[02] Sinking Ship!

[Sage]

“Run!!”

“What’s going on?!”

“Run! Run!!”

“Where’s Timothy?!”

“RUUUUN!!!”

A thunderous cacophony assaulted Sage’s ears, and for the umpteenth time that day, she found herself fighting her way to consciousness, struggling mightily against a thick, heavy daze, her own exhaustion, and the mystifying pain of withdrawal. Bleary, angry eyes opened in narrow slits, and the girl shook under the exertion needed to keep them open against the glare of the fairly dim lighting.

Finally, she struggled up onto her knees and elbows while people sprinted, screaming, in all directions, bumping her and jostling her until she ultimately fell back down. Nobody seemed to notice, and Sage was forced to pick herself up all over again.

This time, she used the wall to help herself to her feet, but was pushed into the wall, against which she collapsed, by another frenzied person who raced past her. The girl’s frustration was beyond significant at this point, but the spectacle before her silenced any protests she might have wanted to voice.

In a narrow hall, people were racing in every direction, but what struck Sage was that the hall was pitched in a noticeably steep incline. Most people seemed to be trying to scramble up the corridor, while others raced down it. Massive, metal pipes lined the walls, and smaller ones accompanied miles of cable along the ceilings, stretching on beyond Sage’s sight.

Suddenly, a chubby man broke from the crowd which ran with aimless dischord, and forcefully caught Sage’s arm at the elbow and wrist. “Come on, miss; we ain’t got much time!”

He tugged for her to follow, but the blue haired girl resisted, only slowly taking steps after him, her legs wobbling wildly. “Wh-what? What’s happening? What don’t we have t-time for?”

“Come on, Charlie! She’s just a working girl anyway; ain’t got no family! Let’s go or you won’t ever see yours!”

With a nod, the fat man called ‘Charlie’ let go of Sage, and gave her a pained expression before disappearing into the throng. The hybrid fell back against the wall, the debris of abandoned luggage against it offering a tiny buffer between the few calm inches Sage occupied before the tempest of hallway just in front of her. She closed her eyes and slowly exhaled, relaxing her muscles in a vain attempt to melt away her stress.

Suddenly, she narrowed her eyes. Working girl?

Sage looked down at herself, and immediately, she blushed. Instead of her demure, Asian-inspired dress, she found herself in a bright red one-piece, that seemed to go from as low as decently possible on her chest to as high as possible on her thighs. Immediately, the blue haired girl pressed her legs tight together, and clasped her hands over the exposed parts of her chest, forcing her to take note of the elegant, white silk gloves on her hands. She couldn’t see the fire engine red lipstick she was wearing, or the rouge on her cheeks.

She could see that her hair had been relieved of its pigtails, and now cascaded down her back. A quick shake of her head also revealed that her uncomfortably tight - and short, she reminded herself - outfit was backless, as her long, blue hair dragged across bare skin.

A glance downward revealed why she had been having trouble walking. Ruby red high heels adorned her feet. Sage found them remarkably uncomfortable compared to her usual shoes. Honestly, she didn’t understand how other girls could possibly wear them, as she wobbled a few steps here and there.

So she was supposed to look like a prostitute, she realized with a frown. That didn’t explain much. It certainly didn’t explain what she was doing in a slanted hallway buzzing with fear.

A mighty groan, however, stifled most of her thoughts, and the hallway pitched down into an even more severe incline. The crowd about her all whooped in shock as they fell and slid down the slick tiles, disappearing down the long corridor. A few caught the metal edges that jutted out from the walls every so often.

Sage tumbled backwards and rolled, but managed, with an icy claw, to stab into the tile and halt her descent. Her uncomfortable high heels, she somehow managed to notice, had left her feet and disappeared along with most of the hysterical people she found herself with.

“We’re sinking!!” she heard someone shout. Several cries of fear or profanity-laced fear were shouted in response, but nobody refuted the claim. Sage’s eyes widened; she was on a ship, and it was going down.

Finally, the hallway rolled back, becoming level for a moment, before rolling back again, but this time nowhere near as severely. Releasing her grip on the floor, Sage allowed her chillrend to dissipate before she stood up on bare feet.

“We have to go, now! Move up! Move up!” a man in a wool hat shouted, waving those who remained ahead. “No time to go back!! Go! There’ll be lifeboats up top! Go!!”

Sage followed along with the small handful of people as they raced up the incline of the hallway, the hat-wearing-man behind them. Anywhere those ahead of her twisted or turned, Sage followed, veering down corridors as the groaning sounded off louder and more frequently.

A thunderous bang caused her and the others to stagger, as someone shouted ‘look out!’ Sage found one of those massive pipes had burst at the seams up ahead, and tore itself from the wall. It lay across the hallway, spewing water at insane pressure.

The group was forced to climb over the obstruction to continue. Sage did the same as the others, and they continued down the hall, as another groan overtook the ship, causing the hallway to rotate right, hard.

Sage found herself crashing against the wall, and had to run at an angle, for the floor was now far from level. The group veered left, up a flight of stairs, which was now infinitely harder to climb up, as the angle made them nearly a cliff face, and water poured down the steps.

The hybrid made it halfway up before her grip slipped, and she was sent crashing back onto the floor. The others continued fighting their way up; others had tumbled from the perch, too, and it was too risky to go back to help and try climbing up again.

Instead, Sage was forced to get up on her own, before she helped out the other two who had fallen with her. Rather than fight her way back up the steps, the girl merely froze the water immediately below herself and the other two, and closed her eyes. “Don’t move,” she managed, to the obvious discomfort of the two who - surprisingly - waited.

In moments, both to the shock and relief of the quarter saiyan, her vague disc of ice floated up off the wet floor and hovered up the steps, before depositing them at the top of the stairway, so they could fight their way further up the incline of the next corridor.

The continued their upward flight as the ship bucked and groaned and pitched them this way and that, making their progress significantly slower than it could have been. The constant stream of water that had flooded the bottom inch of the hall and raced down the stairs behind them further impeded their forward momentum, but they carried on, knowing - or in Sage’s case, assuming - that a cold, watery death waited for them if they didn’t.

Her head pounded as she chased after her group, barefoot and dressed up as a tart. She was getting soaked, and her tight, flimsy top did nothing to protect her against the adverse effects of a wet shirt. Mercifully, everyone - including herself - was too caught up in their fight for survival to notice.

They raced around another bend as the ship settled off again. Mercifully, it was just in time as they veered around a corner and up another staircase. They charged ahead, just as a massive, metal door was being lowered in their path.

“They’re closing the bulkhead! Run!!” someone shrieked. Sage did one better. Thrusting her hands out, frost webbed out along the big, metal obstruction, freezing it in its tracks, leaving the door halfway shut. Sage and those she was with were easily able to duck under the bulkhead and past the door that would have damned them.

Sage was too relieved to pick a fight, and politely forced her ice to retreat, allowing the door to slam shut. The others, however, screamed and yelled at the officers who had been trying to seal them out.

“The water’s not even upon us yet, and you would have sealed us in?!” was the most profound objection she had heard. It was true; if there was a tidal wave chasing them down the hall, Sage could have understood, but there was nothing, hardly a trickle.

She didn’t wait, though. Water was still on the floor, despite the sealed bulkhead behind her. This place wasn’t safe. Sage hugged herself, frowning at the prominent display of her cleavage, and then, suddenly, she blanched.

The water that had soaked her clothes had made them shrink. Her skirt, which had already started as absurdly mini as mini could go, now threatened to give everyone a look at her underwear even if she stood up straight. Pale skin flushed and turned red. At the very least, Gamer hadn’t altered her panties. It was an incredibly empty solace to take, as she had no idea how far Gamer had gone while she was unconscious, but it was one she was glad to blind herself with, or at least she would try to.

Mortified eyes darted this way and that, hunting for any sort of salvation she could find. There was nothing, not even a discarded blanket. It got even worse. A hand pressed into the small of her back, pushing her toward a crowd that began to form around what appeared to be yet another staircase, only this one had been gated off.

“They’ve locked us in!! They’re going to leave us to die!”

“Please help,” the person who had pushed Sage ahead asked. The girl looked down at the one speaking to her, to lock eyes with a young girl, probably just barely eighteen. She was chubby, with curly hair, but her vibrant, pleading blue eyes were what Sage noticed the most. “I saw what you did to that door. Please...”

The azure haired girl nodded, more to herself than to the teenager, and Sage tried to make her way through the crowd. When it became obvious that she wasn’t able - or willing - to push through the crush of people, the blue eyed girl jumped on an abandoned box, and began to shout. “Get out of the way! This blue haired lady can help us!! Let her through!”

“What’s this slut going to do?” came a retort. “You’re out of your mind.”

“We’re going to drown!!”

The crowd began it’s whirlwind descent back into madness. “Please!!” the girl continued to plead. “Just let her at the gates! Just let her try!!”

The conviction in the blue eyed girl’s speech struck a chord in Sage, and she found herself hesitant to move even as the crowd backed away from the gates. Finally, with a hand to her chest, she made her way to the metal that separated her and the others from salvation. Or at least, she hoped.

Merely looking at the heavy, metal bars was enough. They got colder, and colder. Frost grew thick on the bars, and the chill froze the water around Sage’s feet. Her breath drew out as a long, even plume, until, finally, she stepped aside. “Does anyone have a hammer?”

One man rushed forward with a shovel, and struck out at the bars as hard as he could, easily shattering them, and nearly careening down the stairway beyond. A thunderous cheer erupted behind Sage, who could only squeak her surprise as the crowd pressed toward the stairs.

Just as the girl entered the stairwell, another crowd swelled up from below, meeting hers and traveling with them in the upward stampede. Sage found herself thrown into the corner, where she waited for the rush of people to pass. The last person up the stairs, however, caused the girl to pale again.

“A-A-Alex-xander?” she managed, her eyes wide. Sage hugged herself and shrank into the corner while Ace narrowed his eyes for a moment. He reached up and put his smoke to his lips, taking a drag.

“Nice to see you, too,” he replied with a smirk, smoke leaping from his mouth as he spoke. “There’s no reason to be afraid of me,” he continued. “Sage, right?”

The girl nodded, and then bit her lip. “You’re... you’re n-not mad...?”

“For Dante’s Abyss? You fought and killed people, or people killed you. Hard to justify being angry about it. Unless you chose to be there,” he waited, gauging Sage’s reaction. Obviously, she didn’t have a choice. He suspected none of them did. “That’s what I thought. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“G... Gamer. He... brought us here-”

“Oh, no, this isn’t one of those stupid games again, is it?” Ace moaned. Sage nodded, explaining that - as far as she understood - they were inside a computer program. “So this isn’t real?” the girl shook her head. “Fuckin’ great,” he took another drag, and then offered it to Sage, who wrinkled her nose and shook her head, while waving the cancer stick away. Alexander looked the girl up and down with a mixture of amusement and empathy. The poor girl was obviously not comfortable in her clothes. “So they’re messing with our clothes, too, awesome,” Ace declared, shrugging his overcoat off his shoulders, before handing it to the girl. She hesitated for a moment, prompting the redhead to wiggle it before her. “It’s greasy but it’ll, uh, hide you better.”

That was all the prompting Sage needed, and she took the coat, throwing it over herself and hurriedly buttoning it shut.