[hr][CENTER][img]https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/l7lxc8kzzg7.jpg
[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=SILVER][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]the void, the air[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=SILVER][b]Human #5.052:[/b][/COLOR] [I]Interlude[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][color=SILVER][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I]-[sub]-[/sub] [/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=SILVER][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [I]Third Contact
[/I][/right][/SUP]
[/INDENT]
[color=dimgray][INDENT]

An eraser-tipped pencil ticked-ticked-ticked against the woodgrain of a desk, an impatient harmony to the wall clock’s sluggish and torturously slow march. The second hand seemed only to drag forward, every motion a small eternity. Cleo’s crystalline blue eyes flicked upward, drawn to the ticking face as though willing it to rush through the minutes faster.

“Miss Boyd,” came the professor's voice, clipped and stern, cutting through the air like a blade.

[color=#94b9ff]“Aye?”[/color] the red-head blurted, then winced. [color=#94b9ff]“I mean—yes, sir?”[/color]

A ripple of chuckles followed and passed through the classroom, quickly stifled by the professor’s pointed glare. He folded his arms, his shadow stretching the length of the room under a flickering overhead light. “We’re waiting for you.”

Her eyes darted downward. On the desk before her lay the apparatus, a steampunk thing of brass and steel. At its heart, suspended in a claw-like clamp; a single red apple, its skin shiny, fresh, and crisp even under the dim light, even against the shadow of the professor. It held still, even if the room did seem to sway. Cleo frowned, her nose crinkling.

[color=#94b9ff]“Um…”[/color]

The professor exhaled audibly, the sound heavy with disappointment. “This is transmutation, Miss Boyd. Your assignment is to turn the apple into an olive.”

She felt the weight of their gazes then—every other student in the room, their eyes sharp and expectant, like predators waiting for the slightest misstep. Her pulse quickened, each beat a drum in her ears.

[color=#94b9ff]“Right, right…”[/color] she murmured.

She extended her hands over the apple, her fingertips trembling slightly. [color=#94b9ff]“Ilom avar, voli ari melov,”[/color] she intoned, the words strange and otherworldly, their cadence not entirely her own. [color=#94b9ff]“Lomira veal…”[/color]

Between her palms and the apple, a gloaming shadow began to form through twists and churns, dark and luminous at once, a storm contained within the fragile boundary of a gleaming bubble. The air thickened, charged with static. The bubble pushed toward her apple, its surface writhing with the growing nothing living within.

The first crack of thunder echoed through the room, and the scent of cinnamon bloomed, heady and sharp followed by a spray of caramel that erupted from the bubble, sizzling as it struck the desk.

“Contain it, Miss Boyd!” the professor barked, but his voice felt distant, muffled by the growing roar, her direction and proximity to the growing abyss turned and shifted until she couldn’t make sense of her own equilibrium. "Can you not even do a simple spell?"

[color=#94b9ff]“Amio vril, aviro mel! Velira omil, avar voli, melov!”[/color] she chanted, her voice rising and lilting; slipping and splitting into a polyphonic melody that she couldn’t place or recognise as her own - something else, something found. The words poured from her as if pulled from some deep, forgotten place. The now opened and cracked lid of Pandora’s box.

The storm swelled uncontrollably and its darkness devoured the light while the room trembled, buckling with the weightlessness and pressure of it. Desks skittered across the floor, their legs screeching against the tiles. The bubble expanded; its edges rising against the walls like a ravenous tide.

Inside the storm, Cleo was weightless too. Suspended in the gravity of strange, colourful clouds that drew her drifting through the void, soaking through her clothes with their heavy rain as she was pulled through the oppressive silence which was broken only by an eventual low, guttural growl that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. At the heart of it all was the apple; shiny, fresh, and crisp. Pristine but for a single bite now taken from its bleeding flesh.

And beyond it, in the deep black, two yellow-orange eyes opened. They glimmered like smouldering coals, unblinking, their gaze heavy and knowing. A low rumble built beneath her, a sound ancient and unearthly vibrated then through the marrow of her bones. 
The eyes blinked with a chiming sound that rang out like distant bells.

Then everything fractured. The darkness collapsed inward-

Cleo jolted awake, her head smacking against the cold window of the airplane cabin. The bright and cold world returned in pieces—harsh overhead lights, the hum of the engines, the cramped economy seat with its fraying fabric. Her seatbelt pressed tight against her stomach, anchoring her back to reality.

[color=#94b9ff]“Christ,”[/color] she muttered, wiping at her face with trembling hands. The dream was already slipping from her grasp. [color=#94b9ff]“That was bloody strange,”[/color] she whispered. The turbulence rattled once more, a faint echo of the storm in her mind. Above her, the seatbelt light blinked off.

Cleo sighed and glanced to her left. Lucas and Manny were fast asleep, their faces serene, untouched by the chaos that lingered in her veins. She rubbed her temples, her voice low and bitter. [color=#94b9ff]“I hate flying,”[/color] she cursed with a sigh, wrapping her trembling arms around herself.


[/INDENT][/COLOR]