It was dark like night, but the darkness was filled with a strange rhythmic high-pitched noise. She struggled; attempting to cover her ears as the noise was incessant in its chants all around her. Things pulled as the arms and it felt like something was moving in her skin. She tried to pull Source to her hands, but nothing answered. She was abandoned. Alone. Nothing but the noise. Ringing in her ears. And one that wasn’t right. One that seemed to be a different rhythm than the others. One near her.

“Subject 344 has awoken. Disengaging support,” she jumped at the unfamiliar emotionless voice spoke near her.

The things connected to her fell off and the rhythmic noise closest to her stopped. The irregular noise near her continued. She tried to sit up, but her body wasn’t obeying her will.

She wanted out! She flailed, and realized her arms were hitting something on either side. Was she in a box?

She needed a knife to get out. She tried to pull Source into herself again, but there was nothing.

Was the Source completely dry now? Would everyone die now? Was she already dying? She didn’t feel particularly wrong the way those Emptying said they felt.

She reached upwards and things fell off her arms; her hands hit a wall above her as well. She was completely trapped! Her breathing grew faster as she moved her hands around trying to find any opening.

“Subject 344 is disengaged. Releasing Subject 344. Reminder, please monitor for nerve connection issues and weakness.” The disembodied voice droned above her, and the thing above her lifted away from her hands. The space around her became dimly lit, but she still couldn’t see much other than way far above her there was a roof which meant she had to be in a room.

Her hands dropped down and felt around her. She was still in a box. A box with an open lid. If she could sit up, she could see over the edges to whatever was causing the dreadful racket of beeping.

Her muscles past her waist weren’t listening. She threw her shoulders toward the side of the box and twisted against it finding herself tangled in some sort of wire.

She twisted herself toward the other side throwing her weight against the edge; the platform under her shifting. If she kept going, maybe she could get out.

Again.

Again.

Twist and move. Her body tangled in wires making her into a perfect rolling object.

The box tipping further and further each time she hit a side.

With a clatter everything crashed down onto the floor; her tangled body rolled like a barrel till it hit the legs of another box.

For a moment she just lay there stunned by the pain coursing through her body and the throbbing in her head. Her arms were too tangled to even clutch at her head.

That awful beeping was a cacophony twisting her mind, tiling her head. She couldn’t think. She tried to remember and of the songs or rhymes of her people to center herself, but she couldn’t recall them with this constant beeping marred by that off beeping.

She had to get out of these wires and stop this infernal beeping!

She wiggled, moving herself away from the box on stilts and slowly pulling her arms away from her side.

It seemed like forever before she had enough slack to pull an arm out. She used the free hand to start pulling all the cable things off of herself and free her other hand. She used her hands to push herself into a sitting position, and realized she was able to hold herself up. Her muscles in her waist were working, but screaming at her. She rested on one of her hands and used the other hand to pull at the weird tube things wrapped around her waist and legs.

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With the vine like junk wrapped around her gone, she finally stopped and took a breath trying to figure out where the heck she was. Everywhere she looked were those boxes on legs. Her own box was on its side with its legs underneath another box. It seemed to be the box where the uneven beeping was coming from. She had to stop that beeping!

She tried to pull her legs under her to stand, but they didn’t move. Her hands beat against her legs, and she could feel each hit like stiff grass poking her legs.

“Move darn legs move!” She cried at her body.

Her toes twitched and she screamed in frustration as tears seeped out of her eyes. She looked up at the ceiling as her hands clenched at the very short light blue sack-like dress thing she seemed to be wearing.

Why couldn’t she stand? Why was she cut off from Source? Why was everything so wrong and different here beyond the boundary? Why had she fallen for ages to wake up here? Why her? What was this beeping and why the heck was her always neatly kept hair everywhere?! It was pulling on her head and stretched out toward the box she fell from like some strange path.

Her leg twitched, but it wasn’t enough. She pulled her legs toward herself and under her to make sitting easier. She grabbed the leg of the box near her and tried to pull herself into a standing position, but the box tipped slightly with her weight and she let go. It rocked back and forward, something large thinking around in it as it settled back. Were there people like her in each of these boxes?

She couldn’t risk tipping these boxes and potentially harming other people’s vessels. She needed some way to pull herself up into a standing position. All around her were the shiny weird shaped legs holding up the boxes, but beyond that was a shadow that she thought might be a wall.

She tilted and rolled on her stomach, and then dragged herself forward toward the wall with her arms. The beeping never changed as she dragged herself along and it became a background rhythm like the field work songs. The field work songs didn’t encapsulate this situation and didn’t fit with the awkward rhythm provided by the high-pitched beeps. Her own tune to work within the confines of the randomly aligned beeping came to mind.

“Plither, plather, beyond the Source

Slither, slather, set a course

To the wall to stand among the vessels

No company; nothing but the weakest muscles

And Beeps, Beeps, drasted blasted stinking beeps.”

Her lonely echoing voice stopped and let the beeping continue to rule the room. The verses were nowhere near the quality of the memorized songs and poems passed down from the ancestors. Her lines felt like a hollow facsimile.

“Just keep crawling,” she whispered to the room, unable to keep her silence in the empty beeping. Her legs were prickling all over and spires of pain twisted down through her muscles, but she kept dragging herself toward her goal. Her legs started moving a little and she was able to help push a minute amount as she moved.

The beeping seemed to grow slightly quieter as the wall crept closer. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but she would see when she stood up.

At the wall she sat her body up and her legs under her to make standing easier. All she had to do was get off the floor.

The wall was smooth and perfectly perpendicular to the floor without any carvings or interesting marks on it, but even with it being that smooth it had a soft feeling that made it so her hand didn’t slide down the wall. It wasn’t ideal but it would work. With her hands on the wall and her legs under her body, she struggled, attempting to push herself up the wall.

After just an inch she collapsed back onto her shaky legs. This wasn’t working. She couldn’t pull herself up the wall the way she needed to stand. Maybe if she distributed her weight differently on the legs of a box, she could still use one to stand. It seemed to be her only option at this point.

She crawled back to a nearby box and positioned herself at the end of the box near two legs close together. Pulling on both legs, she pulled herself up, and this time the box didn’t tilt toward her. It really was more stable in the direction.

With shaky legs wobbling underneath her and a death grip on the box in front of her, she finally stood for the first time since falling through the void beyond the boundary. She looked down at the box in front of her and saw writing.

Subject Number: 189

Name: Sara Rhineland

That was her mother’s name! Why was Mother’s name on this box? She looked along the box and saw a window looking into the box. Very carefully she moved around the box, trying to keep her weight leaning in the center so she wouldn’t tip it. She was finally able to see into the window, and there looking like it was peacefully asleep was her mother’s empty vessel.