrals built for some forgotten god of industry.
Their walls scarred by age and their windows either shattered or glowing faintly from ancient systems that somehow still functioned, BONG every direction seemed to lead deeper into the impossible maze, and everywhere there were signs that humanity had somehow survived here,
What are those shanty homes welded together from scrap, market stalls beneath broken transit stations, I asked myself BONG
That Fucking sound! Where is that coming from? BONG
Candles burning before crude Imperial shrines, children watching from behind barricades, exhausted workers dragging carts, scavengers picking through garbage, armed gangs marking their territory with crude symbols, and strangers who looked at me with the cold suspicion of people; yet one look at me with an expression of 'another one turned insane'
These people here who had learned long ago that kindness could get you killed just scoffed, spat at my feet and ignored me, paying no attention to someone who, by their standards, was below them, all the while the air carried the distant echoes of gunfire, machinery, shouting and something enormous roaring somewhere beneath the streets.
The realisation slowly settled over me, heavy and suffocating, as I understood that this wasn't some forgotten industrial district or abandoned ruin. BONG
The sounds of laughter echoed throughout the air
It was the Underhive, the rotten foundation of a Great Hive City. In this place, millions of souls could spend their entire lives without ever seeing the sun, in the distance near yet far; sounds of mocking echoed everywhere...
I deeply realise that this is where water was fought over, food could be made from corpse-starch and fungus, where broken machines were worshipped because nobody remembered how to repair them, and where every dark tunnel could conceal mutants, predators, cultists, gangers or something far worse
The deeper I looked, the deeper it seemed my mind seemed to wane, and the more the scale of it crushed whatever hope I had left, because there was no end to the darkness, only layer upon layer of civilisation descending into the depths, each level older, poorer and more forgotten than the last, until somewhere far beneath my feet were places where the maps ended, and humanity's control disappeared entirely.
The laughing new seemed to be more prominent as I suddenly felt terribly, overwhelmingly small, just one man standing alone in a buried world that had existed long before I arrived and would continue existing long after I was dead.
I lowered my head and stared at my shaking hands, desperately trying to remember how I had gotten here, but my memories were fractured and useless, leaving only a growing emptiness inside my chest as the truth became impossible to ignore. Where was Mira? Sara? Where were my people? Was I hallucinating all of it? Did all of that happen in my mind? Am I insane?
"STOP LAUGHING!!!!!" Yet it didn't stop; it was louder than ever before, mocking and pleased
Collapsing on the ground as I stared in the distance, seeing blue, purple, green and red...
I was alone
I had no idea where I was, had no idea how deep beneath the hive I had awakened, and somewhere in that endless darkness something screamed again, a long, distant cry that made every instinct in my body tell me to run
Yet where could I run when every corridor seemed to lead farther into the abyss, when every flickering light revealed another rusted passage, another ruined hab-block, another desperate face, another endless layer of suffering, and as I stood there listening to the heartbeat of the Underhive rumbling through the metal beneath my feet, despair finally settled over me like a weight
I closed my eyes for a moment, swallowed the lump in my throat, and whispered to the darkness, barely able to keep my voice from breaking...
Tears fell from my cheek. The final sound of the bell echoed BONG, and the laughing stopped as though satisfied, yet a feeling of wanting more threatened to come back, greedily wanting to feel his despair more
"Where am I?" Defeated, I lay at my knees
Suddenly, a golden light appeared before me as a figure formed in its place... a small child no older than six years old, with blond, wavy hair and deep blue eyes. He took a deep look at me and spoke, yet not moving his lips
'You seem lost, child...'
Looking around me, it seemed that I really had gone insane, yet once again the being before me ignored me as he placed two fingers on my forehead
'Let me help you, SON'
My consciousness in a split second turned off before snapping back again
[ Initiating System Awakening...]
Hearing a voice in my head, I looked before me, and they were gone
'What's happening'
[Initiating Emergency Protocol; Phoenix982-210-7865AlphaGamma34IconGold]
[GrandCommander; Welcome back to the fold]
"Who are you"
[I am designated Phoenix2209231Gold. Designation Creator "the Genius Grand and Beautiful Great Scientist Elenora" created me in preparation for a situation like this situation would occur, so she tore off part of her soul and implanted it in yours, Lord Commander, giving birth to me]
"What? Elenora? Elenora created you? She what? Her soul? My soul?! What?!..."
Silence, then something broke inside
"Haha... hahahaha... ahahahahahaha, man, I thought I would never hear that name ever again"
[Affirmative, Designation Creator "the Genius Grand and Beautiful Great Scientist Elenora" tethered part of her soul to link to you, to watch what you do 24/7 for 365.5days in the past 27 years]
"Ugh... sigh, to think she would go that far"
[Affirmative, in Designation Creator "the Genius Grand and Beautiful Great Scientist Elenora" Ahem... "I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU"...]
"Okay, okay, okay, I get it hahahaha. To think I lost my composure there for a moment, speaking of which, where are they Phoenix2209231Gold... you know what, that's too long. From now on, you will just be designated as Goldstine"
[Affirmative, Unit Changed Code Designation to Goldstine, and to answer your question, Lord Commander... They're in another timeline in another multiverse in another universe]
"A what now?"
[The Great Imperial Terran is in another timeline in another multiverse of the universe before a great being changed the setting, a.k.a your destiny, due to you being too strong for the great game as they call it and breaking the balance]
"FUCKING TZEE-"
His face now fully red in anger
[BE CAREFUL, LORD COMMANDER; NAMES HAVE POWER]
"Hufff... hufff, sighhhh your right, yeah your right, sighhhhhhhhh"
Taking a deep breath only to choke on bad, reeking air and coughing violently
"FUCK, just you wait, you blue bitch I'll pluck every single one of your feathers"
"PERSONALLY"
[A/N: Should have read the description... sigh, that's why we read the contract before signing it, personally kids]