(TLH) Chapter 2

Mira shocked herself into immediate panic. The Something that pulled her inside was a hand. A gigantic hand, pulling her by the collar. The gigantic hand made signs. It pulled her away from the liquid portal as it vanished into white particles, concealing her way back into the real world. Mira observed everything around her while the hand is trying to tell her something. Or communicate. The world her around her becomes something unusual. The place she was in seems to be a massive factory, full of numerous cogs and gears, rust and rodents overwhelming the place. The smoke. The vapor of industrial particles, floating through the air around her. Each gear working out its job, assembled into some purpose. The copper-like hue around her. It vibrated and accompanied with the sounds of the complex machinery running its generators. Pumping out steam and metallic odor. The land she stood on wasn’t land. It was rather a metal grate bridge, connecting itself to a doorway. It is closed with a vault-type hatch.

         The hand. It looked to be pointing it’s large index finger at the door. And made incomprehensible signs afterwards. The hand appears to be walking on its two fingers as if the index finger was the left and the middle as the right. Mira walked along with the hand, realizing that she could never go back.

         The hand brought Mira in front of the vault hatch and pressed the buttons on the panel aside. The door opened, releasing gases and sounds out, dramatically revealing the long corridor within. They both continued walking along the corridor. There were many ways they could go through. Left and right, front and back, all same to the eyes of Mira. She was confused. Then she asked the hand. It stayed silent. She restated. It stayed immobile. Then she continued walking without hints or even the notice if the only thing that could show her the way. The corridor was textured with bronze tones, tubes and pipes ranging down the sides, locks, vents, gears and plentiful of screws and nails hammered randomly on the face of the corridor walls. The corridor frequently released small clumps of unknown gas each time they met a dead end.

         Mira continued wandering about the unravelling paths of the metallic labyrinth. She stepped and turned and retreated countless times. The hand just walked with. It doesn’t make any signs or points anymore. It just stood there.

         While Mira tried her best to reach the final destination, it seems that she is getting closer to something. The final exit of this inescapable hell. She solved it. She noted that the pattern of the pipes would brought her somewhere. Until then, she did it. She achieved her goal in this undesirable realm. In front of her was an enormous biosphere. Within it looks to be a castle, whitened with silvery platinum. The walls were white concrete and the outside overgrown with perplexing flora.