A blank existence, devoid of sensation or thought passes like weeks. Memory of this unmarked time is eradicated in the blank mind as each second passes. The first thought to cross into this empty realm is “am I dead now?”. Almost as if in response, the familiar phrase sounds out from elsewhere in his conscious or unconscious mind, “Heed the warning! Venture deeper into the void!”.
The sound of water is heard from afar off. It sounds louder and louder, until it rings in his ears. The feeling of cold water on his face seems to pull at him, beckoning him to return. The feeling of water in his mouth is all that is necessary to recall him out of the vast reach of this mental void. The gritty feeling of sand on his face and hands welcomes him as he opens his eyes. Looking around, he begins to understand exactly where he has now found himself, opposite the pond from where he had just fallen. The taste of blood and the pain in his mouth now fills his attentive capacity. He lifts his left arm, the only arm not pinned to the ground by his weight. He pulls his sleeping limb to his face, to soothe the pain. He rolls onto his stomach and coughs the remaining water out of his throat.
As his faculties return to him, he notices the passage of the day; he can barely see any sunlight as the last rays of day slip away into night. The red glow of dusk filters through the glass dome around him. He pulls himself to his feet, pushing off of the rocks around him until he can find his footing.
Minutes of stumbling through the rocks and small grasses finally gets him to the familiarity of the paved plaza. Ghent slowly stumbles up the plaza toward the dorm. His hand, bathed in rust-red dust, rubs his jaw and nose.
The sound of his feet dragging his boots across the paved area reverberates in the space between the buildings, adding depth to the sound. After stumbling up the hard metal steps of the dormitory building, Ghent finds his opened door and drags his feet toward his bunk, where he falls. Heavy eyes fight his will, and the contest is won as they shut again, leaving him in the dark reaches of his empty mind yet again.
Chapter 16
Year 15, Day 41
Fog pervades every square meter of the dome, a nightly occurrence that everyone has almost become accustomed to. The fog infiltrates each building, and each room within the dormitory. As the morning sun strikes the gleaming glass exterior of the dome, the varying colors of the rainbow break apart and scatter through the morning mist and fog. The color-filled atmosphere is heavily laden with the malice of mornings past.
Ghent opens his eyes as his room is cast into deep-blue light. As he sits up, the movement of the air flowing around his body becomes obvious by the microscopic water droplets dancing through the blue light of morn. His heavy eyes close again as he flees before the morning light.
The movement of the morning sun shifts the color of the light as it is cast through his window. Upon reopening his eyes, he is greeted with a vibrant green mist. Outside the dormitory building, the warm sun begins to dissolve the fog. Ghent stumbles into his one-piece work suit. He hunches over his sink; sluggish hands splash cold water over his face. He drags his feet as he moves to the doorway, where he stands, and draws in a deep cleansing breath.
The condensation in the dome continues to collect on the ceiling, droplets begin to fall. The falling rain washes the air, giving it a fresh, crisp aroma. Ghent retrieves his tablet, and he sits down on the steps outside the building. A restful night seems to him more of a positive experience than the mysterious events of days past. These nightmarish episodes are relegated to the back of his conscious mind in this rare blissful peace.
Wandering eyes alert Ghent to an unexpected oddity. While seated on the steps of the dorm, he sets his tablet down beside him and stands up. In his customary and deliberate manner, Ghent steps carefully down through the plaza; placing each foot on the ground carefully to avoid any shuffling. Growing about 20 meters away from the plaza is a small forest of shrubs, vines and smaller trees. The greenery is so thick, it would prevent him from entering into it, or to even see through it. Flowers and blossoms of all shapes and colors decorate the facade of the instantly lush forest before him.
As Ghent draws closer to the flourishing oasis, the sound of small insect wings flapping prompts him to slow his stride; enough so that he can clearly distinguish what it is. Convinced that what he is hearing is, in fact, what he had suspected as being honeybees in flight, Ghent approaches more cautiously.
Ghent leans backward as the intensity of the sound, originating deep inside within the dense foliage, seems to increase steadily with his presence. Rising to stand erect again, Ghent then walks backward, slowly, as more and more of the honey bees start to collect on the foliage in front of him. Thousands upon thousands seem to be landing all around him.
Ghent’s mind settles upon one opportunity he has to get in closer without disturbing these bees any further. The growing agitation of the bees starts to concern Ghent. “What an odd behavior for such a simple animal”, he thinks to himself. Ghent carefully treads back onto the path and without making sudden movements, walks back up the path. All the while, he looks back over his left shoulder.
After attaining a seemingly safe distance between him and the bee colony, probably located within the foliage, Ghent comes to an excited sprint. His destination is the laboratory building, where he has left his pressure suit. Several meters before reaching the laboratory, Ghent stops quite suddenly. After a short pause, he walks very slowly toward the door. His hand, outstretched toward the door, begins to quiver and his resolve wanes. Ghent now focuses his attention on what appears to be a hand-print on the door.
What makes the hand-print noteworthy to Ghent is that it appears to be made with blood. The door is already ajar. Ghent gently pushes on the door to prop it open. Ghent now sees that all of the light bulbs inside the laboratory are flickering randomly, no two bulbs in unison. Walking no further in, Ghent calls out to anyone that might be inside the laboratory. No response can be heard. The distinct sound of Cardiff’s voice captures his intense focus momentarily, drawing his attention over his left shoulder, where she is standing.
Cardiff: Doctor, is everything alright? I heard you shouting, and came out to see what all the raucous was.
Ghent: Captain, come over here quickly!
The captain had already started jogging across the plaza, over to where Ghent is standing. Upon reaching Ghent, a concerned look crossed her face as she looked over his shoulder into the lab. Ghent turned his head back toward the laboratory as well. To his relief, and conversely his chagrin, the door is clean and the lights are all in perfect working condition.
Ghent: I guess it was nothing. Would you like to suit up and join me? I am going to be taking a closer look at that dense patch down there?
Ghent points with his other hand, palm up, toward the lush foliage.
Ghent: You’ll need a suit if you join me there. There are thousands of bees that seem to be swarming around it, that’s why we will need to wear our suits to prevent us from getting stung. You usually do not need such measures, but everything about this place tells me that we will.
Cardiff: Whoa, what happened there that made those plants grow so quickly. I take it you don’t know, and that is why you want to investigate?
Ghent: Absolutely.
Cardiff: Okay, well, I will go grab my suit and join you back here in a moment.
Ghent watches Cardiff jog back to the control room. After seeing her leave his immediate sight, he returns his gaze back to the door in front of him. Nothing appears out of the order, not in the least. All of the lights inside the room are working flawlessly, and the print that had been seen by him moments ago was nowhere to be seen; it had disappeared without a trace. He presses in on his temples with his thumb and finger, as if to hold his mind together, literally. Eyes shut firmly; a quick jerk of the head back and forth seems to rescind his feeling of madness.
Walking into the laboratory, Ghent reaches behind the door to grab his suit, and quickly jumps in it. He carefully loads his oxygen container onto his belt, and a
ttaches the air hose to it. Finally, his helmet is twisted on to the neck of the suit, locking it firmly in place.
The rush of the fresh air across his face inside the helmet is a welcome feeling; there isn’t any wind inside the dome.
His black glove reaches for the door, and his boots tread back out of the laboratory. Standing in front of him is Cardiff, all suited up similarly, and ready to walk with him down toward the foliage. The sound of her voice in his earpiece announces to him what his eyes have already discovered; she is ready to get moving.
As the two reach the same point on the path that Ghent had previously reached moments ago, they can both see, in plain fashion, the bees flying around them. The suits obstruct much of the noise of the bees flying around outside the suit; the radios contained inside each of the suits clearly transmit a conversation that would have been difficult to hear without radio communication.
Ghent: So I walked down here a few minutes ago, and noticed a few bees, but very shortly after my arrival it seemed that thousands were pouring out of the brush. I have no idea what is causing this odd behavior, they seem to be acting like Africanized honey bees.
Cardiff: Killer bees?
Ghent: Right. There does not seem to be a cause for this, we brought domestic bees with us when we arrived.
Cardiff: Okay, so I can’t think of anything either. Maybe you ought to capture one in a vial and study it more closely in the lab.
Ghent: That is actually why I brought a few vials. I am going to see if I can get one in this vial. The other vials will hold bits of their hive for closer inspection. Many things need to be explained, I cannot account for the sudden explosion in the number of bees. It takes much longer than a day to hatch new bees, so it’s a mystery.
Cardiff: Well, look at this; I have caught one in my glove. Where is that vial? I’ll drop it in there for you. This bee doesn’t seem to look like any I have seen back home. The color is wrong, this is white and black.
Ghent: Let me see it for a moment. It looks like it is covered by a white powder; I can see the traditional yellow color underneath.
Captain, where is your air canister? Did you not bring one?
Cardiff: Oh… no. We are inside the dome so I figured that I would be alright if I just left the hose unattached.
Ghent: Stand back over there then. I think that these bees will be looking for a spot to crawl into your suit, and an open hose ending is a welcoming place for a small insect like these.
Cardiff takes stock in Ghent’s suggestion, and takes several steps backward to place some more space between her and the bees. She stops moving backward and sits on a rock behind her, watching Ghent work for a moment. Ghent returns to filling his vials with the specimens that he has come to collect.
He already has a bee; he finds a hive after stepping into the dense brush and places a small portion of it into his vial. The bees start to swarm with more vigor than before, and are covering his pressure suit from helmet to boot. His visor is so thickly coated with bees that he has to take his glove and wipe his visor off repeatedly as he steps out of the brush. He then tries to place some distance between himself and the bees, yet again.
A sharp shrill cry over his radio alerts him to the event that he was hoping to avoid by having Cardiff move up the path several meters away from him. Frantically wiping his visor of the bees, he can barely make out Cardiff running down the path toward the pond, trying to free herself from the suit. The suit that had once provided a barrier between her and the bees now traps them in with her. She cannot brush them off of her. As she stumbles over rocks and plants, she tries to free her head from her helmet. Ghent runs after her, dropping his sample vials on the ground as he does.
The shrieking of her pained voice is loud enough in his earpiece to deafen him somewhat. The thickness of the bees covering his suit is diminishing with his speed and distance from the hive behind him. He sees her running still, and passes her helmet on the ground, along with her gloves. A short moment later she manages to free herself from the rest of the suit, jumping out of the boots. After freeing herself, she trips on a rock in her frantic movement, and rolls into the pond with a splash.
Ghent arrives at the edge of the pond, and dives into the pond after her. His suit is airtight and watertight as well. He has never attempted swimming in his suit, but is currently not allowed the luxury of testing it in the water first.
The water closest to the surface is murky, at best. Through his clean visor Ghent can see the effect of the ripples on the surface of the water; the light seems to dance through the murk down to where he is. Ghent looks around him, his movements fraught with distress and panic. He calls out to her, but she is not wearing her suit, so her radio is lying on the beach above.
Above him, movement in a shadow alerts him that she is swimming on the surface, which is now a few meters above him. It looks as though he is sinking with the weight of his gear. Turning around, Ghent can see the edge of the rock face in the water, and he feverishly tries to swim over to it. After some difficult swimming, his glove touches the edge of the rock, no traction is given to his glove in the water, and he continues to slide down the wall slowly. The light above him thins and the rock face becomes less and less pronounced.
Chapter 17
Drifting quietly through the cold murky depths of the pond, Ghent flings his arms out in front of him as he grasps at the underwater rock face futilely. His steady descent into the dark does not slow. His gloved fingers slide along the smooth rock face. The reverberating waves overhead faintly shimmer through the cloudy water. The sun’s rays penetrate less and less through the thick murky water to him; his black gloves are barely distinguishable against the rust-colored rock only a meter in front of him. In the cool darkness, his hand slips off of the edge of the rock face. Ghent feverishly waves his arms as he struggles against the thick water to swim closer to the wall, which seems to have disappeared altogether. The sensation of falling slowly in the depths is matched only by the sinking feeling in his stomach as he realizes the implications if he cannot return to the surface above within the next hour or so.
As the light above disappears completely, the rate of his descent is indiscernible. His boots come to rest, on what Ghent can only suppose as the bottom of the pond. In the darkness, Ghent realizes that he still has his lamp attached to his belt, and a dimmer light on his helmet. Ghent reaches up to his helmet and switches his head lamp on. The lamp casts light out in a tubular pattern in front of his helmet.
The pressure of what feels like a hand pressing through his suit shocks him, and he turns sluggishly to reach for the source of the pressure. His arms turn and twist in the cold dark depths. Panic surges through every particle in his body, his rapid breaths coat the inside of his helmet in a cloud of water vapor. A moment passes in the dark, a moment which feels to him immeasurable, an eternity of uncertainty. Something smooth rushes by his leg again, a large fish perhaps. The water feels so thick to him, like syrup. This viscous fluid feels like quite a contrast to the near absence of atmosphere outside.
His lamps produce just enough light to make out the rock surfaces in front of him. Lying only a few meters in front of him is a circularly-lit portion of rock. As his helmet moves with his shoulders, he aims his torso down toward the bottom. His boots appear, but are obscured by the sand, disturbed and drifting through the water. Ghent moves his helmet again, this time completely around; the only thing that he can see in front of him is the particles drifting aimlessly through the water. The void in front of him is revealed through in the same tubular fashion. As the light fades off into the distance, the scale of the size of the pond is completely indistinguishable to Ghent. He moves his helmet to his left, and he stops. Several meters in front of him appear what look sort of like fish swimming around in a large vortex, like an underwater tornado of fish.
Their scales reflect the light of the lamp back out around Ghent. Carefully, he looks from side to side in his helmet. Without moving his helmet, Ghent can now se
e that he is, in fact, standing on a ledge. The ledge upon which he stands overlooks a drop-off, without a bottom in sight. Above him and to his sides appear to be the opening of a tunnel. Presumably the space behind him, where he had been looking a moment ago, is a tunnel into the rock face.
As Ghent turns again to face the tunnel, the end cannot be distinguished in this abysmal darkness. Turning again to look into the void of the chasm in front of him, Ghent returns his gaze back out toward the swarm of fish. The light around him disappears; the fish have disappeared out of the light. Ghent grabs his utility light, which was mounted firmly on his belt, and switches it on as well. The hand-held light offers Ghent more liberty in movement than does his headlamp.
Initially, Ghent rotates the lamp to shine the bright light down into the depths of the pond below him. Once again, the only thing that can be readily seen in the light is just the floating particles in the murky water. Before moving into the tunnel or trying to swim or climb back up, Ghent checks his remaining oxygen pressure on the wrist-mounted gauge. Ghent can see that he still has time, but no good plan to get back up to the surface. Ghent carefully examines the edges of the tunnel, where he is standing, with the hand-held lantern in his right hand. Along the edge of the tunnel Ghent notices something that he did not see before; a single rope dangles down from above, hanging just along the edge of the tunnel.
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