Pain. My whole world is agony. My head throbs, a deep ache permeating my skull, radiating from the back until it rattles around behind my eyeballs. Sharp. Something painfully sharp pierces my side. A rasping groan escapes my lips. My eyes flutter open to near-total darkness. I’m lying on something slick and wet and jaggedly pointy. “Wha– wha’ happen’?” I slur.

I tense my abdomen to try and sit up but gasp in pain and pause. Lying still, I fumble around in the darkness and grasp something impaling my side. With a jerk I pull it free, and my vision tunnels at the feeling of the object scraping against a rib as it dislodges. I bring my shaking arm in front of my eyes, squinting to make out the offending object in the darkness. Is that…fuck is that a bone?

Barely illuminated in a soft green light, I can make out the outline of the knobby end of what looks like a human femur. The opposite side is cracked and broken to a jagged point, an inch or two slick with my blood. Horrified, I drop the bone and it clatters to the floor. Without moving my still-ringing head I glance around. My new prison appears to be made entirely of some dark metal, black and roughly textured. Dim green illumination streams from a grate to my left, midway up the wall. I don’t dare look at what I’ve landed on, sprawled painfully on my back.

Pressing my hand at the blood oozing slowly from my side, I again try to sit up, this time to some success. I crawl off my macabre bed, wincing at every crunch. Slowly, agonizingly, I rise to my feet, hunched slightly from the low ceiling. Once again, however, I slip and fall, but this time I manage to catch myself against a rough, cold metal wall.

Stupid. Fucking idiot. That’s how you almost got yourself killed last time. Be more careful Sarai– My train of thought comes screeching to a halt as the reminder that I don’t even know my own name nearly overwhelms me. I take several halting steps away from my landing zone and slowly sink to my knees, tears in my eyes. God fucking damn it! Some fantasy adventure, huh? A sob hitches in my throat and the weight of my pain—mental and physical—presses upon my back until my forehead touches the floor. Another sob wracks my body before I get my breathing back under control.

Come on Sar– come on, girl. Get yourself together. You’re still alive, and you won’t die here. You can’t let yourself lose to that darkness inside again. You’ve gotta prove ‘em all wrong, yeah? With tremendous effort, I raise my head. The grate is in front of me now, and that soft green light shines directly into my eyes. I squint again and turn aside. In the dim light, I can make out what looks like a door in the wall, with the grate at its top. A needle-thin crack of that same green light peers through on one edge.

I shuffle forward, still on my knees, cautious of attempting to stand again, one hand still pressed against the wound in my side. Slowly, I make my way to the door. I lean my forehead against the cold metal, breathing hard from the effort. My body feels feeble and weak. As my heart rate comes back down, I sit up straight and place both hands against the door. With all the strength remaining in my limbs, I attempt to push it open. A ragged scream bubbles up from my throat, but the door is unmoving. I rise to a kneeling position, bracing one foot on the floor, and try again to no avail.

I gulp down air, taking deep, gasping breaths. My arms are on fire. I don’t have the strength. I can’t be trapped again, I need to get out! I swallow my panic and look around for something to pry open the door with, and my gaze passes over the pile of detritus that cushioned my fall. Careful to not look too closely—bones, blackened and cracked. Viscous goop. Is that part of a jawbone?—I avert my eyes and shuffle back to grab the bone I had tossed aside. I turn once more, and shove the bloody, pointed end into the crack in the door. I use my entire body weight to jam it in as far as I can, then press my back against the door and lever the femur forward.

A painful screeching noise of grinding metal assaults my ears, and the portal inches ever so slowly open before the bone breaks with a loud snap. I almost bash my head against the floor once more, but manage to catch myself on my forearms. I suck air in through my teeth to fight through the resulting pain. Straightening up, I shove the now less-pointy end of the femur into the door again. A scream bursts from my lungs. With all the strength remaining in my feeble body, the door opens with a sharp crack of shattering rust and the gap widens considerably before the hinges seize again.

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I take a few moments to catch my breath. Glancing at the opening, it appears to be just enough for me to squeeze through. It takes several minutes of painfully scraping my skin against the rough metal, but finally, I crawl free. I roll over onto my back, spread eagle on what feels like cool stone, and gaze upwards.

Pale green light suffuses the room, barely enough to see but much brighter than I’ve encountered so far in this world. Thick metal girders cross under the ceiling high above me, with innumerable pipes wrapping around and through them, criss-crossing and tangled, like the roots of a great metal tree. What is this place? I cast my eyes around and see nothing but ancient machinery, rusty metal pipes, and cold stone walls. I roll to the side before sitting up on my knees, careful to support myself with both arms, but quickly clutch at my side again with a wince. In front of me, my gaze falls to my metal prison. An industrial-sized furnace made of blocky cast iron, connected to the wall by an enormous metal tube at a steep angle. I suppose that’s where the ‘disposal chute’ leads. Fuck, I’m glad it’s cold. Nothing here looks like it’s been used in ages.

Somehow, I find the strength to stand on trembling limbs, careful of falling once more. I can’t stay here. This place is dead and it’ll be the death of me too. I look down at my hands, and they’re covered in soot. In fact, my whole body is covered in soot where it’s not already coated in that slime from my containment vessel. I shuffle over to some angular object draped in dusty canvas and collapse onto an ugly rusted chair in front of it.

I hope this whole world isn’t dead. If I’m still on…Sellenia, right? If I was still sent to Sellenia, it’s definitely been a long, long time since whenever Theramiel showed me. And where the fuck did he go?

Off to one side, directly across from the furnace, I notice a wide-open door, looking almost like a hatch in a submarine. The source of the pale green light is somewhere beyond, the only illumination in the room. Alright, you can’t stay here. Get the fuck up and get moving. Fucking get UP! With a pained groan I’m on my feet again, and I take a moment to brush the worst of the dust off the canvas covering with the hand not clutching my wound before slipping it around my shoulders. There’s nobody here to protect my dignity from but I’m tired of being naked. The canvas was protecting what appears to be some sort of control console, probably for the furnace. Most of the glass covering the dials and gauges is cracked and broken. I glance down at the floor, but fortunately don’t see any glass shards, just a thick layer of long-undisturbed dust.

Beyond the door is a short hallway, with two closed hatches across from the one I exit through. I don’t even bother trying to check them. The hall terminates on one end in a blank stone wall, maybe concrete? It’s hard to tell in the green-tinged illumination, which shines from wire-caged strip lighting in the ceiling. Only one of several lights is currently working. At the other end of the hall is a metal staircase, turning to the right after a short flight. Everything is covered in dust. Up it is then. No point in staying down here.

Dragging my canvas cloak along the ground, I slowly make my way up the stairs. I spare one bloody hand for the railing, the blood on my ribs mostly coagulated now. I try not to dwell on the possibility of infection. The silence is filled with the creaks and groans of aged metal as I plod upwards. I stop to catch my breath at every landing, the stale air turned to fire in my lungs. I find several more hatch-covered doorways, but aside from one already open and leading to what looks like an empty storage closet, the door levers I try are rusted in place, unmovable with my pitiful strength. Strength of ten men my ass.

The stairs terminate at the fourth such landing, and I’m greeted by another metal door, this one rectangular and not so hatch-like. The handle flakes off in my hand and clatters to the floor in a shower of rust. I throw my weight against the door once, twice, and the lock breaks with a sharp snap. I tumble through and land in a sprawl, my makeshift cloak fluttering over me.

I take a moment to collect myself, one cheek pressed to the dusty stone flooring. Somewhere in the middle distance I can hear the slow dripping of water on metal. I sniff, tears pooling unbidden in my eyes. “I miss my cats. Why did I ever think this would be some fun adventure?”

A timid voice echoes back to me, “...Enna, ven’we someone there?”