PmWiki | XcomAcademy / Nethersphere

Indescribable forces pull in all directions. Images fill Kite's mind of the ship imploding, consuming the earth in the nasty, well, nastier kind of singularity. For a moment it appeals, but that's something she tries to push aside on a regular basis. It doesn't make sense. But she doesn't dare take the chance they're true.

The sphere is going nuts, lancing out energy in all directions. She doesn't know how to control it, but the one we took seemed conscious, of a sort. Simple commands with enough force.. "Up, damn you!" Kite's good at force. "UP!"

Relief floods her as the ship begins to move, but not for long, as while she tries to let go of the sphere, it doesn't let go of her, and after a moment, everything goes dark.

Waking up was a surprise, doing so looking into a human face a second one. Starting consciousness by throwing a punch was a surprise to the owner of that face, which was only fair to be spreading some of the surprises around.

"I should have expected that."

"Yes, yes you should have." Kite sat up, glancing around briefly. White sand. Black ocean. Hmm.

"Now, I know being dead can come as something of a shock, but-" The young man froze. Naked women he had some concept of how to deal with. Naked women ceasing to be so in a flicker of purple light suddenly pointing weapons at him, less so. "And, uh, you should, you should calm down."

"I am calm. You can tell because I haven't pulled the trigger. Now, from what I'm seeing, either the afterlife is perfectly storybook and things can be created by idle thoguhts, yet somehow we're surrounded by an absence of things... Or you're full of shit. You have chosen for whatever reason to look like a carbon copy of how my father looked when I was a kid. Therefore, you are poking around in my mind for imagery, but not deep enough to realize that an instinctive trust and respect is not my response to that face. This leans very firmly towards you being full of shit."

"Okay! Yes! Just... put the gun down? I have no idea what's going to happen if you shoot me with that here."

"Pick another face before I run out of the ability to not pull this trigger."

"It's, it's not that simple, I don't kn-"

The plasma discharge didn't sound quite right. Imperfect simulation, probably. "It is to me."