It felt like an eternity before Pa-5 lost the strength burning in her chest. By then, she'd reached one of the tunnel walls and propped herself against the broken stones. Some barely conscious part of her head was concerned about causing an avalanche.
Her coughing had gotten worse. She was regularly emptying her mouth of blood, letting the warmth coat her chin as it dribbled out. Her tongue felt like it was swimming at all times.
At this rate, she was going to drown in her blood for sure. She sighed, then did something she would've never considered while outside the safety of human walls: she removed her helmet. The airtight latches holding it in place were difficult to unlock after the thrashing she'd been dealt, but they had been rendered fragile enough for the WAV's servos to tear it off.
She set it down gently beside her, feeling the rushing of blood trickle free. Imagining it running down the front of her armor and painting the plates red, she tilted back. The base of her neck bumped the scutumsteel collar.
Staring at the ceiling made no difference from staring ahead, or at the tunnel floor, or in any other direction. It was all stifling black. And none of it changed now that she could peer at it without the obstruction of her feeds.
But with the helmet off, her other senses also came alive. It was the first time she'd experienced the tunnels beyond Gaiss Hollow to the fullest. Although covered in sweat and coagulating blood, her skin could enjoy the tunnel's breeze. For some reason, there were never any hard winds within the Gaiss Hollow.
The damp air carried mildew and gravelly scents, distracting her from the coppery knells in her mouth. She wasn't sure if there were any toxic fumes, but without the helmet on, she couldn't check with the HUD. Now that she reflected on it, that seemed like a design flaw. Wouldn't an earpiece work better?
She grunted, pushing back further into the rocks. Although logic told her they were hard, jagged, and immensely uncomfortable, she didn't find them that way. The WAV still protected her from the worst sensations, leaving her feeling like she was relaxing on a stacked pile of mattresses. Which was odd; she had never had more than a single mattress.
She'd questioned herself a few times while following the HUD's path. It felt like a decent way to cope. But cope with what? The inevitability of death? The realization that no one would ever find her body? The guess that humanity's other stronghold would be attacked after her demise? There was too much to cope with.
So she did what she always did. Distracted herself with more--!
Thud. Her drooping eyelids shot open, summoning energy from crevices in her body she didn't know were there. The tunnels remained just as dark and inscrutable as before. If they ever gave up their secrets, it'd be long after her time.
Thud. There was no halting pattern. This was continuous, slow, and heavy. Far heavier than an Aud.
Thud. Ever so slightly, the great tunnel embodied the noise, rocks in all parts grinding against the ground. She could almost hear the cacophony over the winds; they'd picked up again.
Thud. Which direction was it coming from? It seemed the tunnels weren't done torturing her yet. She pushed against the rocks, coming to a sitting position. Was it sitting if you didn't have--stop thinking about it.
Thud. It was getting heavier each time. She was sure of it. Louder, too. It had reached the point where each instance of the noise rattled her teeth. And that made it unpleasant for the rest of her body. Even with the anti-grav field on the inside barely cushioning her body, the open breaches allowed the tremors to crawl inside and wreck discomfort.
Her chest flared, and she forced down a cough. The burns she had to endure with each breath were worse. The heat had progressed, and she was sure her star had begun to form. Every time she took in oxygen, it was like she was indirectly feeding a newborn blaze. The thought might've been comforting if she didn't know she'd be its first and last victim.
Thud. It was below her. She was sure of it. She reached for the helmet, working to snap it back into place. After her luck, she wouldn't even be that surprised if the source of the noise turned out to be another purple--
The feeds inside the helmet came back online. Autonomously, they were powered into a second round of night vision. And her breath caught in her chest as she realized what had been making the noise.
Turning her left, she caught spider webbing cracks running through the ground. Given that the site was a hundred meters away, she figured it'd be best to assume there were cracks when the rocks began falling out of sight.
The hole in the tunnel floor became larger and larger, with more stone being yanked down by gravity each second. The disturbance grew wider and wider, a sinkhole that seemed determined to take with it everything it could. She heard the cries of some Aud as they were dragged over the edge; she couldn't help cracking a smile, even as the edge of the quickly growing mouth of darkness approached.
If she was uninjured--or at least, majorly so, running would've been easy. No, she could've walked, at the speed it was headed. How ironic.
Wait. She pulled up the diagram, returning to her tunnel. Yes, there was another segment of the great tunnels directly underneath. But what had been strong enough to drill through the floor? It had to be another Aud. Had it heard the explosion?
Something slithered out. She gaped as she watched it fight against gravity, pulling meter after meter of its length out of the hole. Had that been below her the entire time?
No, the correct description would've been that it dragged its bulk from the depths. First, she saw a head. Two large insect orbs broadcasted their light into the darkness, nearly blinding her. The fiery whites were easily ten times her size. Smushed between them was a snout, contracting and reflexively opening the nostrils every time the cavern breezes washed through.
It had dozens--no, hundreds, or…that wasn't right either. She was certain this thing had thousands of small legs, each straining to support the body's weight that provided them with life. They were digitigrade, ending in what looked like suction cups. Each knee on the legs also had a secondary extending limb, one ending in a claw. Similar to the Aud. Eerily so.
She had tried to estimate the true length of the beast, but it continued dragging its rope of a body out, coiling around itself like a snake. A long, low wheeze of air flooded the tunnel. She realized it was hissing, and the head turning at the center. Like it was searching for something.
She froze when it stopped turning. It was looking in her direction. That made begrudging sense. Although the creature's bulk was formidable, and she was sure that like the Aud, this new organism had other tricks up its sleeve, it would rather hunt for weaker prey when it could help it. And it could now.
She felt rooted in place as it began undulating, wriggling around the edges of the hole it made with surprising agility and speed. At one point, it even dipped to go along the inner edge. Before she knew it, it had already covered half the distance.
She trembled. The Aud were known. Of course, she was afraid of dying to them, but what was the worst she had to fear? Disembowelment? This new abomination--she knew next to nothing about. It defied nature conventions even more than the Aud with its sheer size alone.
How would it kill her? Suck her inside a mouth and crunch through her suit like a flimsy shell? Or was it like an oversized parasite; would it suck her dry before disposing of a shriveled corpse?
Just nine slow blinks. That was all it took before the long rope of an animal bared down on her, the whites of its eyes almost blinding her even through the suit feed.