Crack! Crack!
Crackles of electricity were strewn across everywhere as broken wirings could be seen laid bare or hanging.
The room was absent of any decent light source and only the seldom flashes of electricity show traces of the room's appearance.
It was a decimated hall. Planks of unknown metal origin were struck, burned and even cut.
And seemingly those planks were once part of the walls that decorated the large room as they are of the same materials.
There were also rectangular broken devices that surrounded the room. A few large ones that hung on the wall were pieced with some kind of black glass and more small ones held similar looks as they appeared to be once placed in a neat arrangement before the decimation.
In the very center are a glimpse of an empty crater on the floor and a naked girl that is lying unconscious.
Crack!
"Ha!" She inhaled a deep breath, as if to recover from drowning, and opened her eyes.
Pale white face, sweat all over, and bloodshot eyes. Sehwa wakes up with horror plastered in her expression.
Her chest heaves unstably as her heart beats rapidly in an uncontrollable manner. And the instant she opened her eyes, Sehwa sat up while confusion still filled her mind.
"W-What the just happened?!"
She loudly exclaimed.
I just died, didn't I? Was the thought that immediately came to her mind.
Is this the afterlife? Is there even an afterlife? I'm so confused about what just happened.
The last thing I knew, I was under some terrible torment... urgh... My whole body shudders just by remembering it.
As Sehwa's thought after thought continues to pile up, her body regains some calm as her heartbeats become stable.
In a way, she escaped her state of panic and horror by letting her mind loose.
Droplets of tears soon emerge from Sehwa as she steadily grasps that she has escaped that ill-fated torment.
"Wait... was that all a dream?"
Now, with some composure gained, Sehwa tried to look around the room to learn some information about her current situation, however...
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" She immediately realized her body's condition.
As she was bare naked, Sehwa could observe clearly how her body was doing.
It was worse than she noticed. Bruises covered various parts of her arms, belly, and neck and some fingers were swollen too.
She could still feel pain from each of them even without making much movement. She now knew the strain she suffered was real and wasn't any kind of dream at all.
And the biggest evidence of this was her legs and feet. Her entire lower limbs have undergone severe dysmorphia...
From her toes and just past her knees had turned pitch black. Like cracks on her skin, they cast the feeling that it was slowly swarming up her body and yet it stayed still just her thighs.
Sehwa felt horrified by this realization. Like a ghost haunting her, the void invasion she suffered had now even left an indelible mark.
"Oof! Huff... Huff..."
Hoping to still be able to stand and walk, she tried to lift herself slowly and carefully while bracing for the stings from the bruises.
She even expected immediate throbs of pain from her lower limbs.
Thud!
"AUGHHH!!"
But alas, her expectations failed her. It wasn't just throbs but pure agony. The moment her feet and legs tried to carry her weight, her strength crumbled as piercing pain plagued her.
Teary-eyed, her expression was now strewn with even more dismay. The predicaments that she had suffered then and now felt unfair to her.
The second she opened her eyes, she was introduced to nothing but suffering. Now, she was even unsure whether she would stay crippled.
Sehwa remained seated after she struggled to crawl her way to a nearby pillar and leaned against it for some support and rest.
For a few minutes, the hall turned still other than the faint sobbing sounds echoing in the dark.
She felt down but she knew that she needed to stay alert and cautious. Gradually, Sehwa recovered. Not entirely but enough to keep her going...
Soon, she decides to finally take some action.
She was in an unfamiliar environment and her state of not being able to walk turned the situation for the worse.
With zero mobility, Sehwa needed to search for something that could possibly assist her.
And so, she took a look around what was visible within her vision.
"Strange things..."
I don't recognize anything here... nor does it bring up any memory.
This pillar, the floor and the walls seem to be some kind of hard material. It's a strange structure.
However, I am most curious about the scattered rectangular and glass tools. Together with the wirings spewing some sparks, they seem to form some kind of device.
I wonder what they were used for... I can't really ask anyone here since this place appears to be empty. Traces of use are evident all over the place and the sparks of electricity look to be some kind of power source.
If it somehow still has some left, the incident must have been recent...
I should try to look around more to ascertain pieces of information that could help me. Debris scattered, strange tools, broken furniture, tubes and wires that run along the walls.
With how chaotic this place is, this will be hard.
And the tragedy that struck this place... was it that horrible? Everything is broken.
Also, several meters away, there seems to be some kind of door. It's quite large as I could see it from where I am even though I am sitting in place.
I think that could be the only entrance and exit to this room. Other than that, I see no window or any large openings that are enough to leave this place. At the very least, from my range of vision, there aren't.
Anyway, I think I just saw a slender pipe piled along some debris near me. Maybe I could get that so I could at least drag myself faster...
I want to continue resting from my badly bruised state but the pain isn't getting any better. I also don't know what hidden danger this place could be hiding...
Sehwa, without further ado, reached for the pipe by dragging herself, careful to not cause any more stress upon her legs than she could take.
Pulling it out of the debris, she could see that it was just the right length. A third of her height.
This also seems to be of the same hard material.
With, now, the pipe in her grasp. She started to move towards the large entrance door.
The path was littered with all kinds of broken materials. Some were sharp and some were rough, so Sehwa had no choice but to traverse while keeping focus on the ground.
Keep in mind that it was still dark as the seldom bursts of electricity were now getting periodically rarer. Soon, she may just have to go in blind and prod her way out.
It took her a substantial amount of time to make some progress.
Sharp shards have unavoidably nicked her and caused some shallow cuts along the way.
"Ow! Curse this damned situation... Huff..."
Exhaustion has begun to be apparent in her face as she starts panting and minute sluggishness could be seen in the way she moves.
That short journey was still taxing for her weak and frail body. It was as if she just awoke from some coma and the body she had wasn't any bit accustomed to that stretch.
With some more pulls, she was near her goal, the entrance door.
Sehwa's precaution wasn't getting any lax as she approached but some parts of her were kind of glad she was able to accomplish this and that maybe something would change once she passed through there.
With her empty left hand, she reached for the floor to drag herself closer. She tried to put some grip on it but she immediately noticed something different.
The floor didn't feel the same. She knew that because she felt it most in this hour. Sure, some of it felt rough, some felt smooth and some had weird bumps.
This part however felt sticky... and wet.
Ugh... What is that?
It was also at this point that she realized a putrid smell. She didn't notice this when she was in quite the distance but the moment she entered the proximity of the sticky floor, it burst out like a bomb of rotting flesh.
Crack!
The, now, rarer sparks of electricity flash and Sehwa regains momentary vision.
Her hand that held onto the sticky wet floor was now within her vision.
"Red..."
Blood!
"KYAAAAAAAAAA!!"
Sehwa couldn't hold herself back from the sudden scene that unfolded before her. Like a boom in this silent hall, her loud shriek resounded and echoed all over.
Clunk! Thud!
In shock, the pipe she was holding fell onto the ground as she tried to back off it.
The floor was covered in thick viscous crimson blood and unfortunately, so was the bit where her right hand tried to grip.
Stained with blood, she tried to wipe her palm onto something; however, her actions proved to be futile.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"What now?"
Something started banging on the door.
Sehwa anxiously looked over and was immediately horrified by the scene she witnessed.
The door looked very sturdy but it seems to have been left a bit ajar during the chaos. From there, she saw that the blood had originated outside.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
At this point, Sehwa couldn't help but tremble and sweat profusely from fear. She didn't know what was on the other side but she could clearly guess it was dangerous.
She had no idea what actions to take and could do nothing but slowly go back. The creature behind the door made Sehwa afraid but she knew she couldn't look somewhere else. Not with that door ajar.
The door was sturdy but it was just a matter of minutes or... maybe even seconds until it was opened.
...Huh?
Silence suddenly pervades.
Did it leave?
Just as the thought comes, as if to tease her into her end's wits, a dark greyish finger protrudes out by the seams of the door. One by one, until ten of them are now in Sehwa's sight.
They looked like rotten flesh and were covered in blood and open wounds. As "it" grabbed the door, trying to pry it open, the hands left bloody fingerprints.
"Eeeek! Don't open it... don't open it..."
But her wishes were unheard and slowly, but undeniably, the door was moving and sliding out.
In the end, Sehwa was powerless to hold back her fear and just covered her eyes while she cried herself out.
Her back leaned against something that looked like a desk and her body trembled slightly. She didn't know if it was from the fear or her crying, but right now, she didn't care enough about such things.
In that dark hall, only the slight screeching of the hard door in resistance against the creature outside and the sobbing of a frightened girl could be heard.