Moondown — A Rain World Short Story
A very experimental (and short, as a result) piece about Moon. There’s two versions under the cut; the first is what I intended for this, in its rawest, most brazen form. It also happens to be probably completely incomprehensible to screenreader users. You’re not supposed to be able to read it easily, but the effect is lost on screenreaders, so there is a second version after a line breaker that is hopefully a little bit more friendly to any blind/low vision folks stumbling across this post.
Edit as of Dec 13th: The order of the two have been switched. The more readable version is first, and the more glitched version is second. The glitched version has also been edited to be more accessible. If you are a screenreader user, please feel free to let me know if there’s anything else I can tweak to make the experience less tedious. This is intentionally supposed to be unpleasant and confusing to read, but I don’t want to make it so much so that it saps all enjoyment out of the experience.
I just was thinking about this specific moment and this is... super rough, but honestly I don’t really know how much more I can work on this without just stressing over a single letter, and I don’t care enough for that. It’s experimental anyhow. I hope the idea gets across either way.
This is a counterpart to Casting pebbles toward the sun, spectating their fall.
Content warning for unreality, acute distress from the narrator, marked text warping to represent this, and implied death. Contains lore spoilers for Rain World; read at your own discretion.
A flickering of her arrays. No new communications have come in. She closes them, the eighty-seventh time in the last half cycle. There is a possibility her message did not go through, with the state of her processing strata right now. If so, she does not have any options left.
She can feel the water levels rising again. Her remaining overseers—there are so few now, with the majority of them being instantly disconnected from her the first time she drowned—flash images at her: water gushing in through output ports, through pipes that were never meant to have liquid wash into them, smashing against the supports under her can; the repair modules, whirring, failing with the rest of her as her arrays begin to drown again; the instability of the underside of her can, where it has begun to warp under the water weight and the insufficient repairs. The pain of the decay is a now familiar hum in the back of her mind, and she can only watch the waves crash ever higher.
It has been two and a half cycles. One and a half without water. One cycle since she started drowning. Already sixteen of her arrays have failed; any more and she will cease to function.
She must act now. There is no time left.
Freshwater, contaminated with a wealth of biological data, washes through her lower arrays; her puppet arm twitches as she pulls up her communications again, opening a forced channel between her and Pebbles. Focusing to send her messages through makes her whole body scream, her remaining arrays overheating to dangerous levels instantly, but she concentrates and pushes the thought through: “Immediately lower your groundwater consumption to one fifth of the current intake.”
No response. Four arrays explod, slag splattering across the interior of the transistor box. The low arrays are completely flooded, with clumps of dead depositing themselves over the slag build up, gluing down. An overseer sends one last image before wink out: a repair module, spinning aimly, before slowly falling down into the roiling waters.
“Stop whatever it is you are doing.” She is unsure if successfully send the message through, or if she just a burst of radiating pain to Pebbles. But she must try. She must
An array sector explod. The slosh into the upper arr and cause the metal to steam, crack pipe element abov. There is no time. There no time. She no
“Please stop!”
Hurts every. All array under. Support beam collapse—
“As your local group senior I order you you you you you you—”
“As your senior senior I plead—”
“stop.”
Response from Pebbles! “could not chosen worse moment disturb. You ruined every.”
No
“Please!”
Support beams falling. Can collapse she is falling—
—(Line breaker)— The struggle, the cycles… It can all fade, like a morning mist beneath the glory of the sun. —(Line breaker)—
A flickering of her arrays. No new communications have come in. She closes them, the eighty-seventh time in the last half cycle. There is a possibility her message did not go through, with the state of her processing strata right now. If so, she does not have any options left.
She can feel the water levels rising again. Her remaining overseers—there are so few now, with the majority of them being instantly disconnected from her the first time she drowned—flash images at her: water gushing in through output ports, through pipes that were never meant to have liquid wash into them, smashing against the supports under her can; the repair modules, whirring, failing with the rest of her as her arrays begin to drown again; the instability of the underside of her can, where it has begun to warp under the water weight and the insufficient repairs. The pain of the decay is a now familiar hum in the back of her mind, and she can only watch the waves crash ever higher.
It has been two and a half cycles. One and a half without water. One cycle since she started drowning. Already sixteen of her arrays have failed; any more and she will cease to function.
She must act now. There is no time left.
Freshwater, contaminated with a wealth of biological data, washes through her lower arrays; her puppet arm twitches as she pulls up her communications again, opening a forced channel between her and Pebbles. Focusing to send her messages through makes her whole body scream, her remaining arrays overheating to dangerous levels instantly, but she concentrates and pushes the thought through: “Immediately lower your groundwater consumptioon to one fifth of the current intake.”
No response. Four arrays exp lode, slag splattering across the interior of the trans istor box. The lower arrays are completely fl oodded , with clumps of dead cells depositing themselves over the slag bu ild up, gluing them down. An overseer sends one last image befor e winking out: a repair module, spinning aimlessly, before slowly falling down into the roiling wwat ers.
“Stop whaat everr iit is you aaare do ing.” She is unsu re if ssshe successfully seeends the messssage through, orrrrr if she jjjust sends a burssst of radi ati ng pain to Pppebbles. Bbbbbut she must try. SShe must—
Annn array se ttttor e plod. The wwwa er sl shes into upper arr and caus metal to sssteam, cracki p iiiipe eeeeel ments above it. Th eere is no tme. The r no tm. S hs nnnno t
“Ple s top!”
Hur vvvver wh re. Allll llll arr ay ssss undeeer www at rr. Ss ppt beam colllll aps—
“Aaas ouur cal gr seeeeen rr I rrrder youuuu you uu youuu y oouu ooou—“
“S yoooour sse nnnn Iiii pllll d—”
“t ppppppp.”
Resp n fr bbles! “coul ve ch wwwww rsse mmmm ttto dist mme. Y u hv rui dddd eve ing.”
No
“Pl eeee ase!”
S rt b fa ng.. CCca c psss eee she s ff all lng—
20 notes
·
View notes