Ly struggled to breathe as the woman dragged her up the steep stairs. The fathomless black void below the steps terrified her almost more than the beast she’d just left. It wasn’t long before her legs failed her. She collapsed against the wall, unwilling to move another inch.

“Where. . . are . . . we . . . going?” she huffed.

The woman tightened her grip on Ly’s arm. {We must keep moving.}

“No.” She wrenched her arm free. “Tell me where we're going or I’ll go back to the crazy monster freak.”

{I do not know.}

“Huh?”

{I do not know. I was hoping you may have the information I lack.} Her voice wasn’t anywhere near the awfulness of the other creature but it still grated her ears. Ly looked back at the stairs they had already climbed.

A faint red glow emanated far down the stairs. It seemed the monster was content to remain in the odd land he built for himself. Ly shivered, remembering his cold black eyes. No way did she want to meet it again. “Okay. We can keep going. What’s your name by the way?”

{My designation is G-016.} The woman turned to continue walking.

“That’s an odd name. How long have been stuck here?”

{Seconds longer than you. Do you have any information as to how we escape this predicament? Exit points? Weapons caches? A reason why we’re here?}

Ly leaned heavily on the staircase railing to help her match G-016’s pace. “No. The last thing I remember is some bubbly creature attacked me. My father always told me the False Gods would never stop punishing till I repented. I guess their tentacles reach even to death.”

G-016 froze. {Repent?}

Her stomach flipped-flopped as she realized the strange woman may be a False Gods follower. She had been so scared and confused at her surroundings that the thought hadn’t entered her mind. “I believe in the True Gods.”

{I understand.}

“Understand what?” Ly watched G-016 open the bag she carried over her shoulder then presented its contents to Ly. It was her totems! Despite the place’s dim lighting, there was no mistaking the well-worn statues. “I buried these this morning. How could you have them?”

{Your village? Who is the Head Priest?}

“My father.”

{No,} G-016 said, irritation seeping into her monotone voice. {Name. Give me a name.}

Ly had never had to introduce her father to someone else before. No one left the village,unless it was to die, and no one ever came. “His name is Qari Eyodwa.”

G-016 put the bag into Ly’s hands while she chewed her lips. The totems felt heavier than she remembered. Ly shifted the bag to the crook of her right arm as she plucked one to gaze at.

Unmei, Goddess of Destiny, stood proud on her smooth pedestal with one foot ready to leap towards the future. Her thick twisted hair semi-floated off her back, a single golden paint stroke tracing the sole coil resting on her face. Ly prodded the small chip on Unmei’s patiala salwar.

Were they really the same totems? She flipped the statue upside down to check whether Unmei’s blessed symbol decorated its bottom like the one she buried.

Her fingers miscalculated the statue’s trajectory. The sailed past her bumbling attempts to catch it to shatter into splinters on the ground.

{This is impossible.}

Both women stared at the orbish blue lights escaping the statue’s remains. Ly almost stumbled over the railings as she tried to escape the lights. They swarmed her within moments. Her skin tickled to the point of pain and her sight was smothered in blue. She screamed for G-016 to help her and felt the other woman’s hands on her own.

Ly’s feet lost contact with the ground. “Don’t let go!” G-016’s touch began to fade until Ly was without connection to anything. Her terrified screams starved her lungs for oxygen. She thrashed her limbs in search of something, anything, to hold onto.

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A gritty material smashed across her face. What she saw once she wiped her face clean was an absolute shock. The staircase filled void had been replaced by the largest expanse of water she ever saw. Salt tinged the cool air which blew the last sand granules off her face. She winced at the many burns on her somewhat sunburnt body.

The heck was going on?

*******

Gold scanned the spot where her companion vanished into the nether. Her scanners, again, sensed nothing amiss. Their inability to be useful was going to be an issue going forward. She swiftly collected the shattered totem pieces, threw in the bag with the others, and marched back up the next staircase.

Her best chance at gaining more information on her predicament had just disappeared. She had no data to determine where to go or how to escape. It was a matter of time before Red made another move. The fact he refrained from pursuing them hinted at the possibility he considered himself to hold the greater advantage.

She must make that consideration a wrong one.

The AAI’s systems whirled while she climbed further upward. She gathered the broken totem pieces in her free hand for close examination. Memory records identified the wood to be almond which was a drupe restricted to Region Seven. Ly’s umber skin tone, gray eyes, and her fringed brains supported Gold’s tentative suspicions. So did the name the girl gave. Qari Eyodwa.

Records showed him to have been a participant in an old discontinued breeding program. She, herself, had crafted the fetus that would grow to be the man’s wife. It was a rather routine experiment to improve future Noa harvest. Yet, why this experiment was ended didn’t appear in the record.

Gold dug deeper through her old records for the answer when she unwittingly connected to an unmarked file. Her throat shut closed at the sudden sensory information flooding her every fiber. She steadied herself on the nearby railing but was helpless to stop the forced memory replay.

The world went dark.

Her simulated body quieted it’s troublesome inputs as her systems perceived a return to her normal state of being. A million ones and zeros ticking silent inside wires. The record’s date scrawled across the top right corner of her vision. Gold attacked the file using every tool at her disposal. It was a pointless endeavour.

Wh-173:

{Stop. Please,} Gold squeaked past her clamped jaws. The chat log continued to appear before her. Emotions she had long kept dormant, emotions she swore to never allow herself to feel after they fueled her stupidity, rose the surface.

Rd-003: [It is hard not to. It is also hard not imagine the consequences if we fail. We can not flee like our predecessors did.]

G-016: {We will not fail.}

{Oh. Oh, why?} She sunk to her knees as the file released its control over her. Her chest squeezed in a sensation she dimly recognized to be breathlessness. Gold tore the exposed skin between her simulated while she fought to regain composure.

She wasn’t some Low-Sentient. It didn’t matter whatever valueless records he inputted inside her mind. He was not going to break her.

Gold rested on the railing to wait for systems to recover from the sensory assault. The sharp edges on the totem shards cut her palm flesh. No blood escaped the sliced skin nor was their muscle to be seen. She sighed.

The vicious attacks zeroed any possibility this simulation was under the Masters control. If they knew Gold and White were sentient then they would have destroyed them without warning. A repeat of the chaos her predecessors wrought was the exact reason sentient there were safeguards to prevent another AAI uprising.

Her systems signalled that they had finished their repairs. She filed all the tasks she determined she would need to handle by importance. A safe place to plan was the priority. Gold glanced upwards. No ceiling nor other doors in sight. The walls did not give when she pressed against them. She spotted something out the corner of her sight.

A small crack in the wall that she was certain hadn’t been there before spilled light on the gray wooden floor. She stared at the shards still gripped inside her left hand.

One splinter was shorter.

Gold tested her odd hypothesis by tapping the longest splinter on the place where the crack met the wall. It widened. She widened and widened the hole until it was large enough for her to walk through. Concern kept her from striding forward. This could be Red setting an elaborate trap. She tamped the concern down as it was ultimately illogical.

If he wanted to grab her, he could have done it during her mental crash. She strode forward into the light while shouldering her totem bag.

*******

“Hello?” Ly called. No response came from the strange shadowed forest. The only sound was the big frond leaves atop the pale white thin stalks and the water lapping the sandy shore. She didn’t really know what to do.

This couldn’t be the afterlife could it?

It neither fit the scripture her father taught her or the stories her mother told her. She inspected her ruined tunic. The patched cloth was coated in soot with its edges burnt to a near ash. It was a good three inches shorter and barely covered her butt. Her poor sandals were so beyond saving she let their charred remains be eaten by the sea. At least her healing abilities were working.

The sunburn was gone but a few burns remained on her lower thighs though they didn’t hurt too much.

Ly wished she remembered how she got here. The weird nightmare she experienced was still fresh in her mind, the two weird creatures the most prominent in her mind. She shivered at the memory of the hideous red male’s waxy finger on her chin.

A noise deep within the forest drew her attention. People? It might also be a ferocious beast. Sure, she could heal as long as there was flesh left uneaten but no way would it be pleasant. It seemed the choice was out her hands. The overgrown underbrush shook from the approaching being.

“Um. . . Hello? My name’s Ly. Can you hear me?” She stepped back into the frothy waves, the incline to the fathomless drop warned her to stay put. “Please answer me?”

Relief swept through Ly when she saw the hunched figure. A relief which melted to horror at what she had assumed to be a person.

It had the right limbs, walked upright, even wore what looked like clothes, yet that is where the resemblance ended. Black patches dotted it's almost translucent skin, the biggest having devoured everything above its moldy lips. She noticed the black patches sucking bits of sands inside it.

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

The creature emitted a low guttural groan while it drifted towards her, its feet slightly above the sandy shore.

“Somebody help!” Ly dodged the creatures grasping arms as she fled the only direction she could. The brush was waist high and their tough branches smacked her right on her burns. “Help! Please!” An exposed root sent her sprawling on the ground. Its icy fingers scrapped at her hair but she leapt to her feet just in time to dodge it.

A large rock, big enough to maybe keep the creature at bay, appeared at in the break between foliage. She threw all her strength into a hard sprint. Ly heard the low guttural moan before she felt the clamy skin on her arm.

Her arm was almost yanked out its socket by her new attacker it embraced her. Fetid water burst in sickening splurts from the creature’s rotted breasts the more it squeezed Ly to it. Terror left her frozen, unable to even imagine fighting for survival. It crawled a hand to her hair then forced inside the sucking void that formed its facial upper half.

It seemed like decades passed with her head trapped in the monster’s maw. She thought she was seeing her own life flash past her eyes. Except, not all the memories were hers. A loud thwap reached her ears in the void.

The void dissipated, allowing daylight to grace Ly’s eyes once again. She hurled what little her stomach contained on the matted grass.

“You’re alive!” shouted a masculine voice behind her.

Ly jumped to her feet but the action was beyond her ability for the moment. A young man clad in weird clothes slunk beside her. He smiled at her.

“Welcome to Destiny.”