Ellie jerks awake with a sharp breath and snaps her eyes open to a disorienting sea of darkness.
She scrambles upright - or tries to. Pain bright as hot sparks shoots through her ribs across her left flank, stifling her to a halt with a gasp. She snatches a startled hand against that very spot. A pained noise bulges in the back of her throat; she swallows it back around a hitched gulp of air sucked in through clenched teeth and a faint stale taste of blood clinging to the back of her throat. Fuck.
Her eyes dart around, fast, frantic, attempting to make sense of her tenebrous surroundings. Faint slivers of moonlight strain through slatted gaps up by the rotting ceiling, bending eerie pale fingers of light down into the shadows.
Last thing she remembers is being strung up by her arms, legs kicking, heavy metal chains chewing through her wrists each time she tried to wrench herself free. Screaming, enraged, full of rage and murder and terror and hate while blinded by a flashlight pointed right in her face. A man with rotting breath leering at her, a sharp knife dug up into her chin ready to rip her tongue out.
And now, she is— where? A house? A mournful wind outside bellows and bends through the building's rickety bones. Where the fuck is she?
A sudden noise to her right. Ellie whips her head around in its direction. A person. Someone moving, approaching.
Ellie launches herself onto her knees and leaps to her feet, pain ripping through ribs like fire. The suffocating gloom of the room spins through her head. She nearly stumbles backwards and catches her balance with a violent flail of her arms. Another burst of pain slicing through her ribs. She flings her arm across to her body and grasps at them, gasping. Fuck, where is she, where the fuck is she?
“I’ll fucking kill you if you get any closer,” Ellie spits, raspy and wild with venom, at the amorphous shadow lurching towards her in the darkness.
"That would be disappointing, because I was hoping you'd take the next shift on watch," Root responds mildly, stopping where she is.
It has the lilt of a quip but not the heart behind it. Root is exhausted. She'd sprained her ankle, so she isn't going anywhere fast, and her companion escapee has her own injuries. Once upon a time, the Machine would've whispered in her ear what to do, where to go, whatever had the best chance of success and survival. She would've known if she could trust the young woman she'd taken with her as she left.
Instead, she doesn't know anything for certain anymore. She's left scrambling around in the dark like everyone else, a frustrating fate for someone who'd gone to her death with the relieved, peaceful assurance that she had, for once, done something unequivocally good. Now she's in this hellscape, wondering if the Machine wants her here or if this is some kind of bizarre purgatory. Root told Shaw that they couldn't be certain reality wasn't a simulation anyway, but she hadn't expected to have that demonstrated to her directly so soon after saying it.
But who she is now is someone who helps people, mostly -- whether they're trustworthy or not -- so she'd dragged them both here as a clearly defensible structure.
They're on the second floor, Root cozied up to a window with a long-distance rifle. The area around the farmhouse and its barn is barren, providing a wide clear space leading up to it that she can keep an eye on. She might be deaf in one ear, and she might not be as good a shot at this range as Shaw, but her eyes still work and she's good enough.
The noise was her dragging her foot in a scrape across the floor as she made to switch posts, rifle held loosely in both hands with proper gun safety posture. She's ragged, run down, even her seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy finally at its end. The lack of food has really done her in. But she's also clear-eyed and unfaltering, staring at Ellie with open assessment, waiting to see which way she'll jump.
She's figuring everything out for herself now, and she's paying attention.
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She scrambles upright - or tries to. Pain bright as hot sparks shoots through her ribs across her left flank, stifling her to a halt with a gasp. She snatches a startled hand against that very spot. A pained noise bulges in the back of her throat; she swallows it back around a hitched gulp of air sucked in through clenched teeth and a faint stale taste of blood clinging to the back of her throat. Fuck.
Her eyes dart around, fast, frantic, attempting to make sense of her tenebrous surroundings. Faint slivers of moonlight strain through slatted gaps up by the rotting ceiling, bending eerie pale fingers of light down into the shadows.
Last thing she remembers is being strung up by her arms, legs kicking, heavy metal chains chewing through her wrists each time she tried to wrench herself free. Screaming, enraged, full of rage and murder and terror and hate while blinded by a flashlight pointed right in her face. A man with rotting breath leering at her, a sharp knife dug up into her chin ready to rip her tongue out.
And now, she is— where? A house? A mournful wind outside bellows and bends through the building's rickety bones. Where the fuck is she?
A sudden noise to her right. Ellie whips her head around in its direction. A person. Someone moving, approaching.
Ellie launches herself onto her knees and leaps to her feet, pain ripping through ribs like fire. The suffocating gloom of the room spins through her head. She nearly stumbles backwards and catches her balance with a violent flail of her arms. Another burst of pain slicing through her ribs. She flings her arm across to her body and grasps at them, gasping. Fuck, where is she, where the fuck is she?
“I’ll fucking kill you if you get any closer,” Ellie spits, raspy and wild with venom, at the amorphous shadow lurching towards her in the darkness.
no subject
It has the lilt of a quip but not the heart behind it. Root is exhausted. She'd sprained her ankle, so she isn't going anywhere fast, and her companion escapee has her own injuries. Once upon a time, the Machine would've whispered in her ear what to do, where to go, whatever had the best chance of success and survival. She would've known if she could trust the young woman she'd taken with her as she left.
Instead, she doesn't know anything for certain anymore. She's left scrambling around in the dark like everyone else, a frustrating fate for someone who'd gone to her death with the relieved, peaceful assurance that she had, for once, done something unequivocally good. Now she's in this hellscape, wondering if the Machine wants her here or if this is some kind of bizarre purgatory. Root told Shaw that they couldn't be certain reality wasn't a simulation anyway, but she hadn't expected to have that demonstrated to her directly so soon after saying it.
But who she is now is someone who helps people, mostly -- whether they're trustworthy or not -- so she'd dragged them both here as a clearly defensible structure.
They're on the second floor, Root cozied up to a window with a long-distance rifle. The area around the farmhouse and its barn is barren, providing a wide clear space leading up to it that she can keep an eye on. She might be deaf in one ear, and she might not be as good a shot at this range as Shaw, but her eyes still work and she's good enough.
The noise was her dragging her foot in a scrape across the floor as she made to switch posts, rifle held loosely in both hands with proper gun safety posture. She's ragged, run down, even her seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy finally at its end. The lack of food has really done her in. But she's also clear-eyed and unfaltering, staring at Ellie with open assessment, waiting to see which way she'll jump.
She's figuring everything out for herself now, and she's paying attention.