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No one told her anything before she joined the phights, not even Hyperlaser, who had been there for a while already. In all honesty, Subspace herself wasn’t entirely interested in them, but if it was somewhere to showcase her power to the rest of the world, then who was she to refuse? She’d never watched it on TV, always busy with work. Never asked Hyperlaser about it, entirely averse to the idea of (eugh) small talk with her coworker. She’d gotten the vague gist, either way. Throw some mines around, (regrettably) work as a team, and sweep the match. Something about contracts she didn’t care enough to read, fine print and the flashing lights of cameras broadcasting her entrance to the rest of the Inpherno.
It’s why it took her entirely off-guard.
It was maybe her third or fourth match, arms crossed and leaning against a wall. She wasn’t there to make friends, deities forbid, but that didn’t make her a loser, not at all. Not when she could stand against that wall and happily enjoy her time glaring at every other inphernal that dared glance in her direction. The lobby echoed with the uproarious sound of chatter and laughter, groups of fellow phighters, friends and family alike, loitering in the spare time before the teams would inevitably be split up. Above Subspace’s head, the light flickered harshly once, then twice, etching a deep scowl upon her face beneath the mask. Beside her, Gamma appeared to imitate the flicker with their own LEDs, sight drawn to the ceiling. Subspace didn’t think about it, but then the sound slowly drowned away.
Loud conversations died to fleeting whispers, and an odd sense of unease washed over the room, like something was entirely wrong. Her head began to cloud with something heavy, lethargy settling deep into her bones, sweat beginning to roll from her head. Subspace’s eye darted about, breaths heavy, to spy if any of the others were affected in the same way, and was somewhat relieved to find them in relatively similar states, albeit a little more composed than she was. The air felt like static, a shiver involuntarily running down her spine, and then the main doors opened.
Subspace couldn’t begin to tell what exactly it was, but it wasn’t inphernal, that was for certain.
“I’m Boombox! It’s nice to meet you!” it had said when finally introducing itself. The moments leading up to that encounter were a blur, Subspace’s head pounding with an exploding migraine. Her eye struggled to keep itself open, and next to her Gamma appeared frightfully still.
“Subspace,” she managed to choke after a moment or two, the words crawling up her throat like bile.
The next time she encountered Boombox again, it was in the break room for phights. Not many inphernals frequented this area owing to its rather limited space, as well as the fact that there was a café area downstairs that had its own seating space, much larger and spacious than here. But Subspace found herself in the break room often. The walls were toned in soft hues, the room decorated with calm lighting, bookcases and a couple chairs and couches, atop which laid blankets and pillows. She silently thanked whatever deities bothered to hear inphernals’ calls when she quickly found out that it was typically left empty. Regrettably, her gear usage often left her feeling lethargic, the feeling only doubled by the strenuous activity of phights paired with her condition, leaving her prone to short naps in the break room between matches.
She ran a hand lightly over her head, face twitching in disgust when she came across a tuft of hair that’d somehow managed to grow on the rotted half of her head. For convenience’s sake, she’d kept her head shaved short since the affliction had begun to tear its way across her scalp. Clumps of hair being pulled out upon scratching her head only left Subspace frustrated and uncomfortable, and so she’d kept it short ever since. Of course, there was the rare occasion that it managed to grow on other parts of her rotted scalp, leaving patches of hair she deemed ugly, exceedingly revolting, on her skin. Gamma was downstairs at present, sorting out some transport arrangement or another.
A wave of discomfort came over her, and when Boombox entered the room, then planted themself on the couch opposite her, Subspace felt as though she was being slowly, painfully suffocated.
“You’re always looking at me,” came Boombox’s voice, or whatever distinction of sound one could call a voice. The words arrived clear the first time, then seemed to echo in Subspace’s head a second, etching into her brain, itching and scratching and tearing. In the same way that it was uncomfortable, Subspace could also have described it as strangely relieving, if only for a second.
She looked to the wall beside their head, not quite inching close enough to their face so as to encourage a headache, but just enough so that she could make out the way their form shifted and twisted as her own brain attempted to make sense of what confusing stimuli it received. The area around Boombox grew dark, and then light, and then dark again, and at the periphery of Subspace’s vision she could just about see skin, or fur, or shadows, bones bleeding through flesh, organs writhing and falling and blood seeping from pores. Her entire body screamed in fear, heart rate quickening, but she wouldn’t bow to whatever involuntary, intrinsic reaction this being brought out of her.
“I don’t understand you,” she eventually bit. The first words wobbled from her mouth in an embarrassing display of vulnerability, and more humiliating was the way the aids in her mask picked it up. She huffed silently in displeasure, then leaned backwards to sprawl herself over the length of the couch so as to appear more unaffected by being in the presence of this creature than she really was, “It’s irritating.”
Something shifted. It was Boombox. Subspace felt like there was grain in her head.
“I’m an inphernal just like you,” came their reply, excessively passive for such a terrifying thing. That only drew a scowl to Subspace’s face. She kept her eye locked on the wall behind where the other sat, quietly intrigued by the way their form began to slowly bleed into the scenery around them. The wall was pale blue, then black, then rippled like water, or like something was beating beneath it. It was painfully disgusting, but there was some beauty in that.
“Just like everyone else,” Boombox finished, and it sounded like it should’ve been a mutter, but the words carved their way into Subspace’s head nonetheless.
She scoffed.
“Does that lie comfort you in any way??” she raised a brow, crossing her arms. She vehemently ignored the way she shook. Her skin swelled with goosebumps and her eye felt as though it were being softly squeezed, like her body was too small to accommodate her organs.
“Owch!” Boombox laughed, the sound bellowing through the floor. It tore its way up Subspace’s feet and into her very chest, clawing painfully at her insides, and yet calming the hurt at the same time. It was like having to taste bitter medicine to truly feel its effects, not that Subspace could do as much anymore.
Silence settled for a while, but she could still hear the false thrum of the creature in front of her in the meanwhile. Sometimes there was a tear, like something ripping the skin off of itself, sometimes wet splatters on the floor, though when Subspace checked, there was never anything there. Boombox’s shape continued to evade her, twisting and cracking and snapping into place and back out again. One moment, they appeared to be sinking into the couch, and the next they would be flickering and melding into the world around them. Subspace couldn’t see their face, but she felt their eyes. Two, three, thousands? She couldn’t have been sure. She felt like prey for the first time in her life, a body on the examination table, a specimen under a microscope. She couldn’t comprehend the immensity of Boombox’s being, and that could only unsettle her even more.
“People don’t normally like hanging ‘round me,” Boombox eventually picked up, their words a little reluctant. A brief bout of anxiety shot through Subspace’s body involuntarily.
“I didn’t ask for a sob story,” Subspace huffed, looking away. It felt like failure, but the pressure in her head at the very least had begun to subside. She could still feel them there, but this appeared to certainly be much easier than attempting to look at them.
Subspace felt strangled gasping next to her, stuttered breaths against her neck, then shot her gaze back at the wall beside the other’s head. No, that was perhaps worse, actually.
“No, I just mean… like…,” Boombox continued, then paused, the silence stuffing Subspace’s head with cotton, head heavy, “Do you not feel it?”
She bristled with offence, a hiss slipping past her teeth as her eye narrowed. Boombox shifted, or shuffled a little, and so did the room, making Subspace’s vision spin for a solid couple seconds before it finally settled once more. She felt like there was something snaking up her leg, latching onto her, pulling and tugging, but there was nothing there. The floor thrummed with something inconceivable to Subspace’s perception, but if she closed her eye she could almost delude herself into thinking that it, too, was alive and ready to open up and swallow her whole.
She grounded herself.
“I do,” Subspace spat, “I’m not weak like the others.”
“Sorry…,” Boombox replied, a little sheepish, and the genuineness in their tone only made the fire in Subspace’s body burn brighter with rage. Why should this creature act as an equal or a lesser. They both knew that they could wipe her in seconds, that Subspace was one wrong word away from non-existence. The thought of being killed by this creature ran through her mind for a brief moment, the concept of how exactly they would do it, what exactly it would entail. Was it strange of her to feel excited by the prospect?
“Don’t strain yourself staying near me if it gets too bad,” Boombox’s words rang through her mind once more, etching themselves beneath her skin, lodging themselves in rot-bitten muscle and torn flesh. It felt like bugs were wiggling their way across her body and burrowing into her, itchy and nausea-inducing, the world growing dark as an almost choking sensation burned at the back of her throat. It was terrifying.
“Who said I’m doing that??” she shot back with a sneer.
To say that Subspace wasn’t even more intrigued after that interaction would be a lie. Boombox’s very existence plagued her with uncertainty, a deep intrinsic urge to discover and learn all that she could about the creature. That same break room became one in which many of their meetings happened, at least when they weren’t in matches. Subspace had come to learn that Boombox often hid themself away up there because no one else came by, the explanation provided with a sort of bittersweetness that bled from her tone and settled heavy behind Subspace’s ribs. Their ability to share their emotions had Subspace often feeling much more uncomfortable than the pressures and pains and stabbing sensations which came from being in their presence, but she was never one to back down from a good research project.
Boombox lived in Crossroads in an apartment complex within which all of their neighbours had fled shortly after their arrival. They hailed from Playground, having previously been a knight of Splintered Skies, though if Ban Hammer’s reaction told her anything, even the deities were slightly off-put by whatever Boombox was. The Flipside had apparently only approved their application for phights because they figured it would pull in more viewership, which it of course did, because where else would you find something like them? Skateboard appeared to be the only other inphernal capable of spending a prolonged period of time in Boombox’s presence, jesting and joking around as if nothing at all was different about them. But Subspace could spy the subtle shake of his hands, the sweat on his palms. His friendship was genuine, his acting superficial. He never looked Boombox in the face.
“How did you spawn??” Subspace interrogated one day.
“Like any other inphernal,” came Boombox’s straightforward response.
Boombox was well-liked back in Craterdust Capital, but their nature led many to be intolerant of their presence not out of distaste, but mainly the sickness that came with it. The cramped city streets meant that there was rarely a time when no other inphernal was plagued by the side-effects of their condition. When Boombox had explained this (briefly, because Subspace was loath to tolerate more of those sappy emotions the other unconsciously projected onto her) she felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the centre of her chest, like she’d been pierced clean through. It was a wholly uncomfortable feeling.
“Have you always been like this??” she asked another time. Boombox’s hands bled into the phone they'd been holding, sparking and burning, the sizzling sound of frying flesh, but when Subspace really focused, there was no injury nor issue with the device.
“Yeah… I think so?” the creature responded, the questioning tone in their answer sending Subspace’s vision spinning for a moment. A bout of nausea came over her, her fingers going cold, and she responded by clenching her jaw tight. A pang of pain flared in her ribs, the feeling of eyes trailing up her body, raking over her mask, her face, her horns, before they dropped back to where they were before, trained on a singed, broken phone, except it wasn’t.
They weren’t opposed to the questions, else they would’ve run off long ago. Boombox met each one with an honest, albeit most of the time unhelpful, answer, simply content to finally find another inphernal who could tolerate sharing the same air as them for more than 5 minutes. Subspace didn’t pity them, because she had no pity to be given in the first place. She had learned that, at the very least, they could pursue their ambitions through being a faceless, nameless music producer, a career path Subspace herself saw as utterly pointless. Why waste your life on such trivialities while possessing powers such as they did? A question that rattled around her head day in and day out, that filled her with nothing but abject frustration.
“What do you look like??” another such line of questioning began in that same room.
It was early evening, but Subspace had planned to return to Blackrock with Hyperlaser, who had a phight scheduled for later that night. It wasn’t uncommon for them to make their own ways back, but it sure did cut the cost of transportation. Korblox sent them there to earn money, not spend it. Boombox was already in there when the scientist entered, sprawled over their usual couch in what appeared to be a rather comfortable nap. Subspace spent the first half an hour of her visit watching how their form sunk into the cushions, false blood pooling on textiles, the whisper of something ominous and thick that hung in the air, choking any life and safety from the atmosphere of the juxtaposed softness of the room. An hour in, the other awoke, appearing more than pleased to be joined by a ‘friend’.
Subspace would make this clear: they weren’t friends and they would never be friends. Boombox had started calling her as such a few rounds into these ‘hangouts’, however, and refused to change their language since.
“Huh?” Boombox replied cleverly, head tilting in confusion and the wall behind them following the action. Subspace simply huffed and rolled an eye, then gestured towards them from the opposite couch.
“Well, my mind can only comprehend a vague outline. Your organs and bones bleed through your skin, not to mention the disfiguration,” she explained, “There’s hardly much to go off of.”
Boombox made a noise somewhere between a surprised huff and a groan of indignation, the sound seeming to rumble through the particles of the air, sapping all warmth for a split second before it swiftly returned. Subspace had to stop herself from shivering.
“Really? I thought I kept myself together pretty well,” the other mumbled. They rested their chin in their hands, as much as she could tell, anyway. All that Subspace could discern at the side of her vision was a blur of mismatched shapes and colours, darkness blending into bone, keratin, an invisible wind rustling hair, or spilling deep red blood. She kept her gaze to the wall, which twisted and encouraged a soft ache at the back of her head. It had been a lot worse at the beginning. There was some pride in the admission that she’d come to conquer a lot of the illness she once suffered being around Boombox.
“So it can be worse??” she questioned, and Boombox went quiet.
Then the air went dry, arid and frigid, and something flashed through her mind, there and then gone, flitting by like turning pages in a book. There was a creature in the street, something one could hardly describe as inphernal-like. There was no view of their face, but the world pulsing and pushing and pulling around them immediately told Subspace who she was seeing in this vision. The ground was flooded with blood, and then flowers and greenery, and then cold, unwavering ice. Deep fear struck as Subspace choked a breath, blinking the scene from her eye, before refocusing on the wall opposite, body wracked by violent shivers she soon controlled.
“Sometimes…,” Boombox muttered, then, “It’s easier to feel what I look like, Skate said.”
Subspace raised a brow, sweat running down her head as the residual images from that vision, or memory, bled from her head.
“I don’t think your eye is… um… adapted to see me,” they reasoned, but Subspace’s mind was on their previous statement.
She hummed in contemplation, then, after a moment, rose from her seat, wobbling only once when the floor falsely shifted beneath her feet. Boombox startled at the sudden action, air turning static before slowly settling, confusion seeping into Subspace’s soul, which soon faded into surprised understanding when the scientist closed her eye and stepped forward enough so that she was eventually planted directly in front of the other, grain buzzing behind her eyelid while faux biting cold nibbled at her neck.
“Oh! Now?” she heard, or felt, the other question, their voice reverberating, pitter pattering around her head until it faded into nothingness, “Uh… are you sure you want-”
“Oh calm down, Boombox,” Subspace interrupted, curt, “This is for scientific research!! How am I supposed to learn about what you are without knowing what you look like??
Boombox’s anxiety was evident in the twisting feeling that unconsciously grew in Subspace’s stomach, body jittery with barely-contained excitement. Perhaps if she knew exactly what form Boombox possessed, some answers as to how they were spawned could be answered, including the burning question of whether this originated from a curse or not. Doubtless, Boombox had indeed been spawned as they appeared in the present day, though the question remained: did the spawn itself do this, or a deity? Given the deity’s reactions to their presence, Subspace was leaning more towards the former theory, though without access to the specific spawn they’d come from, she’d made no such progress in identifying how exactly this came to be.
“Eep!” Boombox shivered as she brought both hands down to her head, body shaking for a moment as Subspace found purchase on what felt like a cap of some description.
“Hold still!! I’m trying to understand you,” she muttered irritatedly, and Boombox did their best to stifle their movements, the air becoming increasingly charged with something Subspace struggled to identify. Her hands slivered downwards, fingertips brushing over soft material, then hard, until they reached the bottom of Boombox’s hat.
“I shoulda put some tunes on…,” Boombox mumbled with another shuffle, Subspace ignoring their anxious chatter in favour of further exploration, brow creasing when her fingers brushed against something cold.
“What’s this??” she questioned, pressure squeezing hard at the sides of her head. She swallowed once as a bout of nausea came over her, attempted to refocus her attention.
“Uh… a visor?” Boombox reluctantly replied.
“For??” Subspace questioned. A breeze tickled her skin, a stifled scream resounding in the distance, the ghost feeling of hands brushing her shoulders and neck. Nothing was there.
“... Looks cool…,” Boombox mumbled, a little embarrassed, and the scientist filed that information away for later. It appeared that Boombox comprehended their form a lot differently to the regular inphernal. The thought only prompted further considerations. For example, was each ‘look’ personalised for each inphernal? Did deities have a more accurate depiction of Boombox than she did? She grimaced at the thought of consulting Ban Hammer on that. She wasn’t exactly the most… well-liked by her, after all.
“Right…,” she mumbled.
Her hands moved outwards this time until they hit the base of Boombox’s horns, underwhelmingly regular in shape and size, smooth and well cared for. She ran her palms up to the tips of both she had grasped, then back down again, Boombox retaining a stillness that appeared more like frozen shock than relaxed and casual. Subspace hummed lowly to herself as the pressure against her skull increased, limbs growing heavy. It felt as though she were sinking into the floor, feet cold and stiff, center of balance all skewed and not quite right. She braced herself on the other’s horns, regrounding herself before mumbling her observations.
“Set of horns… identical curve,” she began, then moved her hands back down Boombox’s face, over their round cheeks, within which she could discern deep dimples, skin soft and, like their horns, irrefutably normal, “Regular face shape… mouth…”
She braced Boombox’s jaw with one hand, then swept a finger with the other over Boombox’s lips. When they parted, Subspace could feel shallow breaths on her skin, which hitched with nervousness. Perhaps it was the activity, or Boombox’s influence, but the room had grown increasingly warmer the longer Subspace’s investigation continued. She silently made note to herself of that fact as she pressed two fingers between the other’s lips, the grain behind her eyelid growing thicker with the action.
“Wait! What’re-,” Boombox started in confusion, and Subspace took that opportunity to thrust her fingers into their mouth. There was nothing overtly different about Boombox’s tongue compared to any other inphernal’s. It was thick and flat, firm when Subspace dug her fingers into it, soothing Boombox with her other hand in a caress not unlike one would soothe a frightened animal. But Boombox wasn’t frightened, the shift in air wasn’t cold, or filled with danger, but something else Subspace once more couldn’t quite decipher.
She felt the ground swirl and shift under her, the soles of her feet prickling with shallow pain. Shapes and shadows twisted behind her eyelid, false faces and figures flitting by like she was lost in the haze of a memory. Boombox’s influence was undeniable up close, like a black hole sucking in all the life and scenery around them, sound growing dull, then focused, and then silent, until all she could hear was her own ragged breaths being drawn through her mask, Boombox huffing against her hand, the shuffling of clothes and the light, near indiscernible squelch of her fingers pressed against the muscle of the other’s tongue. But she wasn’t close enough. She wanted to know every secret Boombox’s incomprehensible form had to offer, map out the entirety of their being. If she could, she’d open them up and crawl inside just so that she could truly understand.
Boombox’s lips quivered around her as she pressed her fingers deeper and then spread them, one of their own hands flying up to grasp at Subspace’s wrist. Despite this, the hold wasn’t tight, nor was it to shove her away. If anything, it was to ground themself as Subspace continued with her investigation, a desperate reach for connection, an indication that they could end this at any time, and yet they didn’t.
“Typical Playground-spawned molars…,” Subspace mumbled as the tip of her index sailed over the other’s back teeth, slowly arching their way to the front, “canines… incisors…”
There was nothing more thrilling than shoving herself face-first into something so dangerous, something no one knew the full capabilities of. By this point, she had almost landed herself in Boombox’s lap, not that it made any difference to her. Boombox startled when her hand retracted, wiping the excess spittle over Boombox’s front, which, like the rest of them so far, appeared to be no different than any other regular inphernal. The heat crushed down on her like a vice, Boombox’s hand coming to rest at her front, fingers splayed and then grasping, weaving into her clothing. She didn’t comment on it.
“You gotta warn someone before you do that!” Boombox contested after a second, words stuttered awkwardly from the mouth Subspace had just so intimately explored. Subspace, eye still closed tight, felt an invisible force spin the world around her, balance faltering just a small bit before she corrected herself, phantoms of arms grabbing at her sides, a deep weight anchoring her in place.
“Oh, hush. You didn’t mind,” she responded with a huff, face twisting into a smile beneath her mask when Boombox had no retort to meet her with.
Her hands wandered to the arm against her next, clasping at first Boombox’s shoulder, then following the limb down its length until her own fingers could ghost over where the other’s were twisted in the front of her clothing. Subspace’s hand became riddled with pins and needles, grain dull and yet painful as she planted them against the creature’s skin. Boombox’s fingers twitched under her as though they wanted to reach out and entwine with her own. The thought made Subspace feel slightly ill.
“Do you have a tail??” she questioned in an attempt to steer herself away from those uncomfortable feelings.
“Uh-,” Boombox began.
“I’ll check anyway,” Subspace cut through, wrenching her hand away and leaning forwards instead so that they were almost hugging. She was most certainly in Boombox’s lap by this point, legs straddling their waist as she leant her head over their shoulder. By complete accident, their horns made contact with a small clink, the motion drawing a small hiss from Subspace before she covered it up by running a hand from the back of Boombox’s neck and down their body, tracking the bumps of their spine.
Boombox shivered, and Subspace felt that grain again in her hand, pressure pressing deep against the sides of her skull as though she were being squeezed from the inside. The dark shapes behind her eyelid settled, then exploded in a violent display, calming once more before repeating the visions in a nausea-inducing cycle. Subspace grit her teeth through the feeling, running her hands further down as she felt Boombox’s hands come to grasp at her waist. Out of fear of her tumbling off or for some other reason, she didn’t quite want to think about.
“I feel like I’m being examINED-,” Boombox’s voice jumped as Subspace clasped her hand around the base of their tail.
“You are,” she commented factually.
Something strangled came from Boombox’s throat as Subspace followed the curve of their tail. It was fluffy, bushy, and tried to swipe its way out of her grasp more than a couple times in some sort of swaying motion. If she had to compare it to anything, she’d say that it was something similar to that of a raccoon’s, albeit larger, of course, what with Boombox’s height. The tail twitched as she ran fingers through tufts of fluff, a low hum emanating from Boombox’s throat and causing reverberations in Subspace’s chest. Sound came and went in waves of intensity, settling to gentle, high pitched ringing when Boombox began to shiver under her touch.
“You’re squirming again,” Subspace huffed irritatedly, though filed the reaction away for later.
“Sorry!” Boombox apologised with a squeak as Subspace retracted her hand, leaning back and planting her palms upon the other’s shoulders, then humming in contemplation, the sound crackling lightly in the aids of her mask.
Subspace sighed again, deep, and pondered for a brief moment if Boombox was even capable of being affected by her poisons in the first place. Boombox sat beneath her, attempting with all of their might to stay as still as possible, to suppress the shivers that ran up their spine, tingles bristling over their skin wherever Subspace touched. She led her hands down and then up again simply to remind herself of the solid weight of Boombox’s being, to confirm that their surface wasn’t bleeding and melting into the air around them like her sight so desperately wanted to convince her. Boombox was a good subject, willing and obedient. Subspace wouldn’t have minded doing this again sometime.
“I wonder…,” she mumbled, then led her hands to grasp at Boombox’s cheeks, angling their head upwards in a gesture one could almost view as gentle. Boombox made a sound in their throat, but Subspace wasn’t yet satisfied. This was a rare opportunity, after all, and from this proximity she could likely gather all the information she needed.
“Uh, Subspace?” Boombox started, “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably not a good idea…”
Subspace scoffed.
“Nonsense!! You think discovery comes without sacrifice??” she asked haughtily, the air growing increasingly heavy around them as Boombox’s anxiety seeped into the atmosphere.
“You’re gonna be really sick,” they said with a grimace and a nervous chuckle, but Subspace was much too set on her goal to back out by then. Boombox squirmed, but was ultimately stilled by Subspace pressing against their body, hands angling their gaze to her face.
“Keep still, Boombox,” she instructed, and then with a final breath opened her eye to truly explore the face of the being below her.
Colour exploded into her view, a deep combination of greens and greys and red, mixing and blending, bleeding together into hues her mind struggled to put a name to. She could feel Boombox’s eyes on her, piercing, watchful, as though a bright light were being shone on her, Subspace the lone occupant of an otherwise empty stage, the world around them slipping away into nothingness. She felt a pull, then a push, like Boombox was a magnet and Subspace’s very being, perhaps even her soul, was torn between attraction and repulsion. Sound rippled away from high-pitched ringing to nothingness all within the span of a second, leaving Subspace completely and utterly captivated by the view in front of her. Nausea prickled at the back of her throat, pain lancing through her brain with a fierceness even she had never before experienced, and yet she could hardly tear herself away, not from being able to see Boombox’s face, whatever interpretation of ‘face’ her brain managed to supply her with. Boombox’s eyes, visor, skin all melded together, twisting inside out, and within gaps of shadows and creases of flesh Subspace was granted the sight of something indescribable: the stars, the inpherno, creation and destruction, life sprung from earth, eroded by wind and weather, death and suffering, the end of her life and the beginning of it. It was terrifying.
It was absolutely beautiful.
Subspace wrenched away with a start, heaving as her hands scrambled to unclasp the mask from her face. Her vision spun as the floor came into view, her form splayed across solid ground while sound burst back into comprehension around her. Her stomach roiled as bile wrenched its way out of her mouth just when she’d managed to fling her mask to the side, body struggling to function as her limbs turned stiff. Her throat burned in pain, vision blurry and head pounding, grain settling over her eyesight as feeling fled her fingertips. She retched again, spewing little more than stomach acid and the remnants of her last liquid meal onto the previously spotless floor, claws digging, scratching and scraping along the surface in a pathetic attempt to ground herself.
“... Fuck-!” a voice bled through the background of her heaving, pink poison clouding the air with every laboured huff of breath.
Subspace could do naught but groan as nausea came over her once more, the consequence of her selfishness, her greed to discover what no one else had ever been able to before. She bristled with pain, the world still spinning, body shaking with exhaustion as her vision grew spotty, consciousness fading in and out over the course of a couple seconds. Behind her, wind howled, the air hot, bubbling against her skin, charged with fear and concern and mushy feelings that only sent her heaving again, only this time nothing more could come up.
“Subspace?!” Boombox’s panicked call came from next to her, hands against her back, her arm, comforting just as much as it burned, pressure pressing hard against her bones. It felt as though her horns were being torn from her skull. Boombox’s presence shifted, nervous, and then they rose, clearly unable to help in any way. Their steps echoed to the door, which they opened with hurry, then yelled down the hall as they searched for her assistant, “Gamma?!”
Subspace continued to wheeze, struggling above a puddle of her own bile as she eventually fell unconscious. Nevertheless, had she been capable her lips would have been twisted into a large smile, because now she understood better than anyone: Boombox was fascinating.