QUIETUS [S!5] [Round 3: Deluge]

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ix i am sorry for reserve snipe

There’s a ghost in me, the black air sang languidly, liquidly, distorting the syllables almost beyond recognition, That wants to saaaaay I’m soooorry… Sonora, sonora, sound made flesh, flesh made sound, black and shadow and edges unseen, jagged, engulfing, flooding, rushing through old, cold corridors filled with debris that blocked gaping gaps into the hard vacuum of space that her passage swept away, evacuating chambers once airtight, snatches of the Flight of the Valkyries echoed in the thinning air, tinny, and she didn’t did not like that at all - at all - at all costs, enfolded herself into the metal, mottled aftertaste of death, dust, decayed remnants of the race, long dead, long dead, no sound in them, she sang into the ship, fluidly, screamingly over the sound of stressed metal and oxidized joints and electromigrative remnants of the once-great ship, a trip to nowhere And Iiiiii… push back… the eeeend… Sonora, sonora, shaking loose debris, buckling bulkheads, vibration vibration a ship’s song Yo ho yo ho screams, cackles, a living, dying soundscape screaming, reflected in the dead eyes of camera lenses and strange dried-up photoelectric membranes, dead dead dead dead

Sonora, sonora, hush, hush, listen now, listen now, hear the voices and the cries, find them, find them, find them, find them Does it mean I’m sorrrryyy? find them find her find them You’ve seen my file, you’ve seen my file, you’ve seen my file, you’ve seen my file...

*

Gasps for air.

*

”Fascinating! So this artifact was used as part of a navigational array? I wonder if it still-”

*

“...krri’k?”

*

“Marcos, Marcos. Please respond. Please - no! NO!”

*

“Wasting time.” Choke, choke, cough. Hacking spit. “I will. I will.”

“Vital is silence. Not far away, my ship is.”

“I have some multipurpose medical gear on mine as well. We parked next to each other, in one of the old hangar bays.

“Repressurization, low is. Refilling pressure: bitch, it was. Used common Mary-Santos term did I.”

“That’s nice, Ak.”

*

“Tell Ma I love her.”

*

“Nine hundred and ninety-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-three bottles of Wizard Jelly on the wall, nine hundred and ninety-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-three bottles of Wizard Jelly on the wall, you take one down and fall down the stairs, nine hundred and ninety-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-two bottles of Wizard Jelly on the wall...

“Gods, why have you forsaken us.”

!

“Hah. Gods.”

“Well… the Valley wasn’t so bad.”

“Nine hundred and ninety-oof!” Multiple crashing noises. “-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-two bottles of Wizard Jelly on the wall...

“We learned a lot, at least. Right?”

“I learned not to trust gods.”

“If I can get back home, I’ll definitely have enough material to push Necrology ahead by… Well, it would revolutionize the field.” Pause. Laugh. “That sounds so cliché, coming from me. It would jump ahead, let’s leave it at that. Especially with what I have on this.”

“Your laptop.”

“On the hard drive is at least one soul from the Valley. One of Visindi’s. If I can get it to communicate across afterlives - did you just blanch?”

“You have someone from the Valley trapped in there? Why don’t we just start up our own religion while we’re at it? You can be the chief priest, and we’ll convert this dead hunk of scrap into a church-ship or something-”

“I call head wizard adventurer!”

“We’re not doing anything of the sort. Cathedral is… research material.”

“I don’t know whether to be scared or relieved.”

“We’ll be able to know more if I can get a look at souls that die here in this universe, and see what afterlife they go to…” Pause. “If Sonora is a repository of souls, then I’ll have a lot more material to work with.”

!!

“I can’t help but think there’s more to this.”

“Well. You know.”

“Wizard Jelly says that there’s always more to everything!”

“I just don’t see this worth dying for. Sonora is so much more… dangerous than you can imagine! Why do this at all?”

I can be brown, I can be blue, I can be violet sky, I can be hurtful, I can be purple, I can be anything you like

“Shit, did you hear that?”

“‘I can be green, I can be mean…’ uh, Wizard Jelly says it hears that too. Coming out of the walls?”

“Is it Sonora?”

“I think so!” Beat. “Wizard Jelly says it’s coming closer!”

“Alright, you and Rachel-”

“No. No, you’re not suggesting we leave you to it and run. We’re staying with you.”

“What is this, an action movie?”

“Let me tell you, you-” A ‘whoomph’, then the crackling of flames. “Gah! Sorry - sorry -” Shouts all around.

Flailing sounds.

Moving away now, all of them together, moving farther away: “You don’t know what you’re coming up against.”

“That’s sort of the point.”

*

Sonora, sonora, rivulets, rivers, blood streaking, fading from her path. Turn. Found them. Found her. Found you. What you gonna dooo… when they keep coming for you? In the walls, part of the walls, mirror, mirror on the wall, your reflection sang to you and it was beautiful.

Pouring like metal into a cast, she came, she rose and fell through the dead halls, cold and dry before her, warm, slickly wet in her wake; a blackwater flood, a mercurial whisper, a leaping stream across ruined, empty walls, sinuous, ominous, voluminous, she listened, she listened, and followed, and leapt and flowed and weaved and warped and strained and came, sonora, sonora.

Does it mean I’m sorry

Maybe. Call me.