The ship rocked and twisted gently, floating as one might expect a great beast to swim through the air. The halls were cozy and quiet ... and safe. A sense of warmth and protection permeated the walls of the ship, which pulsed with the comforting thrum of a heartbeat and echoed serenely with the soft, distant
melody of Golby's potato-fueled radio.
Within the closed container in the loading bay, Lucky would hear all the creaks and clanks of unsecured machinery as it slid and scraped against the moving walls. Only a faint glimmer of the melody reached her here: a wisp of music behind the hum and thrum and scrape and clank. The screen of her HOBO illuminated the interior of the container, where she was folded safely.
There were no directives on her device, nor in her head. Where there once had been pressure and control ... now was only silence.
Somewhere in the loading bay, the Waddling-Thing mooed quietly.
She might hear a scrabbling and a muttering outside her new little home. A handful of Bobblings had clambered over one another to get on top of Lucky's container, and they laughed and cheered to have achieved such a feat. They began to dance, and they began to sing along to the faint music that echoed down through the halls, in their own chittering language.
The engine room, meanwhile, was loud with the th-thump, th-thump of the heart of the beast, contained carefully within steel and ceramic, surrounded by protected nerves and moving gears and suspended yellow lights. This was a room that even Golby had deemed
spooky due to the fragile tension that seemed to cling to the air within this room -- but perhaps it was this that attracted The Witnessed Day to claim this space as his own.
His consciousness stretched out, touching the hum of the Helium Frightful and the dim skittering Bobblings before he came to rest, feather-light, upon Whisper's mind.
The pages turned thin as gossamer, shimmering and faded: a glittering mansion where he didn't belong, and jewels glinting in his fist; a crowded orphanage and sharp-eyed children, splintered wood under his bare feet; a vacant landscape through the view of his mask, his throat burning; eyes that towered high above, shining out of the darkness --
*KKKKSSSSSSSSSSSS*The violent, deafening noise of static hissed in The Witnessed Day's skull. Like glass, the memories shattered.
Whisper would feel a small twinge in the back of his head -- but he was used to that sort of thing by now, wasn't he?
Music hummed through the repaired radio just on the other side of the wall, where Golby mumbled to himself while he navigated the great beast across the sky -- sometimes humming along, sometimes scuffing his feet in time to the cello's pluck. The lilting tune kept Whisper company while he sorted the clutter of the old armory. There were piles of junked drones: some simple camera-orbs, some with spider-legs and missing pieces, some with spines or feathers and screwed-in eyes. There were spears and halberds in a variety of eccentric styles, from bone to bronze, from the nomad tribes to regulation-issued. There was a collection of ornate swords and daggers made of curious metals and adorned colorfully. There were long guns of a curious shape, whose ammunition was a mystery, and a few awkward handguns of debatable usefulness. It was enough to arm a small, ill-advised skirmish.
By the time the armory had been made into something livable, Whisper's spy returned. It had had several encounters with Bobblings, which seemed to have already permeated the corners and corridors -- but more importantly, it had found food. Near the belly of the ship was a small but functional kitchen, complete with a table and chairs, and a pantry stuffed with a year's supply of bags and cans and jars of the finest laboratory-developed, prefabricated packaged foods: Hoisin Nutrient Cutlets, Caffeinated Oxo-Moon, Solarian Lizard Loops.
The 'rat' had investigated the murmurings of someone inside a lidded container within the loading bay, but had been driven off by Bobblings. It had run through the vents and over catwalks, dodging the great creature's veins and sinew, to find the engine room where the many-legged stranger sat very still on the floor -- but again, the Bobblings had stood between the 'rat' and any further investigation. Downstairs was the infirmary, darkened now and in disuse, full of sharp things and drawers of gauze. The 'rat' had peeked into each of the small rooms at the rear of the ship, where there were beds and little else; then, through the dining area again, it had discovered five more, bigger rooms closer to the cockpit. These seemed as if they might have been lived-in recently, and one had been freshly painted and filled with stuffed animals, the bed made with bright pink sheets. Another room was filled with a brilliant bright light -- so bright that the 'rat' couldn't see at all, and had abandoned it entirely before returning to Whisper.
The Waddling Thing had somehow made it up the steps of the loading bay, and was currently tapping through the halls toward the faint smell of food, humming and mooing, while the radio repeated its song.
Mole,
ButtsnBalls,
MurderVictim,
Little Bird,
AlteredTundra,
Izurich,
Carlyle,
Kidd,
ruler of spades,
shylarah