[SIDESTORY] Morbit Oneshots

[Zenthis]

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The Cage- 2020
Zenthis, unnamed project
CW: Death, Drowning, Abuse implications, Claustrophobia
Turbine has some regrets

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You are drowning. You can feel water pouring into your exhaust ports and through the cracks in your chassis and you are drowning. You shouldn't have said that. You knew that you shouldn't have when you said it but it just felt like you would have the upper hand over him for once.

And now you are drowning.

You feel like such an idiot, if you had just kept your mouth shut then you wouldn't have had to run away, you wouldn't be here, and most of all, you wouldn't be drowning.

You see something moving out of the corner of your vision and your remember that water isn't the only deadly thing this many thousands of feet below the surface. As you feel part of your metal skin bending inwards from the pressure you remember there’s a lot more here that can kill you.

Water has begun seeping into your 'eyes,' corrupting the feed going to your brain. You know you don't have much time left. You can feel every part of your body shutting down one by one.

Soon, you can feel your brain doing it too.

You don't want to die.

You begin thrashing, desperately trying to do something, anything to survive. You don't know what you're going to do but you are going to do whatever it takes, you will do whatever you can, no matter the cost, if it means you have even the slimmest chance to see your friends again. You are prepared to swim all the way back up to the surface, weight and all.

You suddenly feel tired, more tired than you've ever felt in your life, your second wind taken from you in mere moments.

You feel your feet touch something. That's the last thing you feel before your last spark fizzles into the water permeating your body and you shut down.


 
Your sound processing is the first thing to come back. It's mostly static, but that's enough to rouse you. You focus and begin to hear something through the static. Strangely pitched groaning noises reverberate through your forehead and make your headache even worse.

Your eyes blink on.

You still can't see very well, but you can make out dim shapes all around you. As water drains from every hole in your body as you lay on the ground you think that someone must have rescued you. But as you look closer you realize all of these figures are much too still to be people standing over you. You reach out and touch one.

Leather. Leather with padding. It's just a seat. No one is here with you.

Where... is here?

You see what looks like a window and stumble over to it. Two of your legs aren't moving like they should. One isn't moving at all. As you peer out of it, you can only see dark blue.

You are still underwater.

Your legs fail you and you collapse onto one of the chairs. It takes you 10 minutes to stand back up, it takes another 20 for you to reach the front of this room where you can barely make out a door. You reach for the handle

Upon seeing what is on the other side you begin to understand where you are.

You are in an airplane.

An airplane on the seafloor.

You do not understand how the plane got here, or how you got into it, but you are certainly glad you did.

As you step into the cockpit you understand just how unlikely it is for you to escape to the surface. Most of your systems are damaged, you can barely see a foot in front of you, and water surrounds you on all sides.

That’s not to mention the horror you see sleeping on the other side of the glass.

Because of course that's there.

But this isn't going to stop you. You pry open the console as quietly as possible and get to work. You grab wires, LEDs, anything that looks useful and return to the other room, shutting the door behind you.

You pop off your faceplate and begin to repair your optics, like you've done a thousand times before. That always seemed like it was a favored target for him. You never understood why.
What you wouldn't give for a color testing sheet right now.

Once your eyes are repaired, you move to your legs. You repeat the steps in your head like you always do when you are badly damaged. Eyes, legs, ears, and power unit take priority, then touch and other non vital systems. You learned that this was the optimal order to repair yourself after the 30th or so time you had to do it. Sometimes you didn't even bother with the non vital systems, it just felt like a waste of time to fix them so often.

You slowly get to your feet and check your systems. Everything seems to work fine enough for now. You've followed orders in worse condition.

You look around the cabin slowly with your newly repaired eyes. Taking in your surroundings, looking for anything that could help you.

Your notice that the cabin is almost half the size it should be, and there is no bathroom or flight attendant area like there normally would be in a plane of this size.
Instead there is some strange wall blocking the back portion off. You get closer and take a look.

The wall is at an odd angle, and it seems to be fused with some of the seats, but one of the most striking features of it is the crooked, sideways door set into it. You open it carefully and crawl through. Inside you find yourself in another cabin, near identical to the first. Although, this one seems to be nearly straight up and down.

You make your way up this cabin, pulling yourself up the seats. Something catches your eye through one of the windows and you move to investigate, realizing that you might have a better shot at seeing something outside with your eyes fixed up.

You see planes. So, so many planes. They tower high above you in the water and many of them seem to intersect strangely as the two you've been in so far do. It is a giant pile of planes all clipped together.

As you look you realize: you can't see the top. It might go all the way to the surface. Even if it doesn't, you would still stand a better chance of getting there by leaving from the closet spot you could.

You begin climbing again, feeling hopeful.


 
You curse as you fix your leg for what feels like the hundredth time since you got trapped in this Cage. This time a rogue food cart rolled down one of the slanted cabins and hit you like a truck. You sigh and look out the window, thinking about what she told you.

Is this what she meant when she said she unlocked your potential? All these planes? You figured that you would feel a bit stronger as a god, but you feel just as weak as you always did.

Your tool slips and a cable in your leg snaps.

Maybe even weaker than you were already.

It took you a while after getting down here to figure out the whole god thing. You honestly weren't entirely sure how to feel about it.

With how many planes you made in one go, you figure she must have made you a greater god like herself. You're pretty sure it’s against the rules for her to do that, but she never seemed to care much for those.

She often talked about what gods could do. You would always politely nod your head as she talked, though you often didn't understand much of it.

You finish fixing your leg yet again and test it. You don't have enough good spare parts around here, but you've made do.

You have no idea how long you've been down here, its too deep to see the sunlight, and your internal clock has been busted since you woke up down here. It turns out that pre cut quartz is rather hard to find in a pile of planes at the bottom of the ocean.

After the last time that a plane you had been in slid down the pile to the bottom you decided it might be time to get some help.

You first thought of the possibility a while ago, but you were hesitant. Messing up with her species was the one thing she said she would always regret.

Your vocal synthesizer imitates a sigh as you realize it's probably time.

You lay down and turn off your eyes and ears to focus entirely on your thoughts.

They need to be able to get through metal, they have to be able to get sustenance from the planes and the water around them, they have to be able to get through small spaces...

You make a face when you realize they have to be able to reproduce in some way. You swiftly figure out a better alternative than the usual that gods like to go with for some reason you can't fathom.

It takes you what feels like hours, but you will never know how long it was. You sifted through details, considering every possible thing you could think of.

You believe that you are ready.

You concentrate, and you begin to breathe life into the concepts.


 
Fifteen.

That's fifteen now that have drowned, unable to get back inside with their powers failing them. It's your fault. You know it is. You should have paid more attention to her when she told you about all of this god stuff she got up to.

She told you how careful she needed to be when making a species, how many things could go wrong. How many mistakes had been made by other gods and by herself. What could happen if she didn't plan every little detail.

What could happen if your fear planned details for you.

You had been so afraid of being left behind. You knew that it wouldn't happen but your brain just kept screaming at you that your precious new species would leave you if they could the second you made them.

Now they are just as trapped as you are and your fear screams about how much they must secretly resent you for it.

You sleep alone now. You used to sleep in a pile with some of the gremlins you had gotten close to, but after the third death you became too ashamed.

You see gremlins talking in hushed tones, busying themselves with something when they meet your gaze. Every time you see it happen you feel something die inside you a little more.

You watch as the latest victim of your carelessness is brought carefully into the room.

This time it was one of your friends. You've attended more funerals than you have the stomach for, but you know this won't be the last one. By the estimate of some of the smarter gremlins, you've made it less than an eighth of the way to the surface. About 4000 feet left to go. They sounded so proud when they told you that number. But there was only one thing you could think about when they said that to you.

Could you survive 4000 more feet of funerals?