pyra-raptor - Tumblr blog

pyra-raptor · 8 months

Text

[wf] Past The Door 1. The Entrance

[previous work] [next] - 2.4k words

Lane has mixed feelings about his new home. He felt like a nuisance to Kyn and Luke in their camp and desired to try and figure things out on his own for a change. The couple was kind to offer the drifter a potential place to crash in since they weren't going to use it and Lane took it with no questions asked.

The place is a dormizone on the Zariman.

This ship as a whole was meant to stay a distant memory. At first he settled in well, but then bits and pieces of Lane's past kept coming back to him and instead of getting any real rest, Lane’s curiosity caused him to wander the place like a ghost plagued by unfinished business. He hopes that confronting his past, even if it’s from another timeline, could help in coping with the dread the place has instilled. If not, he’ll likely work towards getting his own landing craft and find somewhere else to stick around. But he won’t go down without a fight.

In the first week the drifter actively honed his ability to shapeshift between bodies while searching for his old classrooms and the old dormizone which he shared with his cousin Ria before the tragedy struck. Someone had rummaged through the place like a hurricane but that’s no surprise. The entire ship is a mess.

He also felt a little faint when he found Melica's blind spots where his ruthless classmate Kyn had cornered him on occasion. While absent-mindedly rubbing the scar on his upper left arm Lane had to remind himself that this is not his timeline, not his history. He can't hold anything against the Kyn whom he knows now.

In the second week he explored a few floors that were swarming with enemies and did his part pushing them back. The drifter avoids interacting with The Holdfasts but isn't opposed to helping them keep the corpse of a ship afloat. There's something extra eerie about the group and he'd rather not know why. But since he has a dormizone here, it feels fair to earn his keep now and then. An occasional void flood isn’t that difficult to take care of.

Now, in the third week he's back to exploring the empty floors again. He has the gym in mind this time. It seems like a good idea to start exercising, to become more competent in using both his shapes. So far he's only been using the warframe form to avoid feeling hungry and sick which isn't a very noble purpose.

Lane wanders through the still abandoned Lunaro court and chuckles to himself. This game isn't beloved even now with tenno returning to the Zariman. It was fun to shoot around the ball with a few close friends but he never liked participating in the games that had a more competitive purpose. He's glad he is not alone with this sentiment.

Past the Lunaro court the drifter enters the main stadium with his eyes set on the running track. He should start with a simple warm up. Lane lifts up his hands and watches the steel flesh take over. Not a moment later it covers his entire body and he lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He cracks his neck, stretches his legs and hops on the spot for a bit as if to get rid of air bubbles in a freshly filled mould. And then he goes for a run, mentally counting each lap that he makes.

He crosses the finish line ten times before he gets bored and moves on to setting up an obstacle course to further practise his mobility, test his senses.

That doesn't last long either. He doesn't get tired. But he gets bored. And maybe just a smidge lonely.

"I should get a kavat." Lane mumbles as he shapeshifts back to his human body and goes to fetch a suspicious water bottle left at the start of the running track. Shouldn't be poisonous.

He takes a swig.

Before he takes another, he stops. A whistling echo of a sound? Not quite singing, not quite wailing. Lane drops the bottle and follows the sound without a second thought.

It takes him through an overgrown section of the floor to an elevator. He moves a couple chairs and desks out of the way and then notices a strange light shining through a crack in the elevator door. Maybe it's been barricaded on purpose. A long time ago too, judging by the cobwebs and dust covering the objects he just moved. Lane changes form to warframe just in case before breaking the elevator door open.

The light is but a wispy thing. It shoots upward through the ceiling of the elevator. Lane pauses for a moment.

"If my memory serves me right… Some kind of maintenance room should be up there." He thinks out loud. Only personnel used this elevator. It’s otherwise inoperable. Which means he has to figure out a way to get up. Melica seems to think he's still a child so convincing the cephalon is not an option. And he's not confident enough to go ask the Holdfasts about it.

Lane looks at his hands, then at the ceiling of the elevator. "Could I???"

The warframe bullet-jumps at the ceiling, crashing into it, causing a dent in the architecture and giving a headache to himself. He remains stubborn though and immediately tries again, this time latching onto the ceiling and punching it for a bit before dropping back down.

"Aghhh. I'm coming back for you!!" He shakes his fist at the damage he's caused.

Lane then forces the door shut and moves the furniture back into place. This is his secret to uncover.

The warframe turns around and is about to leave when he remembers that he actually has weapons with him. Wandering the Zariman without at least a handgun would be unwise. He facepalms, and draws the Kuva Ogris he had strapped to his back. Nepenthe. It's a gift from Luke and though he's done some notable damage to himself with it, Lane finds it to be a fun weapon to use. But apparently not meaningful enough to remember to use it when he needs it.

Again he throws aside all the furniture and pushes the door open. This time he blasts a hole into the ceiling with the Ogris without any trouble. When the smoke from the blast dissipates, through the newly made hole Lane notices the light staring down at him.

He closes the door again and jumps up towards the siren song.

It does turn out to be a maintenance location just like Lane predicted it would be. Among cleaning supplies, there are food items thrown about and a makeshift bed in a corner. And then there's also the clothed skeleton of someone Lane's size. The Warframe freezes on the spot at the sight. So it's true. Nobody has come here yet. He will have to collect the body and give it a proper send off once he's done exploring this floor.

Shaken up, Lane tries to focus on pursuing the light that's eagerly taking him in the direction of the strange song. His destination ends up being in just the next room.

Then the strange light flies into a… portal?

It doesn't look much different from the rifts he himself is capable of creating. But he also remembers Goere coming into the Colosseum to get him through the exact kind of portal. Could this have something to do with her?

The warframe carefully approaches the glowing portal. It's impossible to see what's on the other side so he sticks his hand in first to test the waters. He doesn't feel much, but notices that his arm is changing back into a human one against his own will. But as soon as Lane attempts to bring his arm back, the portal swallows him whole and closes behind him with a shrill howl.

And in a twisted kind of deja vu Lane is falling from the sky again with his heart hammering in his chest. There's some kind of arena below him and he is unable to divert his eyes from it.

Then he hits the dusty ground with a thud and a groan. He is outside the arena in front of a statue of a pompous child donning a ridiculous helmet and stomach plate.

The drifter stands up and quickly brushes the sandy dust off of himself. Then he tries to shift back into warframe form but his body isn't responding to him like it used to. The energy is still there but it's muted and dull.

"Fuck." He curses. A couple of children stare at him with eyes wide open and Lane immediately pretends like it wasn't him talking. He looks around comically as if searching for the foul-mouthed culprit and stalks off toward the entrance of the arena. There were no strange singing children in his Colosseum. This must be someone else's hell.

Past the gate he sees a masked man sitting at the edge of the arena below. Lane approaches him to ask about what this place is, and the man goes off about how he is the warden overseeing some criminal that's being held down below. Okay, perhaps it's different then. Maybe it's deserved.

Lane declines the man's offer to go and fight the criminal and instead turns around to walk back outside. Going for a stroll seems to be a better way to figure out the place.

He goes to the edge of the island and watches the strange boats flying from one floating island to another.

Then he follows the dirt road around the central architecture and eventually ends up in an underground tunnel which then leads him into the arena itself.

Lane sighs. Searching for an exit is beginning to look hopeless. His curiosity got the best of him this time. He sits down on the stairs leading down to the jail cells and rubs his tired eyes. He needs to think over his options now, figure out how to restart life again.

As if on cue, the sky changes colour to a deep blue and grey in almost an instant. It begins to rain. The drifter grimaces in disapproval. He was about to rest his legs for a bit but is instead forced to get back up and retreat to the underground tunnel.

He gets up but the clang of metal stops him from going. Lane glances over to the jail cells. The prisoner is staring right at him through the bars. A warframe? Lane then gets down and approaches the man serving his time.

"Kullervo, huh?" The drifter addresses the warframe. There is no reply so Lane continues staring.

The warframe is filthy, severely beaten and bruised. It’s unclear what the original colour was. The back of his head is caved in, and there are dents in his body where metallic adornments should have been. His clothes are mere rags peppered with holes - holes from which a dozen knives are protruding.

"Does it hurt? The knives. Can't you remove them?" He asks but, of course, receives no answer.

The drifter shrugs. He then looks at the fancy descriptive slab next to the cell and begins reading about the crimes the inmate has committed. When he's done with the first, he moves on to the next until he's read all seven of them. By the end of it Lane's face has turned sour as though he's eaten a lemon. He un-clenches his jaw and goes back to look at Kullervo once more.

"I'm sorry. I don't know the customs of this world. But something seems to be amiss here." Lane says. At that, the prisoner turns away from the drifter and sits down in the pile of straw laid out for him.

Lane briefly glances at the still gloomy sky before getting closer to the wall next to the jail cell's bars to avoid getting rained on too much. He slides to the ground in a squat and sighs as heavy as a kubrow who’s got no clue what rent is.

He was barely starting to understand the operator's timeline, and now he's tossed into an entirely new one and has to start anew again. But this time he doubts there'll be someone like Kyn to pick him up and show him what is what. It's terrifying, maddeningly frustrating.

"I was stuck in a place too once. An unlikely friend pulled me out. I can still barely believe it. But since then nothing has felt the same anymore and I almost miss being stuck in the loop." Lane monologues "There's only so many mistakes you can make in a place with no past or future. It's comforting in a way."

The drifter hears the warframe behind him change position.

"Why?" A dull raspy voice chokes out a word. Lane turns to look at Kullervo who is now sitting with his clawed fingers wrapped around the metal bars, facing the drifter.

"I don't know." The drifter half-shrugs.

Kullervo notices the other man absentmindedly fiddle with the scar around his neck and places a hand on his own slit throat.

Lane continues to look for an answer out loud. "I guess I'm scared. Scared of having no control. Scared of messing things up beyond repair."

Then like a lightning bolt a rift portal suddenly cracks open on the stairs to the exit of the arena, singing its siren song once more. Lane jolts up to his feet and just about bolts towards it but forces himself to stop and say some kind of a goodbye to the inmate. It's the polite thing to do.

"I, um, hope you get out someday. If that's what you want. Goodbye."

The warframe lets go of the metal bars and steps backwards. He watches the drifter run to the portal and disappear into nothingness. It's not too unusual for people to come and stare at the inmate without physically engaging him but none had attempted harmless small talk before. The strange little man may be full of nonsense but Kullervo has to admit to himself that this one has to be one of the more curious days serving his sentence. He will have something fresh to cling to during the more monotone hours of wasting away in his cell.

[next]

23 notes · View notes