Voices

Sic had reached his hand out to touch the crystal.

In the moment, he didn't think what he was doing was weird.

To be honest, he wasn't thinking about the moment at all. All he was thinking about was the crystal. It was beautifully red, the cracks giving it so much life mixed with the blue liquid. It was taking over his mind.

He reached his hand out, and touched the crystal.

Everything was quiet for a second, until he felt the crystal shake.

The blue liquid quickly shot up and pierced Sic's wrist. Before he could even register what had happened, the red aura from the crystal shot towards Sic and hit him in the gut, sending him onto the floor.

And the next moment, he was somewhere different.

It was pure darkness, but not like inside the tunnels. He didn't know where he was, but he felt fear like he had never felt before.

Being in an unknown area of the tunnels was already reason for alarm, but now he didn't even know if he was in the tunnel.

He had to be, right?

He got up and looked around. It was as bad as he had assumed. There was nothing. No light, not objects he could make out, nothing. As if he had been thrown into the heart of complete darkness. As he was contemplating what had just conspired, a voice spoke from the darkness

It quietly laughed and said in a deep, chilling voice

"It's been too long since I've seen a human".

Sic was terrified

'A voice?!'

Why was there a voice in this darkness? Who was it? Why was it here? Why was Sic here?

Before he could think about his questions, he felt something stab his abdomen

He looked down and noticed a long, sharp... thing?

Sic couldn't find the words to explain it

It was the same color as the crystal, red with black cracks. However, it was like slime with the way it moved, but it wasn't sticky or liquid, so he didn't know what to think.

Actually, there was a lot wrong with what was happening right now. First off, why didn't getting stabbed hurt more? He has been basically killed, and yet he felt almost nothing. Same with the hole in his wrist that the blue liquid had entered into.

The voice spoke again

"Sorry about this, it's nothing personal"

Sic was confused

'What was it talking about?'

He tried to talk, but it seemed like he couldn't. Noise wouldn't come out of his mouth.

It was a quiet for a couple of seconds. Or a couple of hours. Sic really couldn't tell

The voice spoke with a tone of confusion

"Uh.. why isn't this working?"

Sic didn't have an answer for the voice, and it's not like he could talk even if he did.

The mysterious voice retracted it's arm... maybe? And stabbed him once again

Sic flinched, but not due to pain. The sight of being stabbed was already worrying enough, but because it didn't hurt, he was worried he would just die due to blood loss.

Although, he noticed he wasn't bleeding in the first place.

"Why isn't this-"

The voice tried to speak, but was cut off by the loud sound of... chains? The sound got louder and closer, sounding like the chains were slithering around and slowly closing in on where Sic and the mysterious voice were.

After a couple of seconds, the voice cursed

"Damn it! There's no way! I finally have escape and she ruined it again!"

As he said that, chains shot from the darkness and pierced the voices arm.

One of the chains had also pierced Sic from behind and went through his chest to attack the voice

He heard the voice curse one more time before he collapsed.

His vision became blurry and he was suddenly somewhere else.

He was back at the entrance of Station 12

'was that... a dream?'

He looked at his wrist, and saw no signs of damage. Same with his abdomen, which look completely fine under his shirt

Sic stood around confused for a bit, contemplating what to do next.

He decided to just leave. He was already exhausted because of yesterday and with the hallucinations, he was in no shape to continue working

His lantern was still burning brightly, which was a good sign. It showed him he must've only been out for a couple minutes at most.

He picked up his lantern and walk through the tunnels back to the surface.

As he walked he noted the lack of noises. There didn't sound like anyone was down here. Maybe boss gave everyone the day off? Sic couldn't tell.

When he finally made it up to the bosses office to return his lantern, he realized Keith wasn't there either

'Thats.. odd'

He placed his lantern down and walked outside.

He quickly realized why no one was around. There was police tape surrounding the entire entrance of the tunnels, and many officers keeping watch.

He was confused and wanted to ask what had happened, however he was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, and didn't think he would be able to stand a conversation with a police officer. He slowly and carefully stepped in between the tape and walked around one of the officers, making sure he didn't see Sic.

After that, Sic decided it would be best to just head home. He won't be paid until tomorrow, so he wasn't going to be able to eat today. That was just how it was sometimes.

After everything that had happened, Sic wasn't as careful as he should've been, and stumbled upon Victor's lackeys sitting around a fire. They were part of a real nasty gang around here, and he owed them money. He expected them to ask for the money or just best him up, but they all seemed... scared? They didn't seem to notice him, so he went on his way towards his home. As he walked through the streets, he realized that everywhere was more quiet than usual. There were less people on the street and almost no fights breaking out. Hell, even the streets looked cleaner.

'I wonder if the higher ups decided to actually help the dumps for once'

He highly doubted it

He tried to keep up a faster pace than normal. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but he was feeling even worse now that he had seen the lack of people on the streets.

After walking for awhile, he finally saw his home

Well, home was an overstatement.

It was a large box that had held the latest food supply for the dumps. He has taken it and carved windows into it, and placed it in an alleyway looking out into the streets. As bad as it was, it was shelter, and that's hard to come by down here.

After returning home, he sat down on his bed and groaned. He didn't know why he was so tired exactly. He assumed before that it was getting punched and his nightmares, but after today he started to doubt. With his dreams and that weird... he still didn't know what had actually happened, but it had taken a lot out of him.

He decided to deal with it tomorrow when he woke up.

'Hopefully tomorrow is better'

As he had that thought however, a familiar voice spoke to him

"Ah, so do I. Today's been a real bother, don't you think?"