Story Seed - Stranded

Image Source:http://noro8.deviantart.com/art/Breather-560339472

I try to keep my breathing regular. Even. Steady. I think back to my training and concentrate on that.

I'm not really sure how I got here. For that matter I don't really know where here is. It's not anyplace I want to be, that much I do know. Ruined and worn out, this place is clearly abandoned. The paint is faded, chipped and peeling, but I can still see where once "danger" had been painted. Worse still and more troubling I can see a biohazard symbol.

I check my mask again. My gloves. The cuffs and collar of my jacket. I tighten the straps around the tops of my boots a little more. I shift uneasily on the broken cabinet that I'm sitting on.

I was with my squad. The six of us were raiding a suspected drug den. Some kind of fancy new drug. The report said it made people crazy. Gave them visions, like LSD, but also tweaked them out like some kind of methamphetamine or coke. The charges blew the doors open and we breached the place. All I remember after that was some kind of purple flash and a sound like somebody ripping a bedsheet. The light was blinding, and that sound was so loud.

I check my watch and sigh; barely five minutes have passed. This cabinet is a shitty chair. I check my weapon. Again. It's fine. I tap my comms. Static. Again. I can't help but look down at the strange floor.

I froze. Hunkered down. Waited. With some time my eyes cleared. With a little more the ringing in my ears faded. I found myself here. This strange decaying place. With its signs of danger, and its hints of biological corruption.

And then there was the floor.

There were windows in the floor. The glass was thick and clear. Below the floor there was -are?- other places. I cannot grasp what I am seeing. One window shows a deep blue sea; an octopus gliding by gives me a curious look. Another shows the kind of blackness that can only be space, broken as it is by pinpricks of cold light. A rolling meadow. A dark forest. Dozens more.

It's been an hour. I'm starting to feel strange. I remember things in bits now. The light and sound came from a hole that looked torn out of the world. It reminds me of the run down movie theater from my childhood. The screen was torn, and if you sat in the wrong place -or maybe the right one- you could see through the movie to the old backstage. Like a hole in the world.

The others aren't coming for me. Maybe they can't. I stand. The state of this place allows me to easily see my footprints. I backtrack to where I woke up. It takes some time, but I find the right window. I can see the warehouse. I can see the bodies of my squad. The drug dealers, or whatever they are. The strange machinery they are using is only an observation to me. I can't worry about that.

I have to figure out how to open this window again.