✴

You feel the strong fight-or-flight reflex pulling at your mind. But you suppress the emotion as you were taught. Now isn’t the time for hasty reaction. You hold your ground against the beast and stay still.

????-??-?? ??:??:?? ÆON > Shield your mind Aydan.

The red construct fragment lunges forward. You brace your shield for impact just before it collides. Your focus holds against the powerful blow, but it pushes you backward. You lose your stability in the illusive gravity and slide far across the frictionless floor.

????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > where’ve you been?

The beast does not charge after you. You see it down the chromatic hallway, and another construct in front of it, shining green--Haze’s insect familiar that orbited you since you arrived here. In its relaxed state, its flight reflex disabled, it makes no attempt to flee as the red construct fragment lunges and captures it in its jaws. You see its avatar collapse, and its green color flows into the white body of the beast and its red aura becomes a bright yellow. Part of the golden glow shapes into massive chitinous wings on its back.

“Fuck, I wasn’t its target!” you say.

The chimeric construct turns its gaze away from you. It leaps to the side and passes through the prism wall, seeming to change direction like the distortion of looking into water. Inside the glass, it swims in a linear path, like a 2-dimensional shadow of color sliding across the wall.

“Of course, it’s made of light...” You strike the wall with your avatar hand, but it feels solid as metal. “The barrier somehow stops me but not an artificial construct... Wait--7! If it reaches the remaining familiar all will be lost!”

You aren’t sure how far you’re been thrown away, or how to even measure distance in the dimensions of this space, but you’ve lost sight of 7 and 5. Their corridor was off-plane with yours, and the interference from the chaotic light refraction makes it impossible to see far beyond your position.