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

The corridor where Florica pitched up was empty of both the living and the dead. The walls were the colour of rusting brass, the floor was metal and cold under Florica's bare feet. The corridor was wide, wide enough for four or five people to stand side by side, and the ceiling was high, about twice as high as you might expect. Someone had set up lighting rigs every few metres, but even so there were parts of the corridor that were still pitch black. Wires as thick as Florica's wrist snaked down the corridor, the power within coming from somewhere out of sight. The machines hummed a familiar tune but Florica did not deign to hum along with them.

She ought to have been pleased; Robin was gone, back to her own body, and as such she was once again in control of hers. Yet in truth she now felt worse than ever. It was only a matter of time before some other spirit started pulling her strings; 'a dead civilisation' the Outsider had said. Florica couldn't imagine death upon that scale, she tried not to think about how many ghosts might be wandering this place. But she recalled the moment spent suspended in the blackness outside of this place; the sense of so much time passing, and she hoped that perhaps it was long enough that the spirits of the dead had moved on or faded away. Such a hope was little more than wishful thinking, but it was better than imagining the alternative.

Florica decided to move. She had no goal in mind as such; she had nowhere she wanted to go and nothing she wanted to do when she got there, but anything, even the prospect of being possessed once again was better than sitting here in the darkness alone with her emptiness. She stepped gingerly over a bundle of wires and out of the dim light of the nearest lighting rig. She fixed her eyes upon the next beacon of light and moved through the darkness, hesitantly at first but gaining confidence with each step until her feet unexpectedly found the wires again and she almost fell backwards.

As she shuffled forwards she thought about Chaete. Florica hadn't met the worm, but she was dead and consequently she could go on living. Inexorably she was drawn to a question she'd been trying to avoid answering; was her life worth fighting for? Her existence was not a happy one, but she doubted that she would find any respite in death. It was a lose/lose situation no matter which way she looked at it. Idly, as she stepped into another pool of light, she wondered where Chaete's spirit would go. Would it linger in the Godsworn Valley, or in the empty domain of the Outsider where her body had been taken? Perhaps it would find its way home or maybe, though Florica couldn't support the idea with any actual logic, it might follow them here. Maybe she could give Chaete another chance at life? Would that be worthwhile? Would that life be better than this one?

And despite herself she missed Robin. She was different; she'd spoken to her, promised to help her. It was the first time in a long time Florica had felt like a person again rather than simply a vessel for spirits. She recalled Robin's words and in that dark and empty corridor she sung out as though there was some chance she would hear: "Beneath the sparkling sky / o'er the sapphire sea / my love I say goodbye / horizon's callin' me." It was the only song she knew with actual lyrics. Her mother used to sing it for her when she was young, sitting in the back of her family's caravan watching the world fall away behind them. When her mother had sung it to her it had been a cheerful uptempo song, but in her mouth it was slow; melancholic.

"Another world to see / another dream to chase / horizon's callin' me / an' I won't leave a trace." Florica managed another verse before she started feeling self conscious and trailed off. In truth she knew it was not what Robin had meant, but it had made her feel better for a minute to pretend that it was. She continued in silence, following the ready-made path of lights through the strange corridor to a large open room, only barely illuminated by the circle of lighting rigs set up around the podium at the centre of the chamber. Off to one side there was a couple of bedrolls and a selection of machinery the function of which Florica couldn't even begin to guess at, to anyone else these signs of habitation were probably the most notable thing about the empty chamber, but to her they barely registered. Her attention was taken by the hundreds of worm-like spirits all clustered around the podium at the centre of the room, atop which sat one much larger spirit.

The alien spirits were arguing in a language Florica couldn't understand and which she was fairly sure that even if she could she would be physically incapable of speaking herself. It didn't seem that they had noticed her yet; if she was really quiet she could probably slip out of the chamber and back down the corridor, but what would be accomplished? What if every room on this ship was just as filled with spirits as this one? Was she supposed to hide in the darkness, wait for someone else to die and hope not to be discovered? In the end it was probably inevitable, so maybe it was best to just get it over with. She almost wished that they had heard her song, at least then she wouldn't have to choose.

Florica took a hesitant step towards the writhing mass of spirits and announced her presence with a feeble "hello" that was lost beneath the spirits' unpronounceable argument. She felt crestfallen, her first attempt to be assertive in a long time having fallen so spectacularly flat. She decided that maybe she should just go, when she became aware of a gradual cessation of the spirits' argument. Though it was difficult to see any visible difference in the spirits she was quite aware that they were all intently focused upon her.

"Kiiek kreiil'ke kiex'kri." the larger spirit commanded and immediately the mass of worm spirits surged towards her. This had been a mistake, she thought dumbly as the spirits engulfed her.