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Seventh Sentre
Chapter 0: Prologue

Chapter 0: Prologue

Beginning initialization... Minimum system operation...

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| Entity: |

| Time: Unknown |

| Location: Subterranean, Unknown |

| Status: Stable |

Ugh... quit the yapping...

Error: Uncharacteristic behavior detected.

Running Basic Scan...

Error: Excessive mental resolution unsuitable for minimum processing detected.

Logging start... Log #2587052 Finished, Rebooting...

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| Person: Cathorine F. Liethre |

| Time: 9:42 PM |

| Location: Berith Honor Pkwy, Gernkin Hospital |

| Status: Panicked, Under High Stress |

Please be fine! Her thoughts were a mess as she rushed up to the counter, practically shoving her ID into the clerk's hands. "I'm here for Jackson Liethre. He's here, isn't he?"

Just taking a quick glance at her and the photo identification, the clerk pointed down the long white hallway with beige hand rails to his left. "Please calm down, ma'am. He's in Branch 4, Room 403, it's on the left. Please try not to disturb the patient or nurse on duty as he is under high care and needs to rest."

Snagging the card back, she rushed off in the given direction, albeit at a mildly slower pace to at least half abide by the plea of the staff. The last thing she wanted was to get kicked out and possibly even miss her last opportunity to be with the person she loved most dearly. The accident had been a brutal one. 44 vehicles damaged to varying degrees from crumpled-up scraps to soon be recycled with doors pried off to remove their passengers to mild fender benders, plus the 17 people simultaneously rushed off to the hospital on the emergency rail. Still several lesser injured were left behind as there were only so many ambulances to take them. He had kindly let others go before himself, despite knowing full well the risk of prolonging his self-examination of insignificant injuries.

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She had been in a public transport vehicle a few minutes slower than him and his electric hover. Noticing the sudden increase of traffic on the highway, she had tried to give him a call. When no answer came and she looked out the front window only to see a black smoke rising in the distance, she quickly hopped out of the transport to the dismay of the driver and hopped on her scooter. The only reason she'd taken the transport was because of her being late and him having warned her if he had to wait, she'd be going via alternative methods. He had always kept his word on that front too. Every. Single. Time.

As she approached the wreckage, the first responders had just started prying a door off its hinges. Starting to get slightly panicked, glancing through all the vehicles and slowly calming down when she failed to see the unique chrome finish of the rather odd car. Really, it could hardly be called a car anymore; the new technology that permitted floating along instead of the typical rolling always grabbed the gaze of an unsuspecting passersby, being one of only 8 prototypes meeting the standard to be used on public roads. She looked and looked, only later finding him amongst the far less damaged vehicles at the front of the pileup. She was just about to be relieved until noticing the unconscious driver with a very small trickle of blood down one side of his face.

Still, despite her sudden distress, she calmly tapped on the window to hopefully wake her closed-eyed lover. Almost immediately he flinched slightly and opened his eyes. Peering out the side glass at an non-EMS face. Smiling, he tried to roll down the window but soon found the glass retractor was damaged. Opening the door, he swung his legs out to get up and tried to do so only to be hit with nausea and dizziness. Noticing the moderate distress on his face forced her into action, stopping him from further movement.

"Please take it easy, hun; you don't know how bad you're hurt." She cooed in a soft golden voice. The sound of her voice was all it took for him to relax a little and wait for his turn in the imaginary line of those who needed help.

"What happened for all the mess to occur? The pileup seems to get worse the farther back in the pileup you go, not the other way around." She questioned while grabbing a cloth from the glovebox and tapping his face to clean off some of the blood he knew little about.

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Jackson somehow coherently spoke, "I think something was crossing the road and made a bunch of people over-break, and most of us were able to slow down in time. However, those larger vehicles behind us had too much weight." pointing a thumb back to several freight trucks separating the two vastly different pictures that drew this odd crash. "Their excellent skills in looking ahead to slow down may have saved us in front of them, but along with their emergency braking and minor slamming into other drivers, everyone behind them found themselves in a reaction situation no one wants to be in."

Looking back at the carnage of people helping other people from crumpled wreckage where you couldn't tell where one car ended and another began, she sighed in acknowledgement and wondered just how horrible this crash would have been just 20 years earlier. The mass revision to vehicle safety in 2209 had reduced the highest human-generated toll on deaths besides war by over 88%. Much had changed in the years prior to that as well to shift vehicular deaths into seventh place out of everything else. Now it was a rarity to even hear of injury, let alone a broken bone from the now third most used type of transport. It was unfortunate that this had happened at all and would no doubt be on the virtual-vision worldwide that night.

Eventually the paramedics and fire department made their way to the less damaged front part of the accident and got around to helping him into a laid-back position on a cushioned folding platform and applying immediate treatment on the side of the road. Naturally, he told them to get those in more need to hospitals before himself, seeing as he was actually conscious and not knocked out from the whiplash that most others had suffered. From her point of view, the accident was rather severe, but still he insisted that others go before him. He had taken notice of the truly worse condition of those around him. Not even bothering to look at the polished mirror that his car could have acted as. His head was still slightly bleeding but that was still less of an injury compared to the swath of people needing proper bandages for various levels of cuts to lacerations. He had deemed them more important to take to the hospital for proper treatment than himself. She knew there was no way a head injury was any less or more important than those around them. Right?

Soon enough, a couple of ambulance pods returned from the most urgent of emergency room visits, having dropped off their previous patients and ready to take several at once lesser-injured involuntary members of this accident, including him. She was told which hospital sector they were in and that she would receive a call from them when he was determined stable or ready to return home.

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She mulled over all that had happened in the last couple of hours, still hurrying down the hallways, peering at the signs telling her where branch 4 was. Double-checking that she had indeed come across the last hallway springing off the main junction, she walked over to the door and slowly slid it open. There he was.

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| Entity: |

| Time: 21:86?, Predicted 4 Minutes Have Passed |

| Location: Subterranean?, Unknown Street?, Unknown Building? |

| Status: Stable |

Bright and dry. Warm yet uncomfortable...

A twinge of pain in the mind and a feeling of butterflies in the stomach... then... dark and damp. Cold and unpleasant.

Why do I feel so horrible suddenly? I was conscious and aware as a familiar hand held onto mine. Immobile but still awake. Right the hospital... I could have sworn the doctors said I would be fine in passing as they all thought I was unconscious. maybe a little numb from the drugs but not incoherent to conversation. So what went wrong? Am I dead? Am I in a coma from something? The crash wasn't even that bad, just a mild concussion and a sprained arm. Although I do guess it was probably more than just mild since I blacked out and woke up in an ambulance rushing to a nearby hospital, sirens blaring.

Now that I think about it with a little clarity, perhaps it was rather severe. But that doesn't explain this feeling that I am surrounded by a place that seems just so... foreign.

It is this thought that brings me back to the present situation and sensation. Darkness and a cool, damp place. Can I even feel that its damp or cold? Wait dark? What about this is unpleasant? I always liked dark places... I think? I can't feel, see or even move, so why is it unpleasant? Shouldn't it just be a feeling of limbo? I try to stretch and get no sensory feedback. There has to be a reason I can't move at the very least...

Stuck? I couldn't tell if I wanted to.

Immobile? Same story.

Nothing to push off of? And I could tell how?

Meaning no propulsion or locomotion? Oh here we go, separate trains of thought going on at the same time.

Suspended in a liquid with no appendages? Highly doubtful.

In space? Does this determine whether or not I need to breathe?

Falling? First, I'd need an organ to sense motion and any form of perception to understand my orientation to a large body of mass.

I feel like I'd know if I'm falling though.

splat

| Entity: !J?x$Uu ?1 |

| Time: 00:21, Predicted 4 ?on?s HAve PAssed |

| Locatiou: SubterrAueAu, Unkuowu |

| StAtns: StAble, iN IuunmerAble Pieces |

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