Doors Plot: Welcome to the Midnight Isle

[wipeawaythedebt]

The remote mining colony on CX-4593 had been radio silent for six months.

The colony, nicknamed the Midnight Isle by the miners trapped in its perpetual darkness, had been running at peak efficency until the drills hit and cracked a mineral that their local geologists could not identify. After sending a copy of the readings and initial scientific findings back to Earthbase Epsilon, the miner recorded that they intended to resume drilling the next day. After that last broadcast, communication stopped. The colony managers, safe in their homes on Epsilon attempted many times to re-initiate communication, but to no avail.

A proposed rescue mission is still being discussed in committee and to the outside world, the mining company reports that everything is normal, just some routine communication bugs.

Meanwhile, the radio silence continues, but all is not silent on the Midnight Isle. There is clicking and scratching inside the walls and floors, distant echoes in the halls, and the electronic hum of a station still at full power. But absent are the sounds of the miners, and everywhere are the signs of distress and danger. Meals left abandoned covered in mold and dust. Chairs and tables stacked, as if in barricades, and most worrying of all, the smears of blood in the halls and pooled on the floors, absent of bodies, but full of unanswered questions.

And now, six months after the strange mineral was discovered, there are doors opening and strangers are arriving.

Comments

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth didn't know where she was.

She hadn't been sent back - that, she at least knew, was for sure. She wasn't where she was a few moments ago, either. Instead, she was somewhere she almost certainly didn't want to be. She'd always been in control of the tears, and whatever had happened hadn't been a tear.

She didn't know how she got here.

The tension she felt was almost foreign after months away from the fear. It was enough to put her on full alert, though, as she scanned the area she'd entered once she was sure there was no door back - that'd be too easy. She was in some sort of living quarters, the beds lining the walls thick with dust from extreme misuse. Some other furniture was overturned or broken.

When she was picking through the place for some kind of blunt object(and it scared her, honestly, that it was the first thought that came to mind - something to protect herself, even if it were a broken leg of a chair), she found herself coming up, unfortunately, very empty. There was little she could do but try to move on from the room.

It took all of five seconds after opening the door for her to regret the decision. The lights were flickering, but it was enough to illuminate the huge blood splatter on the wall opposite of the door.

She didn't stifle the sound of shock that escaped from her mouth, loud enough to echo the empty hall, in time.

[notinanybook]

The door had not opened to lead her into the precinct.

Emma stands with her hand immediately going to the gun at her hip, frowning visibly as she tries to squint into the darkness, flickering lights only revealing so much in the split second she gets of certain details. She can hear the faint hum of something powering, a low thrumming that seems to reverberate from the very walls itself, and as she takes a few steps, the sound of her movement echoes in the otherwise silent space. She's about to reach for her phone to see if she can find anyone that way when she hears the scream.

Immediately, instinct rears to the forefront over self-preservation and she runs toward the sound, trying to pinpoint exactly where it had come from. Her gun is out and drawn, and she flicks the safety off with her thumb, keeping it ahead of her as she runs, gaze sweeping into each open doorway before she finally sees movement in one -

She lowers her gun at the sight of a face on the other side of it.

"What are you doing here?"

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth heard the footsteps too late to duck back into the room she was in and try to hide. She wasn't sure if she could move that fast after what she'd just discovered.

"I don't know!" she exclaimed, her voice high-pitched but hushed, now. Something had caused what was splashed on the wall, and she didn't want to alert it if it was still around. The panic of not knowing where she was turned into something much more productive for the situation - indignant anger over having a gun pointed at her. "Who are you? Where are we?"

She had to get back. She had to find Booker.

[notinanybook]

"My name is Emma," she answers, because at least that's something she has an answer for, anyway, and when she glances around them, she doesn't hear signs of any other life - except the constant hum that seems to be emanating from the very walls of this place.

"And as to the second part - I'm not really sure. Last thing I knew, I was heading to work - back in Darrow." She tests the name to see if it rings any bells of familiarity.

[cagedlamb]

Darrow. Elizabeth was never so happy to hear the city's name.

"I'm from Darrow too. I was with a friend before I came here, and now he's gone. I don't know how I got here, either," she said, glancing around nervously. It felt like they were being watched, though she hoped that was her own fear making her imagine things. "I'm Elizabeth. My friend's name is Booker. Have you seen anyone else besides me in here? I need to find him."

[notinanybook]

Booker. The name alone would be enough to make her blush if she didn't halt first, brow furrowing with confusion and recognition. She's probably revealed her hand already by that alone, but she feels the need to tread lightly just in case.

"It's just been you and me so far," she admits. "But if he's here, it's better if we stick together to look for him. We can watch each other's backs that way."

[cagedlamb]

Her expression said a lot. Elizabeth had never seen the woman before, nor had Booker ever mentioned her. It made her curious, but honestly, she knew there were bigger problems right now. She'd been in enough bad situations to spot one when she was in one.

"Okay. Okay," she said, taking a deep breath to calm herself. She timidly stepped out of the doorway, careful to hug the non-bloodied wall so she could come to a stop next to her. When it came to things like this, she was used to following someone. Having someone who appeared to at least know how to use a gun was comforting, at least. It was the small things. "Which way do you want to go? I only was in the room I came out of so far, and - and nothing's in there. It's all ruined."

It looked like a lot of this place was in a similar way. It didn't make her feel better about their situation.

[notinanybook]

"I came from that way, so I don't know if there's any chance of going back the way we came, trying the door again?" Emma shrugs both shoulders. "I doubt it'll work. I think if it was that easy, both of us would have been able to turn around and leave as easily as we found this place."

She keeps her gun out as they start moving slowly.

"Did you happen to hear anyone else?"

[cagedlamb]

"I know I tried going back where I came through. It's just a normal door," Elizabeth said, frowning. She might've tried all she could to open a tear or something, too, but that wasn't something she could do here, either. Wherever they were, it was definitely not Darrow and it definitely wasn't where she'd been before either.

"I've been hearing a lot of sounds. I don't know what it is or where it's coming from," she admitted, her gaze shifting toward the bloodstained wall near them as they passed it. It still turned her stomach "And that."

[notinanybook]

"Great. That's - reassuring," Emma answers, though it's not Elizabeth she's frustrated with. This doesn't seem like something Regina would pull, either, and somehow she doesn't believe her magic has enough sway to really do anything this powerful, so she doesn't know what that means.

"Definitely trying not to look at that, either," she adds, quickly diverting her eyes as they walk past a particularly nasty spatter. "Well, maybe we'll run into some familiar faces. If we got sucked through here, it makes sense that others might have, too."

[cagedlamb]

"My thoughts exactly," she said. She'd taken the words out of her mouth, honestly. There was something very wrong, and she had no idea what that something was. It was frightening, though she didn't show her fear. She had been through a lot, what was happening right now was just another test. "I'll keep an eye out for anything useful. Maybe we can figure out what's happened here while we look for people."

She just hoped Booker was alright. She knew he could take care of himself, but the place made her feel uneasy in a way that she hadn't even when she was back in Columbia.