August 2, 2022

Sparrow is looking worse everyday, coughing up blood and sometimes bleeding from her ears. She's a sickly white and spends all her time laying on the sofa trying to sleep.

---

Sparrow's been laying motionless for a while. A varian with pink, curled horns walks into the cell. She kneels down to Sparrow, poking her with some sort of stick. She has pink blood stains on her face and seems pale, she doesnt react. She checks Sparrow's pulse. It's weak and a bit weird, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes going to the beat of the macarena.

"......" The varian pulls out her ePhone DS a42 and starts typing something. Shortly, two guards come in and pick up Sparrow, taking her to medbay.

---

Sparrow is brought into a hospital-esque room and hooked up to life support. The electronics in the machinery begin to receive random signals, giving no accurate readings. The pink horned varians talk amongst themselves about it as some yellow horned varians try fixing it. There's a faint feeling of bad luck as the random signals only scrabble more. They all look very puzzled as they continue attempting to fix it. Sparrow stirs some as she opens her eyes, immediately noticing that she's restrained and hooked up to machines that people are trying to fix as other people stare at her.

Sparrow doesn't move any and seems dazed. She looks to the side as if reading something.

- Some time later -

The room is void of people. There's some pink horned Varians outside the room, doing their jobs in the medbay. And Ociela slips right in without them noticing. She stares at Sparrow.

"You."

Sparrow doesnt respond.

"Hey!" She pokes Sparrow. "Can you hear me??"

She doesn't react, still looking pale and looks as if shes reading.

"HELLOOOOOOO????????" Ociela gets up in Sparrow's face. "EARTH TO SPARROW?????????"

She seems to flinch slightly.

"Well that's at least something." Ociela's horns glow slightly as the cameras in the room shatter. "I've got people who are gonna get you out of here. First, though? I need you to cooperate with me and I need to figure out what's going on in your domain. Okay?"

Sparrow doesnt react. Ociela sits in a chair next to the hospital bed Sparrow's in, staring down at her phone.

She sends out a tweet, something about getting Sparrow out. She recently made a deal with someone named Faustus, who agreed that if Ociela is able to get Sparrow out of Catacombis, they'd owe her a favor. It's time to act on that deal.

Ociela stands up and vanishes in a puff of purple smoke and confetti. She soon reappears, and her horns glow a bright purple. All the lights in the building go out. All the power goes out.

"Let the game begin."

She starts unhooking Sparrow from the machines, Sparrow doesn't react and feels slightly cold. Ociela picks up Sparrow after taking off all the machinery. She slumps Sparrow over her back and runs out of the room. It's a large room, almost like a hospital entrance. There's a couple halls, and a door to exit the medbay. She drips some pepto blood. Ociela exits the medbay, entering into the Main Hall of Floor 27B.

---

It looks like a large, open area with many rooms off to each side. There's a staircase to the left, and another to the right, as well as elevators to accompany them. Sparrow drips blood the whole way. Ociela adjusts Sparrow on her back and heads into the Containment Block.

Ociela enters the Containment Block with Sparrow on her back. There's a few yellow-horned Varians making sure the doors are secured so that no Dromen escape. They see Ociela instantly. At the end of the hall is an unmarked door.

Ociela places Sparrow down before approaching the Varians.

"Hey, so, I know you guys are just doing your job and stuff, but uh. I'm gonna have to ask you to stop, that cool?" Sparrow gurgles blood. The horns on the Varians begin to glow a bright yellow, sparking as the lights flicker in the room. Ociela smiles, looking down to Sparrow. "You'd really hurt a specimen? Memphi would have your heads on pikes, y'know that, right?" Honk whispers to Sparrow, "CANYOUPLEASEDOSOMETHINGTOHELP"

There's a sickening feeling of bad luck that starts to settle in the area.

"That's the spirit!!!" Ociela smiles wide, her horns glowing purple as a handgun appears on her hip in a puff of purple smoke and distortion. The Varians step closer, their horns creating arcs of yellow electricity, as well as their hands.

Sparrow activates aim assist x100. Even if she shoots in the wrong direction, Ociela's bullet will land on her intended target like a magnet. Ociela begins shooting at the Varians, hitting them perfectly. She picks up Sparrow and runs through the door, into the unmarked doors. They lead into a dark hall full of lockers and nullsuits. Sparrow drips a significant amount of blood from her eyes, nose, and mouth now after performing that alter. The feeling of bad luck remains around them and the aim assists remains for 10 minutes.

There's several doors within the room, all unmarked. Ociela makes sure the door behind her is locked before she catches her breath and thinks of where to go next. Ociela makes sure Sparrow's steady on her back before moving into the left room, which is full of machinery. There's a couple of things vaguely labelled, but there's a ton of diagrams relating to a portal to other worlds. Ociela's horns begin to glow as she begins flipping switches. Lights begin coming on, Ociela's face bleeding. She heads back out to the other area before checking the right door, leading up to an observation deck. She coughs up blood as she goes back, still carrying Sparrow. Ociela's slightly shaky and she walks through the middle door, into the Threshold.

---

Ociela's horns glow extremely bright, to the point of being unbearable to look at. Her face is gushing blood, and it's leaking out of her ears and nails as well. The Threshold itself, the giant, portal-like doorway, glows brightly. Ociela makes her way over, though shakily. They're coughing up a lot of blood, powering the entire room by herself. They slowly make it over to the machine, and fall in, the Threshold shutting behind them.

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