Fic: Continuity

[amedia]

Title: Continuity
Characters: Glitch, Cain
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Imagiquest Entertainment. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 382
Summary: Glitch and Cain explore the Witch's tower.
A/N: Response to a four-word prompt from magic4mula: "Key ... Ball ... Silver ... Bubble"


"I've never been here before," Glitch said as they entered the seventh room of the morning. He and Cain had volunteered to go through the upper floors of the Central City tower complex, looking for stragglers, be they surviving prisoners or Witch-loyal holdouts. So far they had found no one.

Occasionally Glitch had seemed to recognize a place, such as a curious dogleg in a hallway or the configuration of a stairwell. As soon as he stepped into this room, however, his face had gone blank.

Cain looked around. The room appeared to be an experimental laboratory. A tray on a wheeled table held a wicked array of gleaming silver implements; next to it was a long platform with an assortment of straps. A framed poster displaying a diagram of the central nervous system hung high on one wall above a blackboard covered with illegible scribbling. To one side, a slow bubble squirmed its way through a tank of miasmic amber liquid; a glass case of unidentifiable specimens stood on the other, a tiny bronze key in the lock. A giant ball of spidersilk lay on a shelf nearby; Cain could only imagine the creatures that could have produced it.

Cain followed Glitch's eye to the head of the platform, and noticed immediately what Glitch was staring at: a strap just a few inches from the end, where it would cross the forehead of anyone who lay there.

Glitch shook himself, walked to the middle of the room and looked around, an expression of dawning recognition and horror on his face. "I wondered why I always felt sorry for invertebrates," he said abruptly, staring at the specimen case. His eye fell next on the ball. "And why I was afraid of spiders." He pointed to the blackboard. "And why I remembered Zixter's second theorem when I didn't even know my own name." He circled in place, taking it all in, shuddering briefly at the sight of the tank, turning dead white when his eyes fell on the tray and its contents.

Cain took his arm, concerned. "You all right, there?"

Glitch looked as if his eyes were focused somewhere long ago. Then he shook himself again and looked directly at Cain. "I have always been here," he whispered. "I never really left."

Comments

[surranndie.livejournal.com]

*shivers* How horrible - for Glitch to recognize this place with such clarity and fear. This is perfect - I've always wondered what would happen if/when Glitch found that room. I love all the details, how Glitch would have a vivid memory of this place when confronted with it again. His understanding of its signficance, how it's the room where Ambrose died and Glitch began...*whoa*

[amedia.livejournal.com]

how it's the room where Ambrose died and Glitch began.

Wow, what a wonderful way to put it! Thanks for the shivers - and the kind fb. :-)

[nuavarion.livejournal.com]

Ack, that's kinda creepy, but I have to agree, I always wondered how he would react if he ever found that room.

[amedia.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Me, too. :-)

[streamofwords.livejournal.com]

This was so perfectly written, it broke my heart for Glitch all over again.

Glitch came full circle in this piece, and I couldn't imagine it happening more beautifully than this.

Well done!

[amedia.livejournal.com]

Thank you so very much! Wow, I'm blushing. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

[candacestls.livejournal.com]

Wonderful, I mean, wonderful in the most tragic, terrible, gut wrenching sense, of course *g*. I love how you captured the sense that Glitch is always surrounded, controlled, and possessed by that moment he lost himself. Bravo :D

[amedia.livejournal.com]

wonderful in the most tragic, terrible, gut wrenching sense, of course *g*.

Of course!

Glitch is always surrounded, controlled, and possessed by that moment he lost himself.

That's so beautiful and eloquent! *blush*

Thank you kindly, ma'am!

[lionille.livejournal.com]

Oh, erk!! Of course he's not all right, Cain - HOLD HIM!
A chilling ficlet!

[amedia.livejournal.com]

Of course he's not all right, Cain - HOLD HIM!

LOL! I love the way your mind works!

Thanks for the comments - and the inspiration!

[allronix1.livejournal.com]

*rereads with Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" playing*

*shudder*

No, he's not all right. This is the room where he died, and he knows it.

I didn't so much read this as see it in my head like Welling had filmed it

[amedia.livejournal.com]

I didn't so much read this as see it in my head like Welling had filmed it

Thank you! That was sort of the effect I was going for - a slow pan around the room, as it were, then a close-up reaction shot.

"Comfortably Numb" - perfect!