I continued at that pace for what seemed like quite a while before I heard the faint beep of my datapad initializing. I slowed my pace in the next stride and firmly planted both of my feet to come to a full stop.

I looked down at the pad and my mind spun with terror, but I could not comprehend why. There, on the pad's relay screen, I saw a distorted image of my mother and father as I had seen them two years ago, on that fateful day. Their bodies laid clumsily on one another, and their blood intermingled and pooled. The image slowly panned out, and I saw him there. The image was coated in a faint static, but that face was unmistakable.

Liquid stood over them, blood trailing from his fingers to the ground. His body convulsed with laughter, and the sound seemed to swallow me whole. I no longer heard him through the pad's speaker system; his presence was all around me, and I heard his cruel chuckling in the bones of my skull, rattling my consciousness.

It was too much for me, then. I fell to the ground panting... and laid there quietly for a moment, thoughts blurring past me, despair and hatred consuming me.

After several minutes, I pulled myself to my knees, and looked down at the pad. There was nothing, as if it had not really been there, as if it had been out of commission the whole time.

"Control, did you get that? What in the HELL was that, and where did it come from?"

"Negative, Eggroll. Wee are still working on the positioning system. There were massive fluctuations in your vitals for a moment there, is everything under control?"

I didn't respond. I was scared and uneasy. Something was amiss, but I did not know what. I looked around me once again, and saw that I was farther along than I thought I had gone. I was almost to the foliage where Liquid's last reading had been picked up.

I got back to my feet, and looked up at the strange trees I was suddenly standing under. I pushed my way through the brush, and moved forward.

(This post was last modified: 14/05/2007 10:13 AM by iggrull.)