The rushing noise continues up to the side of the house. She holds her breath in the hopes that perhaps whatever it is won't come inside. After all Mister Marnoff's entry didn't make it sound so bad within the buildings. There's an unceremonious crashing sound downstairs, and Clare realizes that she can't expect them to play by rules.
She dashes out from the office and across to the furthest room from the noise, looking to be a bedroom of sorts. With the din of the unknown pursuer climbing the stairs clear on the air, she shuts the door behind her and pushes a nearby chair under the knob. It should buy her just long enough to figure out what to do.
"Do not worry, human," a droning, slurring, ancient voice speaks from the stairwell at the other side of the door, "I will escort you to the granary," it says, the emphasis on certain words clarifying it’s status to Clare as another automaton. It must be incredibly advanced, Clare thinks, that it can not only track her from so far away, but also speak coherent sentences. This one is the second auto next to Carrie she's heard speak, and this one's voice is far louder, clearer, and way more unnerving.
"St-state directive!" Clare yells out from the bedroom eyeing around for something to deliver her from this situation.
There's a brief clicking noise from the other side, far louder than Carrie's. "To escort humans to the granary. There is a starvation curfew in effect. All humans must gather at The Reserve to receive rations. Please surrender any additional food you have and come with me."
Clare doesn't waste any more time mulling it over in her head; her gaze is locked onto the window. That's her way out.
She rushes to the sill, pushes her gloved hands into the shutters, easily opening the lock and swinging them open the same moment the automaton smashes through her makeshift barricade. Looking down she sees the dark, flooded streets of the unknown city, but behind her is far worse. She doesn't even spare a glance over her shoulder, but pushes her right boot into the window sill to launch off. She leaps with all she has for the roof of the next house, and latches onto the siding with a slap. She scrambles up the roof to regain her footing on the slime-slick shingles, simultaneously turning to her six to look upon the automaton.
It's a half-destroyed, its chassis skull torn askew, with its managraph symbol glowing in a demonic, saturated green though under her blue-tinted light its becomes a powerful, sky-like cyan. The auto stands where she was just seconds earlier, unmoving, watching her with its single, arcane “I’m on” symbol, acting both as a way for automatons to perceive their world, and as an indicator that it’s active. She knows it can't see her with it, but the way it turns its head towards her, it certainly seems like it.
"Do not worry, miss, you are in a state of distress," it explains to a trembling, though very relieved Clare, "I will provide assistance." It starts back to the stairs with a slow, measured trot.
Clare scoffs through her mask, sounding more like a muffled bark than anything. "Assist yourself in getting the hell away from me, jerk," she says with a smug tone.
Her victory is short lived, for just as she throws an overconfident, rather rude gesture the machine's way, it reaches the end of the second floor hallway and turns around. It’s getting a running start. She knows that it is impossible, that an automaton couldn't lift itself off the group in the form of a jump, but as the derelict auto rushes down the corridor into the bedroom, there's something about its sheer confidence that tells Clare otherwise.
She starts back, sliding across the incredibly slick rooftop watching, in sheer disbelief and contrary to her education, the auto smashing its right foot into the sill, completely destroying it in the process, and sending the auto out the window and slamming into the roof. Its hand do not slip, but simply push so hard into the shingles that they crumple under the impact and make handholds.
Clare's been inching back this entire time, but now with even more fervor. She'd sooner jump off than let that thing grab her, but she's so high up now, and she can't even comprehend what could be lurking below. With a horrified look, she peers on from under her mask as the automaton struggles to pull itself up and regain its footing.
"Do not worry, miss, you are in a state of distress," it drones, like the crackling of a burning coal, "I will provide assistance." It gets up and starts for her. It’s the very first time she can feel a clear, murderous intent coming from someone, even if that someone just so happens to be a thing.
"I don't want assistance!" Clare shouts. "Stop!"
The automaton continues forward, each step smashing its feet into the roof with certainty.
Clare's hit by some of the slimy roof debris while she inches to the very, very tip of the roof.
"Stop! I don't need assistance!" She shouts with her knife raised, hoping there's something inside the auto's programming that will pull itself away at those words.
Nothing slows it down, unfortunately, and it continues in a slow, impacting tread to halfway past the roof.
She knows she has to make a move. Lifting herself up with a shaking, wavering balance, Clare turns to over to the roof of the next house, takes a deep, fleeting breath, and jumps. The girl angles her boot just right into the corner of the roof, throwing her just far enough to land gracelessly on her stomach, hanging on for dear life. Scrambling for a hand-hold, her knife comes in use at a surprising time. Gripped firmly in her right hand, the blade clicks between two of the shingles and provides her with the slight amount of leverage needed to get her unfit self up the roof. Wheezing through her mask considering the mere fact that she's still breathing a triumph, Clare looks back with a readied, alert gaze.
The automaton is walking back slowly to the edge of the roof. She's seen this before.
With a sharp turn and a blink from its managraph, the auto rushes forward with a confidence she's never seen in a man, let alone an auto. The smashing steps impact the roof even deeper, sending splinters and ceramic flying with every foot strike. Like a locomotive from hell, the automaton runs forward with furious, paramountly-focused movements, right to the tip of the roof where it pushes down all of its weight. This time it’s not so lucky.
In a turn of luck that seems to be becoming less and less frequent for poor Clare, the auto's weight pushes past the boundary of the rafter's allowance, and in an instant, the auto falls through and down the roof, drowned in a wave of old wood and mildew.
Clare falls on her lower back in sheer, overwhelmed relief. She turns off the light and lies still along the roof, her muffled breathing steadily calming down from the excitement. She's already so tired, she can hardly believe that her stamina is so pathetic. Of course, she realizes, a whole youth of said stamina not being tested is probably what gave her such a skewed view in the first place. She shakes her head and cuts a mild, satisfied smile.
Then, she hears shuffling from below. She doesn't even need to check to know it’s the automaton, and she doesn't want to anyway; maybe it will forget about her, or lose track of her. The automaton pulls itself out from the wreckage of the now-half home, and begins lumbering back to her current house.
Her heart again takes up its mad cadence. She clearly hears a clicking from below. The automaton is thinking, loudly. She holds her breath as best she can, but without any further warning, the clicking stops. There's a pause, and then the next round begins.
Clare feels a jolt when the sound of industrial composite meets the pathetic rot of her home's outer foundation. With a gasp she squirms up along the roof the same moment said roof begins tilting down. She glances down just long enough to behold the automaton, drawing its fist out of the completely destroyed corner vertical of her disgusting safehouse. She knows what's going on the moment it starts over to the next corner of the house. She's got to get off. The girl scoots up to the edge across from the automaton's next beam, just as the blast of splinters arcs up into sight. She spots her next house just in time, a full two-meter jump. The home tilts fully toward the auto, and the roof comes with it. Clare uses all she has to right herself over the edge of the roof, locking her boot's heel gap and thrusting forward in a single fantastic leap of faith.
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She slips.
Perhaps the saturation of wet mold prevented proper traction of her boots, or she was too tired to keep it together, regardless she's met with the same fate. She misses the edge of the roof, however her face does at least catch the opposite windowsill. Her mask takes most of the impact, but when the rich, coppery taste of blood hits her tongue, she knows that's not the only thing that took a hit.
She plummets into the water, its already familiar chill providing an agonizing shock anew, and she pushes herself up once more. With a muffled, wheezing cry, she stumbles into a wall attempting to regain her bearings, only it’s hard to run, very hard. There's now a sharp pain in her left ankle, and her vision, fogged with an eldritch concoction of vomit, sweat, blood and disgusting water, forms over her mask's lenses like a sort of demonic filter of confused muck.
Far more like a child than an adult, she trips along the side of the wall, trusting her senses of touch and hearing to guide her away from the automaton, but now the machine’s faster than her.
The steady, trudging steps of the auto glide it through the water at a slow, but certain pace, forcing forward through any impediment toward its current goal.
"Do not worry, human, you are in a state of distress," it says, its tone decisively lower this time as it rears up on the impeded, bloodied, tired, cold young lady, "I will provide assistance," it adds, reaching forward.
It hurts so much to move, but she knows she has to. Calling on her reserve of energy, Clare does her best to ignore the shattering pain that's now shooting up her leg in her desperate attempt to get away. With a tilted, crazed stride, Clare rushes past house and home, shops and storefront while the automaton's walking steadily fades out into the distance. She doesn't ask herself why it isn't running after her, and she doesn't care to know right now. All she wants is to get away.
She runs, and runs, and runs in the dark, the automaton's sloshing becomes quieter and more distant with every ticking moment. She passes street signs and auto dock stations. She runs on in a crazed, clueless evasion, like a mouse that knows a cat has its scent. She has to go on until she's certain that it couldn't pick up her sound input. Finally, she can only hear her own body pushing on through the mess. She wants to keep running, she knows it’s the right thing to do, but it hurts beyond any words she's learned through her life, she knows it’s that special human something keeping her going, of course, but even that must surely have its limits.
The safer she feels, the more her mind turns to how much it hurts to run. In the end she could have ran hours more, but the power of the mind supersedes anything the body is capable of. Clare slows down to a relieving trot, the feeling almost curative in its relief, and she spots, from the bare, creepy silhouettes, an alleyway. If she feels around enough she can find her way, it’s worth not having the light on if it means being found again, after all.
Clare slides into the pitch-black alley, the cold water tormenting and relieving all at once once it washes against her leg. She stops mid-way down the alley, certain she cannot go a step further and, using the wall as a guide, leans back in the dark.
She's quiet now, and the faint smile she won on her face has quickly died back to misery.
"Such a stupid fool," she mutters under her breath, wrapping her arms around herself in a futile attempt to warm herself up. It doesn't work, of course, and after the novelty of safety passes her by, she's forced to make her next decision. This does not go as planned.
Right when she comes to the bitter conclusion that she's now in a considerably worse place here than she was just thirty minutes ago, right before she made the mistake of going upstairs in that building and making a ruckus, she hears a sloshing sound.
She can't believe it. With a trembling gaze, she can see a powerful, inhuman light shining out from where she had come from. She struggles not to pull up her mask to see clearly, but keeps it the seal. Its the same automaton, though, she's sure of it. She may not be able to make it out, that managraphic beam peering out and blinding her, but she its slight limp is clear.
"Do not worry, mi-"
"Shut the fuck up!" she screams, leaning back into another dash. She falls over. Her muscles have contracted around the swelling, and the cramp is too extreme to even use the leg. Clare is forced to pick herself up from the drink and start limping with her one good leg to escape.
The young lady only hops a few times before getting a clear look at where she's going. Now lit by the automaton's light, the dead end of the alley way is revealed plainly to her. This is it.
"No..." is all she mutters before turning back to face her hunter.
It hasn't slowed down a bit, heading straight for her with the full, confident stride of a capable civil servant.
She takes one glance at her knife through her putrefying mask lens, and she looks up. She has only one shot at this.
"Okay..." She says, again to herself. "Okay... okay..." Clare repeats again and again, as if to calm her down in preparation for a single, kinetically-genius movement that will save her. "Okay!"
The second the automaton reaches out to grab her, she dodges as best she can to its side, jabbing her knife with everything she has in between its faceplate to hit the managraphic circuitry. A centimeter off, and she'd miss, but with the adrenaline at an all-time high in her life, the split, aimed second she needs goes by like a frozen frame in time. Clare lines up the strike in this moment of subconscious time and rams it in. She makes the plunge.
The automaton stops immediately, but she knows this won't last long as it’s still reaching for her. It grabs her by the same leg that's injured, and starts squeezing with industrial, mechanical cruelty while it simultaneously lifts her up for better control. Her biology folds under its grip instantly, forcing down ever further as if to completely tear off her leg below the knee. Part of its circuits must still be working.
With crazed, loose jabs that grazes her once across the opposite wrist, she slams the knife into the latches and disengages the lock. Her mom did it a few times to the household auto, as a joke of course. She always got such a kick out of seeing Clare jump back in shock whenever the auto's face would just fall off.
This auto's faceplate off, Clare smashes the blade of her knife across each and every logic plate, until she finally gets to the end, its core plate, containing their mystical source of power in those small, locked glass spheres. Ethergrain is what she's been told they are, but she thinks they look more like little speck of black sand. It’s always unnerved her to touch them. Ethergrain is perfectly safe to handle, at least that’s how the people of Everhold understand it, but that faint, quiet vibration within… it feels dangerous to her somehow.
She smashes the container holding the ethergrain, and at once, the auto's green light dies out, and her world is again plunged into darkness.
Clare did it. With the auto's hand clenched painfully around her crushed leg, she still can't help but let out a sigh of relief.
"Yeah, fuck you," she says in-between labored breaths. If anyone she knew were to hear her cussing like a sailor, they wouldn’t believe it, but she’s being pushed far, far past her comfort zone right now.
There's a silence for another dark moment, coming to terms with how awkward her current position is . She's keeping herself stable on its left shoulder, with her hands holding its head and her thighs squished around it for dear life. It's a rather precarious spot, especially considering that the auto's inactive body still has her left leg.
"Well..." She takes a deep breath, "well yeah, here we are," she adds. She nips the inside of her cheek in thought, and decides to turn on her light. Illuminated the inactive automaton, solidly in place, unmoving, and holding its pose even with her weight on top of it.
Then she hears something in the distance, and Clare knows she has to get away. It's another sloshing sound from far off, but it's getting louder. Clare cuts out her light just as quickly as she had clicked it on. She knows she has to move fast.
With a little stretching Clare reaches its fingers around her leg, and by leaning back a tad she's able to get a grip on it. With a single, slippery heave, she starts pulling back the first metallic finger from around her shin. Flexing into with a long pull, her face turning red from the exertion, she finally moves its index finger a couple centimeters, and then the auto starts to tilt.
With a gasp, Clare attempts to correct her position on top of it, but too much so, and pushes it over the other end. The auto falls like a statue into the murky shallows of the alley, taking Clare and her with it. With a splash, she's again submerged into the cold, greasy floodwater, but this time she's pinned. During the fall, she pivoted down to secure the weight with her knees, but all this served to do was trap her pelvis under the weight of the auto. Her body seethes with crushing pain as the automaton weighs down mercilessly into her, even with the water reducing it. She struggles, and is able to slide most of her lower torso aside, but its hand is still wrapped around her shin, now acutely angled from the damage.
Clare strains her arms to push herself over the surface of the water, and is able to reach her mask's filters just to the very brim of it. If she had just one more centimeter, she could turn her head so that one of the filters would break the surface and allow her air, but she has no such fortune.
She can feel the water slowly seeping in, her mind's crying out for air, and her body is locking up with the grim anticipation of its finale. She flails wildly under the water in the futile attempt to somehow bring air below to her, all in vain. Seconds pass into a full minute, and her convulsions reach that trembling, horrified fever pitch that suggests to an onlooker that a consciousness is in its last moments. She reaches for her knife, so trusty for all this time, jabs it into her knee. She's going to cut it off if it’s the last thing she'll do, but she doesn't. With one stab, and then another, her knee cartilage makes way to the sinew and bone, and that's not something she can remove as quickly.
The overarching grayness of a doomed mind fills her vision, just as a faint light appears. It’s as if the water around her is glowing. Her last thoughts aren't of anything but Everhold, her home, her nice warm bed— dry, clean, and inviting. In her moment of helplessness, she would want nothing more than to just be sitting in her favorite coffee shop, her nose buried in her current textbook.
Then the light overwhelms her, just as the darkness does only seconds after.