《Upon Eroded Wings》


 Chapter 1

    *Actions/Sounds*


    ¡®Thoughts¡¯


    ¡°Speech¡±


    <hr>


    <???>


    *Beep¡­ Beep¡­BEEP¡­swoosh*


    Mechanical beeps echoed through a dark room until a loud beep sounded, signaling the open of the door of a machine.


    *Gasp¡­cough¡­cough*


    Cold air rushed out of the machine and a woman emerged from within. Collapsing to the group as she took in a large intake of air before proceeding to cough out, as if her lungs had not had to breathe in a while. While adjusting her breath, she is dazed and confused on how she got in her current predicament. In her vision a blue box appears, she closes her eyes and shakes her head as her vision is adjusting to the dim lighting of her surroundings. Opening her eyes to a ruined room with the blue box missing from her vision. ¡®¡­. Where am I?¡¯ She thinks to herself.


    She gets off the dust covered ground and looks around her surroundings, finding herself in a dark room illuminated by the icy blue light emitting from the inside of the machine she emerged from. The room is covered with debris of varying sizes from the partially collapsed concrete ceiling, and everything is covered in a layer of dust, indicating it''s been a while since the collapse had occurred. One of the rooms walls that she can see that isn¡¯t completely collapsed is a half concrete wall that once contained a glass window looking in that has long been shattered with only a few large shards still in place and a door sealed by fallen debris. Through the shattered window she can see into a hallway that has a faded painted sign with the only legible letters being ¡®-evel 03¡¯, few letters given but seeing them gave her the answer to her question in her foggy mind.


    ¡®I¡¯m in the cryology department¡­so then¡­¡¯ she thinks, upon which she has a realization, turning herself around to see where she emerged from. The machine was in an almost coffin shape with blue light emitting from the open cabinet and blue fabric cushioning the inside of it. The outside has a small control panel that is covered in dust and the lights of the buttons are dim and the backside of it has multiple thick cords and wires that run along the ground and disappear under some rubble. ¡®I was in one of their experimental cryo chambers¡­but how did I get in it and what happened to the facility?¡¯ As one question was answered, multiple more had appeared in its place.


    Touching the cryo chamber, the metal was unfeeling under her touch, but her arms could feel a severe chill emanating from the inside and evidence that there was ice once present in the machine. After her quick inspection, she decided she should get out of the facility due to the stability of her surroundings. Looking at the broken window as the only way out of the current room, she makes her way over while climbing over the debris. Upon making it to the window she tries as carefully as she can to climb through, but she makes it though with some slight scratches to her arms and legs from the broken shards. Landing with crunching noise from the broken glass on the ground, now finding herself in a dimly lit hallway barely able to as the only light sources being the dim blue light from the room she came from and a flickering white light down the only hallway that isn¡¯t blocked off or leads to a dead end.


    With the only way forward being toward the flickering light, with the heavy crunching sounds from the grit and glass as she makes her way through toward the light. Upon getting closer to the light, she starts to hear a soft and slow dripping of water. *Drip¡­.drip¡­.drip.* Entering the flickering hallway she sees that the floor is partially flooded from the pipes that were burst in the ceiling and walls, presumably by the same event that caused the collapse of the facility. With no other option than moving into the ankle-high cloudy stagnant water, she steps into the water and becomes uncomfortable as the water seeps into her socks and shoes, soaking them in the process.


    In the hallway, she can see that the flickering lights are coming from ceiling lights that are barely hanging on to their original positions. The hallway leads out to her left and right, but knowing the facility layout like the back of her own hand, she knows that the left leads to a dead end as it heads to the radiobiology department section of the facility. Knowing this she heads to the right pathway as it leads to the main elevators and staircase, wading through the hallway she comes across a glass wall looking into a completely ruined laboratory. With the better lighting, she sees herself in the reflection of the glass for the first time properly. Her hair was dark brown with a white-gray color coming from her roots, and is now so long it reaches to her lower back. Behind her round and cracked lensed glasses, her eyes were now a dull pale green bordering gray. Her outfit, which was once an oversized green knitted sweater over a brown midi-length skirt and long socks going into a pair of black mary jane shoes, has also lost their brighter colors now resulting in a dull green and brown. Around her neck was a lanyard that had an ID card and a white blank key card.


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    The ID card was partly damaged with the ink faded in some parts of it, but it had the words ¡®Fluxcor Employee ID¡¯ at the top of it, a barely visible image of a woman with shoulder-length hair dark brown hair and hazel-green eyes behind large circle rimmed glasses can also be seen on the card. On the bottom was the most damaged, but one can make out the words ¡®Evelyn¡¯ and ¡®Biogeneticist¡¯; the place where the last name would be, is too faded and damaged to read. Evelyn¡¯s appearance makes the anxiety and dread that she has been feeling build up more. As it appears, she was in the cryo chamber for quite a while, as along with the facility¡¯s state means that no one has stepped foot down here. She takes a deep breath to calm herself, as panicking in this current scenario will do her no good, and she has hope that it''s just the facility collapsed, and the outside is fine. While on her wade through the water she passes by ruined labs and offices and notices a pattern of all the electronic key card doors being opened. ¡®How curious¡¯ Evelyn muses.


    Finally, Evelyn arrives at her destination of the main elevators and stairway, after a couple of minutes of wading through water and climbing over bits of debris blocking her way. The elevators obviously do not work, even if they did, it would be unsafe to do so. One of the elevator doors is busted, and it seems like the elevator carriage fell down the shaft causing it to bend the doors outward, the other elevator door is cracked slightly open with the elevator stuck in between floors.


    The only way out appears to be the stairway, Evelyn hopes that the stairs are not in complete disrepair, or she might be trapped underground. She pushes hard against the stairway door in an attempt to open it as she is met by resistance, but she manages to crack it open enough to squeeze into the stairway. In the stairway she was met with a worrisome sight, the stairway had partly collapsed. The stairway is barely visible, with some still functional wall lights illuminating the stairway. Revealing chucks of the stairs that have broken off and fallen to the bottom which is why there was resistance met at the door due to the debris. Evelyn curses slightly under her breath, ¡®I should¡¯ve gone with Angela and Adam when they went on all those exercise outings more often¡¯ Evelyn sighs in her mind.


    Evelyn psychs herself up in preparation for the climb. Carefully she starts to climb making sure to test each placement for her feet while gripping on anything her hands can catch a grasp upon to steady herself. Slowly she makes progress until almost to the top of the stairway she is met with a section that is left with just rebar sticking out from the walls with small chunks of concrete still attached. The exposed rebar has long rusted away, adding to the already perilous situation. Testing her weight on the closest rebar to her, it is stable enough to hold her briefly, but she would have to be quick.


    Having to ditch her slow and careful method, she quickly makes her steps on the rebar going from one to the other. Right before reaching the stairs landing, the rebar she moved onto started to crumble beneath her. With no time to think, Evelyn launches herself off the unstable rebar in a leap of faith towards the landing. Evelyn lands roughly catching her grasp on the stair railing, with the landing getting her right under her rib cage with the pain almost making her let go of her grip on the rusted stair railing.


    Fighting her instinct to recoil and cover the pained area, Evelyn pulls herself up the landing fully whilst damaging her knitted sweater against the rugged exposed concrete. She drags herself to the open stair doorway leading to the hallway of the level one basement and curls up on the dusty ground from exhaustion and severe pain.


    After a few moments of recovering, Evelyn gets up off the ground and makes her way out of the stairway. Following along an empty, straight hallway she comes out of a doorway that was once hidden by a vending machine. Evelyn took note of this abnormality, ¡®Something is really wrong if even the lab doorway was left wide open¡¯. Trudging forward she finds that the access to the ground floor of the building is inaccessible as it appears the whole building had collapsed into itself. Evelyn wanders around the empty and dilapidated hallways for a way outside, encountering the few exit signs left hanging from the ceilings and a barely legible evacuation route map.


    Following the routes and signs, Evelyn finally finds a door that isn¡¯t blocked off or inaccessible. The door is an old heavy metal fire exit door that was left over from the old iteration of the facility. Evelyn puts her worn out and battered body against the door and pushes with all her remaining strength in an attempt to escape. Slowly the door makes progress on swinging outward, after a few excruciating seconds the door opens wide, blinding Evelyn¡¯s eyes with strong sunlight. Covering her eyes with her arm she pushes outside with a few steps hearing *crunch¡­crunch¡­SNAP!*


    Hearing a sharp snapping sound, Evelyn looks down then follows her eyes down the object and makes a terrifying discovery. Laid among the dead dried grass was a human skeleton now with a broken left ulna as it was reaching for the fire exit door.


    Chapter 1: Beginning of a Grim Reality

 Chapter 2

    *Actions/Sounds*


    ¡®Thoughts¡¯


    ¡°Speech¡±


    [System]


    <hr>


    <Evelyn>


    Upon the realization that what Evelyn was seeing was a human skeleton, she backs away toward the exit door she came out of. With the feeling of the door against her back she slides down to sit upon the ground, she continues making eye contact with the corpse draining her of sanity. Her palms make contact with the brown dead grass beneath her, crumbling upon her touch. Evelyn¡¯s mind starts to crumble away at the hope she had that it was just the facility that was in disrepair, but now it is confirmed that something was terribly wrong. Evelyn¡¯s body begins to tremble due to her stress and tries to wrap her arms around herself to try to calm herself, while doing her best to ignore the corpse 2 feet away from her.


    *Ding*


    A sudden ding sounds off next to her right ear. Evelyn pans her head to look for the source of the noise, making eye contact with a floating light blue panel of white text at eye height.


    [Congratulations on being the last survivor. You have been selected for the Admin role, Do you accept?]


    [Yes] or [No]


    Reading the text box over and over, Evelyn could understand the words, but her brain refused to accept them. She reached her shaking hand over to the text and tapped the [No] option, after which the text box vanished as if it was never there. She had the gut feeling that accepting the offer would result in something terrible, but the fact that it stated that she was the last survivor terrified her. ¡®I refuse to accept that statement unless I see for myself¡¯ Evelyn attempted to calm her mind. She unsteadily gets off the ground and observes the surroundings closer as she begins to move toward the city.


    The once beautiful mixed temperate forest, with the diverse mix of broadleaf and conifer tree species, now a graveyard of withered trees. It can only be described as a wasteland now, the grass and the other plant species, native and invasive, are also withered away. Evelyn¡¯s nature loving heart broke seeing the scene, she knew all of their scientific names by heart, but now she could barely identify them.


    While walking, she saw other corpses scattered through the forest both human and animal, all mere skeletons; this disaster spared none in its path. Evelyn tried her best to give each one she encountered a respectable distance as she moved past. To be respectful and in case there was some disease that might come from contact with them. Each time she encountered one she inadvertently started to speed up, her once unsteady walk turning into a brisk jog.


    After a few unnerving minutes in the dead forest she sees a clearing ahead indicating she has found one of the main roads leading into the city. Upon exiting through the treeline, Evelyn arrives at the main road, she is met with another depressing sight. The road was littered with cars strewn about, peering into some she could see more death present. Some vehicles were unoccupied, but the presumed owners didn¡¯t make it far as just outside the doors she could see skeletons sprawled against the pavement. Some had bones broken or part of their skull smashed by someone or something.


    Evelyn passes by a few more vehicles, and she makes an observation that all the cars are coming from the city, none were heading into the city. She halts for a moment in consideration on if she should press on as by the scene seen here. She can only make an assumption that they were all trying to flee from something happening in the city but just didn¡¯t make it far.


    ¡®Nonetheless¡­ I have to push forward. The city might give me a clue on what happened even if it might be dangerous.¡¯ Evelyn thought to herself. Pushing forward with her battered body she marches onward to potential danger in the city. She walks a few miles on the road avoiding occasional obstacles until she passes by a sign. The sign was a welcome sign that had ¡®Welcome to the City of Hyacinth¡¯ written in a bold white font. In one of the bottom corners was an illustration of an ocean beach, while in the opposing corner was an illustration of some cool colored hyacinth flowers. Like most objects found so far, it had also dulled in color due to the weathering of time.


    Finally reaching the outskirts of the city, Evelyn needed to take a breather. Evelyn puts her hand against a tree as she leans against it. She was exhausted and her lungs burned from the amount of exercise her unprepared body had to do so far today. Only for the tree to crumble under her slightest touch and topple over, Evelyn moved out of the way before settling to sit on the trunk of a nearby convertible to rest.


    After her rest, Evelyn hops off the trunk and begins her venture into the unknown of the once familiar city. Walking through the empty streets, Evelyn steps around the trash almost completely fused to the pavement and the glass shards from all the shattered windows. Some buildings have collapsed completely, causing a few streets to be cut off as they are blocked, unless Evelyn wanted to climb up the most likely unstable rubble. Risking a potential landslide that could trap her limbs with no likely help, she thought against such an idea.


    Painted among the walls of the alleyways and empty walls was graffiti, the last remnants of humanity. And a glimpse into what could have happened. The most common thing was a simple blue box and an aggressive red ¡®X¡¯ over it, the other were the sayings ¡®Don¡¯t trust the Words of Blue¡¯ and ¡®Blue despair¡¯. This reaffirmed Evelyn¡¯s gut feeling about the blue box but also told her it was not a hallucination.


    A couple of streets later, Evelyn starts yelling out to anything that could hear her, as at this point she would welcome even getting attacked, as long as it showed she wasn¡¯t alone. And the eerie silence was grinding her nerves as she discovered that there was no sound besides her own footsteps and worn out breathing, not even the wind was present. It was as if the world itself was as stagnant as the air, the only true sound she had heard besides her own was the water dripping in the facility but after that, pure isolating silence.


    ¡°Anyone¡­please¡­anyone there¡± Evelyn pleaded as her voice finally grew horse from her yelling, her vocal cords felt like it was being ground by sandpaper in any further attempts to yell out. Slowing her pace, she looked at the street signs and saw she was near the piers to the ocean and thought maybe the ocean might soothe her crumbling mental state. Walking onto the pier street that was once the prime tourism spot for the town besides the nearby national park, now as desolate as the rest of the town, with the trinket and food carts toppled onto their side and the storefronts in ruin.


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    Resting her hands upon the railing that overlooked the beach and the ocean she is met with a sight that makes her wish this whole day was a terrible nightmare that she can wake up from. The beach was lined with black bags that were side by side that stretched out into the distance in three rows. The little spark of hope she had when going through the city and finding the lack of bodies was cracked, but what caused it to shatter was the sight of the ocean.


    It was gone, the ocean was missing, it defied all logic Evelyn had. The only reminder that it was once there were the bones of marine life washed ashore, as if the ocean pushed them all ashore before vanishing. Evelyn dropped to her knees while still holding onto the railing with her left hand, the only thing that was keeping her going was that little spark of hope, but now what was there to hope for. Evelyn felt tears welling up in her eyes, knowing all she had and known was gone.


    *Ding*


    A sudden ding noise rings out in the silent world, Evelyn in her newfound despair pans her head to look at the source. Finding a light blue text box with white font.


    [No other lifeforms detected in this reality. You have been selected for the Admin role, Do you accept?]


    [Yes] or [No]


    ¡°Ha¡­hahaha¡± Evelyn began a shaky laugh in response to seeing the message presented. It was slightly different from the one from before, but it was relatively the same. Evelyn did not hesitate to hit the [No]. She saw the messages in the graffiti throughout the city, the blue box was not to be trusted as it was likely involved in the destruction of the world or the main culprit. The blue box disappeared shortly after Evelyn¡¯s response.


    The next few hours was Evelyn mindlessly wandering the city for more clues and remnants of humanity. Simultaneously dealing with the blue box each time it appeared with the same ding noise and same message, each time she would hit the [No] response, and it would simply vanish to reappear awhile later.


    Seeing the sun beginning to set, Evelyn decides to find a spot near the pier area to watch the sunset. Finding a bench on the storefront side of the road to sit upon, as it also blocked the depressing sight of the beach. After watching the full sunset, she brought her legs up on the bench to hug them with her arms and to hang her head down to clear her mind.


    *Ding*


    A sudden ding rang out, at this point it is now synonymous with the arrival of the blue box to Evelyn. And in muscle memory, hit where the [No] option was located with blind precision.


    *Pop*


    A pop noise, similar to a party popper, jolted Evelyn out of her drowsy stupor. An unfamiliar noise, she rapidly turned to face the box, to be met with a change in its appearance and a dreadful sight. It was the same message as before but the [Yes] and [No] options were different, they were both the same light blue box and white text before but now were drastically different. The [Yes] changed to a black box with red text while the [No] had changed into a black box with purple text with the word [Yes], there was no longer a [No] option to select, and she had mistakenly hit the now purple text [Yes]. She had accepted the offer.


    ¡°No, no, no, no¡± Evelyn cried out in despair and her pupils shook in shock. She then turned to where the other noise came from. The pop noise was from the opening of another smaller text box. That was the same blue scheme as the offer text box but had little confetti poppers sides with the confetti circling the edge of the text box to give it a border. A little opened gift box icon was seen above the white text.


    [You have gotten a gift from the sender ¡®N¡¯. They have given the following message attached: Congrats on finally accepting the offer, here is a little gift from the great me to you. Enjoy Tee-hee.]


    Evelyn wanted to ponder what that gift could entail with that little laugh written at the end, but she was quickly occupied with a different problem. She suddenly felt a severe pain throughout her body, she could barely see the offer text box had swapped text.


    [Offer has been accepted. Beginning of change to suit admin role.]


    Evelyn¡¯s skin began to bubble and blister on her left side before it was slowly wrapped with a bandage of unknown origin. That in itself felt like someone was ripping her skin off to then put it back on in a different place. Evelyn at this point has fallen off the bench and has curled up on the ground in pain, it was proceeding as a slow and horrendously painful process. That was until she was hit with a different pain that felt like her brain was being torn apart. As she felt emotions of all kinds but mostly soul crushing ones all at once until she heard a simple *Click* and all went black.


    Not far above Evelyn¡¯s now unconscious body, two distortions appeared. From one distortion, a white marble hand that had its fingers closed gently over its palm, and it appeared to be shattered off something else a few inches past the wrist. The wrist had what appeared to be a simple black tattoo or print of a black chain in a complete loop around the wrist. The hands opened to release an eye with an iris of the deepest black.


    From the other distortion, appeared a closed mouth with the lips being a black coloring or lipstick. The mouth opened suddenly, revealing a tongue, a set of teeth, and a deep black void further down the assumed throat. A few seconds passed, and an eyeball can be seen being pushed from the void by an unseen force until it was almost out of the mouth until it was held in place by the white teeth, preventing it from proceeding forward. The eye turned, revealing a blood-red iris.


    The hand turned toward the mouth, ¡°What in the stars did you do¡± a monotone feminine voice said in a slightly annoyed tone.


    ¡°I gave it a slight gift, you finally decided to join me in my game and since it was so curious what happened. I decided to give it the emotions that the world had felt during that time period. It''s not my fault it couldn¡¯t stand the emotions all at once.¡± a more masculine voice said in a childish and mocking tone as the mouth turned to the hand and floating up and down in response.


    ¡°Yes, I did say I wanted to join your game and that I did want her to be my player. But that didn¡¯t mean you could do this.¡± The female voice emotionlessly stated. The black eye above the hand narrowed itself while it looked at the mouth before opening more as it looked at Evelyn¡¯s body.


    ¡°You are lucky I stopped the transformation midway due to your gift causing her too much pain¡± the feminine voice stated. A few seconds of silence before the female voice spoke coldly, ¡°I want a contract¡±.


    ¡°A contract! My, do you not trust me, why would you need a contract over such a silly mistake¡± the masculine says in a surprised and jesting tone. The mouth almost lost its hold over the eyeball in sheer shock.


    ¡°It¡¯s due to the fact that I¡¯ve known you since we have been conceptualized, that I want a contract. That you won¡¯t interfere or look into this dimension and its inhabitants the entire span of the game¡± the feminine voice coldly stated while looking at the mouth.


    ¡°But that will be an unseen aspect of my game¡± the masculine voiced out while looking at hand.


    ¡°It''s precisely why an unseen aspect would make it fun, as it will be a surprise for the game, knowing everything could make it boring for you¡± the feminine voice said back.


    ¡°Oh my indeed it would!¡± the masculine voice excitedly said. ¡°I do have 11 others and the main playing board I¡¯m currently keeping watch of, one less to that would make no difference¡± the masculine voice then quietly said. ¡°Alright then it is a deal¡±.


    ¡°The deal has been set, let''s proceed with the game¡± the feminine voice confirmed, thus sealing the deal.


    ¡°Indeed let us watch¡± the masculine excitedly said before manically laughing. The mouth then could be seen with the teeth applying pressure against the eyeball until it popped, and the destroyed eyeball slid back into the mouth and the lips closed, causing the mouth to distort and disappear.


    Leaving just the hand left, it turned to look from where the mouth disappeared to Evelyn. The eye looked at her for a full minute, before its fingers began to slowly wrap over the eye. The eye closed before the fingers held flat against the hand before the hand distorted and vanished as well, leaving Evelyn in the lone world.


    Chapter 2: The Devil¡¯s Contract Dyed in Blue

 Chapter 3- ! TW !

    *Actions/Sounds*


    ¡®Thoughts¡¯


    ¡°Speech¡±


    [System]


    ! Trigger Warning: Topic of Suicide !


    <hr>


    <???>


    In a dark void of space bereft of any bright light source bare a few dots of distant stars flickering in and out of existence. In the void there was a marble statue with a blank face pouring a pitcher of an unknown glowing substance into a pool of light present on the assumed floor of the space that lacks any stars flickering. Reflected into the pool of light is a barely seeable image, as if distorting its image for any onlookers.


    From the darkness a white marble arm emerges as if passing through a thin veil or fabric. Fine cracks are seen throughout the marble, the damaged arm reaches toward the pool, its fingers stretched out to touch it before stopping above it. The hand slowly closes into a fist before backing away.


    ¡°I¡­ I cannot watch this any longer¡± a cold toned feminine voice quietly echoes through the space. The damaged arm is seen moving back and upwards back into the dark veil of space before coming back down with a clear drop of unknown liquid on the tip of the index finger. It hovers the finger over a pool of light.


    ¡°Where was it again?¡± the voice mumbles to themself as they mull over something.


    *BANG*


    The sound of a rather large explosion is heard nearby, startling the entity as the arm flinches, causing the drop of liquid to fly off somewhere random into the pool below. The arm then turns, as if the entity it is connected to has turned around to look behind them to see the source of the explosive sound.


    ¡°What in creation are they up to now¡± the voice mutters before letting out a sigh as there is maniacal laughter heard in the distance after the explosion went off. The entity turns back toward the pool, ¡°I do not know where that imbuement landed, but it matters not,¡± the arm reaches backward and upward once again to reveal another drop of unknown liquid as identical as the one previous one.


    ¡°Ah, there it is¡± the voice finds what it was searching for in the pool below. The damaged hand stretches over a specific spot of the pool before letting the drop of liquid fall straight down into it.


    *pling*


    The drop, upon making contact with the pool of light, causes a brief ripple to go through the pool and a sound that was a mix between a water drop and the pluck of a harp string to go off. ¡°I hope that this interference will be worth it¡­be it blessing or curse¡± the voice says quietly to themselves before the damaged arm waves at the pool of light as if to dismiss it before the arm turns and disappears back into the veil of darkness.


    A few moments later, the statue above the pool gestures a respectful nod in the direction the voice was located. It then stops pouring the pitcher it was holding into the pool of light, once the pitcher was lifted the pool of light slowly shrinks into the center of itself before disappearing completely. The statue watches to confirm the pool has completely vanished before spinning with their pitcher and launching themselves upward toward the flickering stars. In the dark void, the statue then explodes into glimmering lights, revealing a constellation now in its place in the void.


    <hr>


    <Evelyn>


    ¡°Ugh¡± Evelyn rouses awake by the sunbeam aiming for her eyes, covering her face with her right arm. The light shone through the open section of the ruined roof of the building, the room was a part of the facility that Evelyn once worked at. It was located in the above ground part of the facility that had yet to collapse. Evelyn was sleeping on the ground as barely any fabric survived in good condition due to time and environmental conditions, most were crumbling away or crusty, so she¡¯d rather just sleep on the hard ground.


    *Sigh*


    ¡°Failed again¡± Evelyn mutters to herself in a pained tone. She gets off the ground with much difficulty due to her left side being almost non-functional to move. She rolls onto her stomach and props herself up using her right arm, and then bends her right leg, so her foot meets the ground. Forcefully pushing off the ground she manages to get onto her feet.


    Evelyn begins to walk through the room towards a wall, passing by a toppled over wooden stool and a couple of empty liquor bottles with unreadable labels. Twenty-two tallies lined the wall, with Evelyn adding the twenty-third with a piece of concrete debris. Afterward she shuffles over to a corner that has a long piece of wooden plank propped up against the wall covering something mounted to the wall. She slides the wooden plank to the side, revealing a mirror.


    Evelyn¡¯s appearance is much worse than it initially was when she first woke up in the cryo-chamber. Her hair is a disheveled tangled mess, her glasses are barely keeping the heavily cracked lens in place and her eyes have long-lost their shine. Even her skin and lips have begun to crack and peel from the lack of moisture and untreated sunburns due to constant direct sunlight. Using her only functioning arm, she removes the rope from around her neck with slight difficulty. The rope marks upon her neck quickly disappearing once the rope was loosened and removed.


    The left side of her body is a reminder of her incomplete transformation. The white bandage-like material that covered her boiling skin had hardened into a plaster-like substance that could not be removed no matter what method Evelyn tried. It also caused her to have limited mobility and usage of her left side, as she can barely bend her joints. Her outfit is also not in the best shape as she had not changed, it is all torn up and covered in dirt and grime, as if she climbed out from a grave.


    After a few seconds of looking at her reflection, she covers it back up with the board, unable to stand looking at herself any longer. With nothing else to do, she begins her mindless wandering around. She walks toward the city and passes from the silent deadwood forest to the still highway. On the highway she passes by bodies neatly lined on the side of the roadside by side, a similar scene to the beach but without the black body bags.


    Entering the city she approaches a large plastic heavy-duty dump cart with rubber tires on the sidewalk. Evelyn grabs it and proceeds to drag it behind her along her wandering. After about an hour of wandering through the desolate city, she stops in front of a rather tall office building built of brick. Evelyn lifelessly looks up and down the building, inspecting its condition. Deeming it stable enough, Evelyn moves to park her cart to the sidewalk next to a withered up tree that was surrounded by a short circle metal fence at the base of it.


    Approaching the building¡¯s main door, Evelyn reaches to open it to find it locked. Evelyn just stands there looking at the door before tilting her head slightly to look at the first floor windows to the side of her. Seeing that they are broken, she walks towards the closest one and climbs through, not caring that she cut up her exposed skin on her right side and destroying her clothes even more in the process.


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    Taking a brief glance around her surroundings, the room was full of desk cubicles with all manner of objects tossed around as if a whirlwind blew through. It was most likely ransacked during the fall of the world, looking down at a broken picture frame of a little kid. A painful reminder of what once was, Evelyn gently places the picture from the floor back onto a desk.


    Evelyn then left the room, not wishing to linger any longer. Locating the staircase, she ascends to the roof access and emerges on the roof of the building. Evelyn approaches the half-wall barrier of the roof that was closest to the roof access. She climbs up onto it and sits on the wall with her back against the roof access exterior wall and proceeds to lounge on the wall. Her left leg straight along the wall, her right leg bent at the knee with her foot on the wall and her right arm laid upon her stomach as her left arm hung off the edge of the wall.


    Lazing on the roof, she turns to look to her left, taking in the sight of the once lively cityscape, now reduced to a quiet remnant of a previous era. Looking over the horizon, all she sees is the midday sun and the endless blue sky. Evelyn has yet to see any clouds of any kind during her time awake, not above her nor in the distance. Even the wind has ceased to blow, like the world was put on pause.


    Peering below her, she looks at the street below the ten-story office building she has chosen to climb up to the roof of. She sees cars driving around with car horns going off in the distance. People walking their dogs or chatting to each other on benches waiting for the bus. Even some people running to and fro on the sidewalk trying to get to their own destinations. Evelyn closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh before opening her eyes once more to see the scene below gone. A mere fragmented scene of the ghosts of the past that now haunts her crippled sanity.


    *Ding*


    The dreaded ding noise sounds off to her right, signaling the arrival of the damned blue box. Evelyn¡¯s attention is taken from staring off, onto the blue box. She slowly pans her head to look at it with her listless stare, preparing to reject its offer. Only to be slightly surprised to see that there was now additional text at the bottom, as up till now it has only asked her to continue her transformation.


    [The transformation process to suit the admin role has been halted. Would you like to continue the process?]


    [Please continue process to bring hope to this world]


    [Yes] or [No]


    ¡°Ha¡± Evelyn lets out a loud laugh of disbelief before hunching herself forward and beginning a laughing fit of madness. After a few minutes of straight laughing, she suddenly stops and looks straight at the blue box with an expression that was lacking emotion. ¡°You want me to bring hope to this world? Me? ME?¡± Evelyn asks the blue box with anger rising in her voice until she shouts at it, pointing at herself with her right hand.


    She starts chuckling to herself as she maneuvers herself to standing on top of the half wall, her right arm now bracing herself against the roof access exterior wall. ¡°Bring hope to this world, you say? What hope is there to be had if there isn¡¯t anyone or anything to bring hope to in this world. What kind of hope can you expect if the one that is supposed to bring it, has none to offer.¡± Evelyn¡¯s chuckles led into a straight answer to the blue box before slowly quieting to a hopeless whisper. ¡°This world is a lost cause. It''s better to just let it go, both me and this world¡­please just let me end this suffering¡± she pleads to the blue box while an expression of pain and sadness is worn on her face.


    A few moments of silence pass as Evelyn just stares at the blue box, almost hoping it would respond back. ¡°¡­what was I expecting? It never responded to me before. Why would it know?¡± Evelyn says in an emotionless tone in her voice before using her right arm and forcefully pushing against the wall she was bracing herself against. Pushing herself backwards, off the roof of the building.


    The air passes by Evelyn as she falls until¡­


    *Splick*


    A horrendous noise rang through the dead world, a mix between wet visceral noise and bone snapping as Evelyn¡¯s vision went black as she hit the ground below. Her body now a crumpled, tangled mess of busted viscera and limbs a twisted mess as her bones poke out at some places. The world goes silent, no sound to be heard for a few minutes.


    *tick¡­tock¡­tick¡­ Tock¡­TICK¡­DONG!*


    The quiet distant ticking of a clock could be heard, slowly coming closer and more pronounced. A loud chime of a grandfather clock rings out, time seems to freeze for a moment. Then it began, Evelyn¡¯s blood that poured onto the cracks of the pavement seemed to revert back to her body and spine-chilling squelching could begin to be heard as Evelyn¡¯s body began to revert the damage to her flesh and busted organs.


    Evelyn comes to mid-repair as she feels the soul-crushing pain of her body being put back into order, her organs shifting and limbs twisting back into their right places. She is unable to cry out, only able to silently scream in her mind. A few agonizing minutes felt like hours to her until she was back into the state she was in before the fall, as if it never happened. No evidence that it occurred besides the new damage to her already beaten up clothes.


    A few moments Evelyn just lays there on the pavement, processing her experience and just weeps but no tears are to be shed, as she used them up already days ago. She sits up and looks down through the holes in her clothes to see that the plaster-like substance has moved an inch closer to the right side of her body.


    *sigh*


    She lets out a low sigh before getting up fully, taking a moment to look at the blue box that had remained open even during her fall and regeneration. She taps onto the [No] option and then walks over to the dump cart she parked nearby earlier. Grabbing its handle, she begins to hobble around the city mindlessly, until she comes across a pair of skeletal remains holding hands. An assumed adult skeleton had a worn out green dress with a smaller skeleton, she can only guess it was a mother and child.


    Evelyn looks at the pair for a moment before carefully loading the adult skeleton into the cart, using the clothing the skeletal remains had on as a makeshift bag to hold the bones in. Once in place she does the same with the smaller skeleton. After loading them on she begins to wander about again, coming across more corpses and doing the same actions. After her cart was full she began to walk towards the exit of the city, after a bit she came to the line of corpses on the side of the highway she passed by earlier. She takes the bundle of bones out of her cart and sets them to the side, making sure to keep the ones found next to each together.


    It had become the only way she could pass time as she found. Initially she planned to bury them but has yet not found any tools that survived the extreme weathering or were strong enough to break the hard dry ground. She had tried to dig using her hands, but it was not effective enough or would take too much time, even if her fingertips weren¡¯t necrotic.


    *Pop*


    Evelyn freezes in her movement, the one noise she didn¡¯t want to hear ever again and the one from her nightmares. The party popper noise that signified the so-called ¡®Gift¡¯, the last one, caused her so much pain and overwhelming grief that it basically drained her to the point of emotionlessness. In instinct, she begins to hug her right side toward her unmoving left side, waiting for the ¡®Gift¡¯ to inflict more pain and closing her eyes shut.


    A few minutes passed before she opened her eyes cautiously, nothing had happened to her. Taking the courage, she looks at the newly opened blue box.


    [You have gotten a gift from the sender ¡®E¡¯. They have given no message attached to the gift.]


    After blankly staring at the blue box for a while, it just disappears on its own. Leaving Evelyn concerned and confused on what the gift was supposed to be besides a sick joke to trip her into a panic attack. Deciding that it might just be some joke, she begins her wander and body collection once again. The corpses found were odd as they were in two different stages of decay. Most were in the final stage, being dry skeletons with no soft tissue keeping them together, while the others were almost in the final stage and had barely any soft tissue keeping the bones together. The ones in the complete final stage got put in clothing bundles and the other group were carefully placed as intact as they could into the cart with the feet hanging off the back side of the cart.


    If they were too stiff to be moved or were in poses that could not fit in the cart, they were left in place to be moved if she had a better method. But after a few of her trips she noticed the sun was going to set soon so she decided to end her excursion and head back to the facility for the night. Not wanting to accidentally lose the only cart with decent condition she could find, she just takes it back with her through the woods.


    After reaching the broken glass entrance of the main floor of the facility, she walks into the main lobby with the large but mostly destroyed receptionist desk. Above the desk were large letters ¡®Flux¡¯ stung to the ceiling using heavy-duty wire and the letters ¡®cor¡¯ on the ground as the wires had snapped. Deciding to use some of the remaining daylight, she rummages through the rubble for anything usable and manages to find some beaten up plastic chairs. Grabbing the two best condition ones and placing them in a cart to briefly use to transport to the room she has been staying in. Dragging them from the cart into the middle of the room and leaving the cart out in the hallway, she sets up the chairs as a makeshift bed.


    Settling herself in her new set up that was no longer just the floor, she looks up through the hole in the ceiling and just watches the sky turn from red to the dark of night. Calling it for the day, she reaches for a nearby open bottle of liquor she drinks herself to blacking out, hoping she won¡¯t have too bad of nightmares tonight.


    Evelyn actually had a decent night of no nightmares for once, rousing from slumber with a heavy feeling on her torso. She opens her weary and looks for the source of heaviness to only be met with a head full of light messy brown hair. Instantly, she wakes up fully at this abnormality, opening her eyes to fully see that there is a small child sleeping on top of her. She also feels that there was something placed in her right hand, opening it to find a strip of paper with some text in purple ink that read, ¡®Live on¡¯.