She stood in the massive reflection of the airport windows, watching as the small slip of paper in her hand swayed ever so slightly underneath the air conditioning. The noise and hubbub of the general populace swirled around her, an amorphous bubble of grunts and whines. There was a constant buzzing and throbbing that came with such a large group of people. Noise pollution if you will. But if she just focused on the slip of paper in her hands, the noise seemed to become a little more distant; Like waves crashing onto the shore, her mind went to other places.
“Group C, now boarding! Group C, now boarding!” The loudspeakers shouted, and her line began to slowly begin the descent into the airplane boarding hallway. One after another, she watched the myriad different faces give their ticket to the ticketmaster (or at least that’s what she assumed they were called, she didn’t know airport lingo), and a small feeling of dread began to build-up in her.
Truth be told, she was horrified by planes. She had never ridden on one before, and it was something she was finally going to overcome as a part of her journey away from home. A 16 hour flight across the world. It certainly wasn’t a baby step, but she didn’t have the time or resources for test running airplanes. Before she knew it, she’d be in China, acting as one of the first English professors for the Hong Kong University’s Faculty of Education. Or at least, that’s what she kept telling herself. But it wasn't working quite as much as she wanted it to. Trembling, she continued to follow the line closer and closer to the entrance.
“Can I see your boarding pass, ma’am?” The attendant smiled softly at her, a gentler response than what he had given the other passengers. Perhaps her nervousness was more physically apparent than she thought? Regardless, she snapped out of her own world and offered her ticket with a likewise smile.
“First time flying?” The attendee smirked, as he brought the ticket to the scanner, looking back briefly for a response. “And quite a long one at that. But you’re quite lucky, y’know.” He trailed off as he inspected the ticket.
“And why is that?” She couldn’t deny she was a little excited at the prospect. Even if it was just the attendant trying his best to cheer her up.
“Well…” The man stayed looking down at the paper, as if trying to build anticipation. But now that the attendee had her full attention, she was looking at him with some intention.
He was tall, slim, and his skin was the color of chocolate chips and raven feathers; Amber eyes matched, holding a soft glow in them. There was such a sense of professionalism to him, it was hard to imagine he was simply a ticket-taker. There’s something to be said about the way someone holds themself, and as she looked a little lower at his outfit, she noticed there was no nametag. Wasn’t everyone always wearing one?
“You’re sitting in one of the safest seats.” The attendant snapped her back to earth once again. She seemed to be zoning out a lot. “They say that in the event of a crash, sitting right behind the wings is the place to be. If the wings were to snap, they wouldn't hit you.” He smiled as he made a snapping motion in his hands.
Maybe the color had drained from her face, but the attendee handed her ticket back with an extra cheeky smile and a soft good luck.
“You’ll be fine.”
She sure hoped so, and taking the ticket from his hand, she scurried her way into the long bleak hallway. The various humming and clicking and clacking of all things mechanical consumed her doubts. As she began to get lost in a crowded line of people, a beam of light hit her eyes.
From outside the boarding deck’s small door window, she could see the plethora of employees loading and unloading luggage and operating the various machines needed to keep the airport functioning. A giant gray playground for the little blue and neon green ants, working to keep the airplane hive running. There really was a methodical and hive-minded nature to the airport. The massive luggage lines and the sheer size of the staff, it was an incredible network of people and machines. Even as she stepped onto the airplane, promptly being greeted by the airplane’s staff, the profundity of how the airport functioned kept a smile on her face.
Surely, this was truly the safest way of travel? What other form of travel had the security or safety checks or the expertise to rival an airport? None, she told herself, walking slowly down the isles to her seat. It was E22, and sure enough, as she reached her seat she noticed she was directly behind the wings. Not only was this the safest way, this was also the safest seat in the whole plane.
Somehow, amazingly, the two seats next to her were empty as well. She had feared sitting next to two strangers. She was twenty two, and she really should have been over the fear of other people. But she wasn’t, and all she could do is be very appreciative that no-one else had sat beside her. She could only hope that she got the same reprieve on the trip back; If she ever got a trip back. And she didn’t mean that in an ominous way either. A part of her hoped to start not just a new chapter in her life, but perhaps a new life entirely. Hong Kong was going to be more than a little overwhelming, but it was what she wanted, it was a new hope. A new apartment, all to herself, and an important position doing what she loved. Teaching. She could feel the excitement bubbling in her.
As the plane’s engine began to rumble and the wheels started to slowly take the plane off to the runway, she felt herself fully relaxing into the back of her chair. There was something about the low rumble and the slightly firm seating of the airplane chair that lulled her to a softer place. The empty seats meant she could take both armrests and since it was a flight across the sea, the seats were a little plumper. There was a little more foot space, enough space for her to stuff her massive black duffel bag under the seats and still stretch out a bit. She was comfortable enough to close her eyes and simply listen to the various hums and running equipment. A lullaby of sorts.
Again, she could feel a small light beam hit her face; With her eyes closed it didn’t startle her at all. The slight warmth felt nice on her face.
The flight was going to be ok. She was going to be ok.
And as she felt the plane begin to lift into the sky, the sounds of waves crashing entered her mind. The drive to the airport and the adrenaline rush of getting on a plane had drained her, more than she realized. And she was now content to get some much needed rest.
So, she closed her eyes, and listened to the waves.
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Waves.
Waves and salt.
Waves and salt and sharp sand.
A beach.
She woke up looking out at a beachside, waves crashing and splitting against sharp and jagged rocks, pointing out of the sea like fangs.
“What?” her senses have all woken up, and now she too has the displeasure of tasting the saltwater in her mouth and the sand in her eyes and the absolute pain of it all. Slowly wobbling her hands around the wet and slick rocky beach, she eventually found two sturdy and rough enough rocks to use as holds. Pulling herself up and off the horrific bed of cragged rocks and coarse, spiky sand, she couldn’t know what to think. What to feel.
Everything hurt, everything was slightly yellowed and purpled, bruises making fine art out of her skin. The twisting, writhing snakes of pain that traveled up and down her legs and arms, feeling as if her muscles were screaming in agony. Screaming at her.
She could barely take the pain of simply sitting. Shifting her legs into the cracks of the shattered shoreside, she found herself wincing at the simple breeze that would sometimes grace her bare legs.
Bare legs?
Looking down, she saw her pants were barely shorts now, horrific rips and tears leaving small strands of fabric flowing down her leg. It was rags, put plainly. The waistband was the only thing in decent condition. It looked as if the cloth had been sliced and ripped right off her legs, violently. Looking up, she noticed her sweater had a similar treatment. A massive hole was ripped into her right shoulder, exposing her bare skin to the wet and humid air. Patches of purple skin peeked out from underneath the thick dark-teal sweater. Single strands of different color yarn dancing over the already collaged skin.
It was a miracle she was alive. She hurt, more than she had ever hurt before. But she was alive. Her entire body was limp not out of relaxation but exhaustion, her battered limbs aching against the slightly cool black rock beach. Grainy sand and other bits of shell graced her forehead and back, leaving with them an icky feeling. But she didn’t have nearly enough energy to even brush off her face. She had barely enough energy to sit and stare out at the sea.
Looking now, past the very distracting black spikes, she could see a clearing where the black spikes seemed to dissipate, leaving a giant gray mass in the wake. But looking even closer, she could make out a crushed windows and the floating remains of plane seats. Giant pillars of steel beams and gnarled and mangled sheets of metal jutted out from the waves. Looking at the surrounding pool, luggage and clothes drifted out into the cold sea. A multitude of differing bags and boxes all stood out against the dark blues of the sea. Like little candy being swallowed by an endless void.
She was in shock.
How could she not be. How could this have happened? She wanted to think “this is all a dream, right?” but she couldn’t get herself to entertain the thought. The pain was too biting, the detail too immense, and the breeze.
Ugh. The breeze.
It would interrupt her thoughts every other second, a slight kick to the cool air, making her sprout goosebumps again. Which normally wouldn’t be the end of the world, but the goosebumps hurt right now. It was like needles poking out of her flesh.
She didn’t pray or really believe in anything spiritual, she saw life for its face value. I exist and my penance is that only I can make the most of it. But this? Her plane crashing? Now? It wasn’t fair. Nothing had ever been fair for her. Not now, not ever, but this was cruelty. A bout of universal irony too heavy for one person to carry.
“You need to get up”, a little voice begged in her ear. It was quiet, but unmistakably there. Loud in its own way.
She sort of panicked, looking around the shoreside back and forth as if something was running towards her. It felt like fire alarms were sounding in her head, as if the pain scouring her body wasn’t loud enough.
Sweeping the beach side to side, there was really nothing out of place or wrong. It was certainly a bizarre sight to behold, a type of landscape she had never really seen before. It was a beach, but it wasn’t anything as romantic as what you might find at a resort. It seemed like a massive slab of a blackish stone had been cracked and withered away by the incessant waves, leaving a jigsaw puzzle of streams of broken shells and what remnants of the slab poked out from the thick coating of slimy greenish yellow moss. The shore ended abruptly, not even twenty feet from the shoreline, with a completely sheer cliffside. Thick, smooth rock created a bumpy but utterly unscalable wall. Vines and flowers draped off the top of the cliffside, teasing at the lush greenery above. But down on the small rocky beach, it was barren except for a few lone strands of seaweed.
What danger had she sensed? The beach was desolate, and the sound of waves was the only thing present. It was eerie in a sense, a dark rocky alcove holding her broken and half-dead body.
Speaking of the desolation, she looked once more back to the crashed airplane, a mangled pile sinking into the waves. How many others had survived? Was there anyone else left on the beach?
Taking once again another look at the surrounding shoreline, she feared the answer was no. There was not a scrap of clothes or single bag of luggage ashore, it seemed like most things couldn’t make it past the first dozen rows of jagged rock pillars.
How had she?
She traced a line from the mess of metal to the shoreline, zigging and zagging between the field of rocky pikes. It was a very long path, a very convoluted path, a path she cannot imagine taking herself. But she had to guess her unconscious body had the courtesy of braving the adventure to the shore, even if completely coincidental.
How very unlucky and lucky it was, extremes clashing together; The result being pain and confusion. That would be an accurate summation of her life, and this series of unfortunate mishappenings acted as a crescendo. The most unluckiest lucky thing to happen to her, surviving the plane crash.
She couldn’t help but think “I would have been better off in another seat. I wouldn’t have to be here for the aftermath.” But before she could even continue the thought, yet another warning went off in her head.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“They are coming. Look to the shore.”, a ghost seemed to whisper in the back of her head, a soft and almost inhuman version of her voice. Was it hers?
But as she looked down to the shore line she could make out what seemed to be a pile of some grayish pink blobs slowly coiling and folding towards the surface of the waves. As the small blobs continued up the seafloor, they slowly became more visible and the scale of them increased too. Within a dozen feet or so of the shoreline, it became obvious that they were some sort of crustacean. Little blobs of gray shells began to shine slightly in what little sun made it into the shallows.
She was almost amazed, they looked like very big and crabby pillbugs. Like a lobster squished into a pill mold. With two big beady purplish eyes on either side of the pill-shaped central shell. Their little pink pincers and feet nestled below the large gray shell scurried across the sand. But as they got closer, a horrible clattering could be heard with them. It didn’t take long to realize the clattering was the hundreds of little feet clamoring and scratching against the large gray shells. It was a horde of the small gray crustaceans, there was no semblance of balance or patience in them. Each little pill would writhe and scrape with all their might to overcome the rest of the horde.
As they got even closer now to the shore, their pace was more noticeable. Mostly due to the fact they were much faster than they had first seemed. There was an uneasiness in the air, as if the crowd of crustaceans was not entirely harmless; There was a certain ferality to them all.
“Run.” was all she could think. And so she did, or at least her best attempt.
Slowly smushing her hands into the slimy rock croppings, she forced herself into a standing position. A searing anger entered her, and she could not help but let out a husky and rough scream. Every bit of her body wanted to stay put on the shoreside, but her answer was a deep breath. Her lungs hurt, and before she even realized, she was puking out seawater as she stumbled across the bleak landscape. She was moving at a snail’s pace, an awkward shuffling of feet was getting her nowhere fast. She thought it was monumental she was even able to get herself to move. And while she almost tripped and fell with every other step, and she had to keep taking breaks to cough out more acidic saltwater, she was moving.
Not fast enough though, as she heard the mass of pulsating pills break onto the shore, the clattering noise becoming much more constant. It sounded like keyboards being mashed and ground into dust, a horrific cacophony of chitin scraping against chitin. But it wasn’t just their small little feet, they clattered from the mouth as well. It was as if every part of the crustaceans body needed to be moving and active. In a sense, they sounded like a store full of wind-up dolls.
She had been continuing to struggle moving down the shoreline, when she could no longer resist the curiosity of turning around. Looking behind her, she was immediately mortified to see how many pill-crabs began to flood the surface of the small beach. Quickly the beach was becoming a pulsating and fleshy blanket of the crabs, and with the speed at which they were blanketing the place she had no doubts they would eventually catch up to her.
So she tried to pick up speed, forcing herself to make her steps into more of a speed walk. Hastening her awkward and clumsy movements, her slight trips were getting riskier and riskier. But it didn’t matter, she had to, she could hear how close the small crabs were. And the closer they got the more intense the whole situation became. For one, they were not nearly as small as she thought they were. Instead of being the size of a juicebox, they were instead the size of a jug of water. They were thick, and disturbingly fleshy and intricate. Up close, they seemed more bug than crab, with glazed and ferocious purple eyes resting above a gnarly set of serrated pink mandibles and small white fangs. Their small feet deftly run atop the unstable rocky platforms.
The gray pills were now almost and arm’s length away, a small group seemingly chasing her down specifically. She didn’t want to think it, it was too disgusting of a thought, but the viscous chomping and hissing coming from the bugs mouths could only be telling her one thing.
They’re going to eat me.
And as she thought that, a slightly smaller sized pill jumped out from the crowd and sunk it’s teeth into her left leg. Immediately, a crunching and slicing noise could be heard as she felt a cold wet blade begin to saw into her leg. The creature had planted itself firmly on her leg, even its feet digging into her shin and muscle as it began to tear and shred the skin on the back of her thigh.
Of course, she did more than just tumble at the sudden biting, rolling herself into the rocky bumps. She thankfully went head first with her arms up, so when her legs came back down they took the majority of the brunt of the fall. But she had lost all her momentum and was now actively on the ground with the swarm quickly approaching her.
The first sea-faring maggot had been smashed by the tumble, the shell cracked and a thick green liquid had splattered across the grey shoreside. But an equally gruesome splatter of red blood accompanied the insect’s insides. It was her blood.
She barely had enough time to cringe at the sight of her own blood before a mass of the pill bugs collided into her. Most of the bugs seemed to immediately go for the splattering of blood laying across the shore first, scratching and lapping at the ground. But she soon found herself being swarmed with maggots gnawing and slicing at her flesh.
They were clunky and kind of dumb looking, but the frantic look they all had in their eyes, and the sheer number of mandibles protruding from their mouth made up for any lack of fear. Scared and in too much pain to even properly think about fighting, she simply thrashed and used everything in her arsenal to maim and push the serrated blades away from her. Grabbing around wildly, she managed to scratch out one of the bug’s eyes, dark green liquid squirting out and onto the other bugs covering her. Taking it further, she wormed her hands into the creature’s head, clawing and digging to find something to hold. Maybe it was just the eye socket, or maybe she went deep enough to grab onto something else, but she got a good enough grip to rip the creature off of her head first. And with the gained momentum of ripping the creature off she slammed the pill into another bug, causing more of the green liquid to splatter on the horde of bugs.
As she continued to rip and pierce the bugs' soft and pliable undersides, she found good use of her teeth, biting and snapping the dozens of sharp and serrated mandibles as she rolled around in the rough sand. After biting and using other blunt force to brutalize the shells of the six or so bugs that now covered her body, she was able to shake them off long enough to stand up.
Her body felt like it was in overtime, as if she was supposed to have passed out a while ago but the adrenaline and testosterone in her body was keeping her in a state of warmth. She could feel every vein in her body emanate an intensity, she felt like she was on fire.
In a way she was. The bugs had already done a fair bit of damage, with blood dripping down the majority of her body; Some green, some red. But now that she wasn’t on the floor and helpless, the carnage really began. The bugs were already getting distracted by the blood splatter, some even attacking each other over the bloodlust, and so she began stomping.
“Sppliiirtchh” the bug shell split in two with a hard stomp, pulverizing and puncturing the bug innards as she pushed down. Immediately, light-grey and purplish bits of matter and tubing squeezed out of the bug’s insides, creating a puddle of oily colors. A smell of rotten flesh and stomach bile immediately washed over her, and she couldn’t help but puke a mix of salt and blood onto the swarming bugs beneath her. The ground beneath her quickly became a vat of intestines and bodily fluids as the bugs went into a murderous frenzy over the intensity of the smells and tastes. It was all she could do to keep stomping on any bugs unlucky enough to make it to the center of the carnage.
She was in such a state of survival, she couldn’t even appreciate the absurdity of it all. She was the eye of the storm, a storm of starving and brutalist pillbugs, and the beach had become almost entirely covered except for the growing slaughter-grounds around her. Waves of gray pills all faced the single dot where she now had her final stand. Slowly, the bugs were all feeding into the carnage.
Stomping and stomping, punching when she had to, she quickly was becoming surrounded in half dead bugs, leaking blood and screaming.
She hadn’t noticed the screaming, but with the next stomp she could hear the high pitched creaks and whines the bugs made as she squished their shells into themselves. It almost sounded like little people being crushed or eaten by some giant monster. A not very good comparison, she was no monster and these things were not people. But there was a morbidity to it all. What were these creatures and what were they doing?
Her answer was a large piece of an eyeball being flung onto her face. Glazed with some sort of semi-sticky liquid the eyeball slowly slid down the side of her face. Looking around the shore now, the bugs have begun to attack each other on a large scale, their battle slowly consuming the shoreside. Bits of carapace and teeth being flung about aimlessly, crunching of flesh being interrupted by stab wounds. Even looking down at the waves, they now splashed against the shoreline with a dark greenish hue. Colored from the small streams of blood pouring into the ocean.
“What the fuck.” She couldn’t help but say aloud, as she swatted away another half alive bug. The mandibles the bugs carried were unnecessarily sharp, slicing through each others flesh (and hers) like it was nothing. They seemed intentionally malicious, as if they had been designed to be cruel and mean and ugly. They were so visceral, the absolute mess of insides now strewn across the beach was proof enough, but they seemed so artificial at the same time.
Even now, a bug walked up to her, struggling to move. It had a clean cut through the middle of its face, separating it’s right eye into two halves with a horizontal slice. But it was still trying to blink, it's drooping eyelids squirting the green liquid out from the middle of the eyeball. The bug's head was quite literally cross-sectioned, it’s inner organs and mouth cartilage visible from behind the eyeball, yet the bug itself wouldn’t die. She put the bug out of its misery quickly with another forceful stomp.
But as she looked up from the bug’s mushed corpse, a pile of bugs could be seen pushing against the wall. Looking against the back wall of the shore, the bugs seemed to ignore the bumpy rock wall almost entirely. The bugs strayed a little ways away from the wall, content to slice and dice on the floor instead. But just a few dozen feet away from where she now stood, a pile of bugs seemed to be forming on a portion of the wall. It completely stood out, why would the bugs want that wall space? Was there something to eat there?
But as she carefully observed the wall, it became more obvious that there was something metal nestled into the rock wall. Something entirely manmade was decorating the cliffside.
Without giving it too much thought, she began to force herself through the swarm of pills, dead set on finding out what was on the beachside wall. Stomping and stomping, the carnage followed in a wake behind her, with some bugs even seemingly moving out of the way to instead feast on the remains she left in her footprints. But as she got closer to the wall, the pile of bugs covering it seemed to grow and become increasingly more menacing. She had been able to smush and rip through the majority of the bugs up to that point, but she wasn’t uninjured in the slightest. Her legs were riddled with thin slices, it almost felt like her limbs were slowly being fileted as she braved the crowd of bugs. As she got within a person’s length to the door, the pile of bugs quickly became taller than her. What was she possibly to do about the utter density of the bugs? It looked like a solid brick wall of bug shells and sharp feet.
She decided to do the only thing she could do. Thrash. Ripping and kicking and biting and crushing with any part of her body that would let her, she simply began to indiscriminately attack the wall of pill-bugs, feeling a likewise all out attack back on her own body. Kicking the bottom bugs into mush and ripping the bugs at the top of the pile onto the shore’s floor seemed to be a good strategy. Plus, as the bug corpses began to stack up, so too did the restlessness of the bugs in the stack. It was slowly crumbling into a pile of corpses as she dug further into the pile.
Now getting within an arm’s length of the metal insert on the wall, she could now recognize it as a door. Seemingly carved out and installed professionally, buried under the stack of bugs was a door. No odd markings or warnings though, the door looked straight out of an office building. Heavy and metal, it was painted a matte gray. Or it had been, as the bugs had almost completely coated it in the thick green fluid. But it was definitely a door, it even had a doorknob.
There were still much too many bugs to properly inspect the door, but she could make out the top of the door. There, she could see the hinges.
“The door needs to be pulled. These silly bugs can’t seem to figure that out.” A voice helped point out, lingering in the back of her head like an echo.
It would seem too good to be true if she could really open the door, but she also wasn’t in a position to not try. The blanket of murderous crustaceans covering the beach didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon; The same could not be said about the rush of adrenaline keeping her body afloat. She was clearly losing blood and her body would give out before long. No matter how many bugs she stomps, nothing is going to save her from that.
And so, she dove into the corner of bugs, fists clenched and teeth bared. With a strong sideways swipe, she was able to temporarily sweep the remaining tower of bugs off the door. Unfortunately, the bugs grabbed onto and bit into her arms, taking her with them. Before long, she was once again on the floor whilst the bugs began to crawl up her back. Their small feet stabbing and kneading her back and spine.
Crushing and grabbing the bugs underneath her chest, she pushed herself up with enough momentum to fall on her back. It wasn’t forceful enough to smash the bugs ion her back, but it was enough to get them off and at least start to get back on her feet. Except, she realized that the motion of flopping on her back and getting back up had put her in the perfect position to access the door handle.
Pushing weakly and using the weight of her body to turn the handle and get her on her feet, the door gave way to a creak. The buildup of salt and seaweed around the edges of the door broke off into dust and slowly the door began to swing open.
Dragging the crab remnants across the floor, she was able to push the recovering tower of insects to the side once again as she began to stuff her body into the small opening in the door. She basically had to stuff her body into the crack of the door. Partly to stop any insects from following in, but also because the insects had already begun to reform a wall against the door, pushing it shut.
As she got her arms and chest inside the doorway, the crabs leaned into the door, causing it to begin crushing her leg. With a sickening crack and what felt like tearing, her leg got through the door and it was quickly slammed shut with a violent crash. Her leg was probably only hyper-extended, maybe a little fractured. She would be concerned, but her leg seemed to hurt at the same level as the rest of her body (which was a lot). Instead, she limped out of the way of the door and a little further into the small chamber she now found herself in. She couldn’t move much on either of her legs, so she had to be content with dragging herself.
Luckily, she didn't need to drag herself very far, as there really wasn’t much space to go.
It was a very dimly lit room she now found herself in, with plain cement walls and a white tiled floor. A faint electrical light made the cement passageway look very dreary, the white light made the place feel very abandoned. Looking back at the door that exited to the beach, all that could be heard was a constant tapping and clawing at the door. Looking forward, all that could be seen was a metal gate and a very long continuation of the hallway she currently resided in.
The hallway was barren except for a seldom electrical ceiling light. It was ominous to say the least, but it was okay now. She wasn’t in the hallway, she was in a small gated room. She was in a middle zone, not here or there.
Looking to the side now, there was a massive metal locker unit sitting to the right side of the gate. On the left side of the gate, a door was built into the gate, seemingly locked from her side. She could continue down the hallway when and if she wanted to. But the metal locker piqued her interest. Not at the prospect of what she might find inside, but rather at the size of the lockers. Short and stout, each locker space was about three feet tall by four feet wide. Much bigger and squarer than most lockers she’d seen, but it didn’t bother her all that much. The practicality of the locker was the last question she was asking. Instead, the thought “I could fit in that, right?” was at the forefront of her thoughts.
And, sure enough as she dragged her body over to the locker, upon opening it up she found it the perfect size to fit a woman curled up in a fetal position. Sticking her body into the small, cold, metal coffin, she looked back out at the hallway and traced the messy trail of blood back to her.
“God, I’m bleeding out in a small metal lock-box. I’m going to die curled up in this stupid little cement hallway on an island with much too many questions…” but as her mind continued to ramble, her body crashed and all at once she could feel the immense weight of the injuries she had sustained. Her entire body was all too tense, so tense it felt like she might pop from the pressure of it all.
But before she knew it, she passed out, unconscious in the small metal box. As she drifted off to somewhere else, the insistent chattering coming from the other side of the metal door slowly faded into obscurity.
“Good job”
She had survived, and now reaped the reward.