Cosmic

Chapter 5: No Soul in Sight

[Mia]

"He...Hello? Can you hear me? Well, anywa...y....ssss, I'm just aa...asking for a teeeeensy-tiny favourrr. Be a pal and turrrrrn the power backkkk on will you?"

 And with that, Ben's extremely distorted voice disappeared, the tiny screen turning off with it and enveloping us in the darkness once more. 

Kent and I stood in silence for a minute until I began, "What the hell does he mean by that? Turn the power back on? Does he actually expect us to know what the hell to do? I mean, come on, where even is the power generator thingamajig? How the hell does it work? Even if we find the power source inside this bloody place, does he think we will somehow know how to fix the whole damned thing? Does he even know how to fix that damned thing? What are we meant to do? I don't even know how to screw on a lightbulb! Do I look like an electrician to you? Give me a break. I can't believe how entitled that idiot is." 

Pausing to take a breath, I paced around the spot before continuing. "What was that saying again? Practise what you preach? I bet that he doesn't know anything more about this than we do. Absolutely outrageous! You call this a 'teensy-tiny' favour? That's literally the complete opposite of tiny! You might as well be asking me to shoot myself in the head with a knife. This is probably going to surprise you, idiot, but you can't shoot yourself with a knife because a knife is used to stab people. See how stupid that is? If we apply this to real-life, then I'm the knife that is being asked to do something it can't do and turning the power back on is the act of shooting myself in the head. If it's that easy, then why don't you go and do it yourself?" 

Panting after my long rant, I caught Kent staring at me out of the corner of my eye. 

"What?! Are you going to tell me that you somehow know how to fix the power system?!" I scolded, my voice full of anger and fury. 

"N—No, ma'am," he stammered, fear evident in his voice. "I was just going to say that we should quiet down just a little bit. I mean, if we keep up this level of noise, all that running would be for naught."

Now for a little backtracking. 

The moment Ben had told us to ditch him, Kent and I had bolted down the hallway, away from the fight between Ret and Dagger and into the unknown that laid ahead. We ran in the dark aimlessly, trying to find anybody else that was also in the facility. 

However, we were interrupted when my Comm-Link began to beep. When I reached into my pocket and pulled it out, I was greeted with an intensely bright image of Ben's face. 

Almost instantly, I could feel my retinas contract as the light seared off the cells on my eyeball one by one. I raised an arm to cover my eyes as I staggered around blindly, weirdly coloured spots appearing all over my vision. 

"ARE YOU TRYING TO BLIND ME?!!" I cried as I struggled to recover from the shock of being exposed to light a thousand times brighter than the Sun. The idiot ignored my question and instead proceeded to present his senseless and unreasonable demand. 

Returning to the previous situation, I exhaled, calming myself down. Now was not the time nor the place to get angry. 

"Fine, have it your way," I said begrudgingly. "Let's hurry up and go find that idiot's stupid power source." 

Without waiting for Kent, I immediately continued down the dark corridor we were in. Even though we had run quite far, the sound of things banging and crashing together resonated throughout the metal walls that surrounded us. It was a constant reminder that we were still in the middle of a chaotic battle that we knew next to nothing about.