"What's happening?" I croaked. My voice didn't echo; the dark simply swallowed it.
Then, a ripple. A voice resonated from the abyss, ancient and paternal, yet laced with a weight that made my spirit tremble.
"Don't worry, child. You won't suffer anymore. Oh, child of Terra... you will create your own path with the power I grant you."
Confusion spiked. "What?"
Before I could demand an explanation, I felt a violent tug as if an invisible hook had snagged my essence. I was being pulled away, dragged through a sea of static and screaming silence. Then, a chorus of voices began to chant, overlapping like a rhythmic fever dream.
"We bear the mantle, bright and true, the stars our charge, creation renewed..."
Another voice, colder and sharper, cut through the melody like a blade.
"But in the void, another fate... The C'tan hungered, turned to hate."
"C'tan? What is that?" I shouted into the nothingness. No answer came, only the relentless tide of the chant.
"Their feasts of stars, their endless greed, now clashed with those they swore to lead. The Necrons rose, their shackles torn; they shattered gods they once had served."
"Necrons? Please, talk to me!"
The voices grew louder, a cacophony of lost history and divine arrogance.
"By the grace of the Old Ones, we shall guide the galaxy..." "You pray to gods for your salvation; we shattered ours in revelation!"
The final words felt like a physical blow. My soul pulsed with a sudden, soaring sense of pride a fragment of a memory that wasn't mine.
"What do you want me to do!?" I screamed.
White light exploded.
[ Systems Online... ]
"What!?"
I bolted upright, my eyes snapping open. I wasn't in the void anymore. I was trapped inside a vertical glass canister. With a sharp, mechanical hiss, the seal broke, and the front panel slid upward.
I stumbled out, my hands trembling as I gripped the cold edge of the capsule to steady myself. My surroundings were... wrong. I was in a vast, subterranean chamber bathed in a sickly, emerald glow. Green lines of light traced paths across the floor and climbed the walls, illuminating strange, angular symbols etched into the stone.
It looked like a tomb.
"Where am I?"
I froze. My voice—it was higher, melodic, distinctly feminine. I looked down at my hands. They were pale, wrapped in a sleek, form-fitting suit accented with glowing purple circuitry.
"I'm... human?" I muttered, a cold sweat breaking out. Then a darker thought hit me: Was I even a woman before? I tried to reach back into my memories, but the harder I pushed, the more the past slipped away like sand through my fingers.
I turned back to the capsule and spotted a hat resting inside. Without thinking, I snatched it and pulled it low over my brow. I needed to move.
"I don't see an exit," I whispered, glancing at the flickering green conduits. "Follow the lights. Just follow the lights."
I walked for what felt like hours, a ghost in a graveyard of giants. Suddenly, a rhythmic clank-clank-clank echoed through the hall. I lunged behind a massive pillar, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I peeked around the edge. My breath hitched.
Metal skeletons.
Tall, hunched, and terrifying, they marched with a terrifying, synchronized precision. Their ribcages glowed with that same baleful green light, and they clutched long, lethal-looking rifles.
"I am definitely not following them," I hissed to myself.
I began a desperate game of cat-and-mouse, darting from pillar to pillar, holding my breath every time a metallic head turned in my direction. I finally cleared the corridor, emerging into a gargantuan cavern. In the center stood a black pyramid so massive it seemed to swallow the light. At its apex, a green orb burned like a miniature sun.
"Agh! My head!"
A sudden, searing pain spiked behind my eyes. I doubled over, clutching my temples as a low-frequency hum vibrated through my skull. The sound of my own groan gave me away.
"Who are you?"
The voice was a grating, mechanical rasp. I looked up. Standing before me was a metal skeleton unlike the others. It wore a tattered metallic cloak, a crest atop its head, and gripped a heavy staff that crackled with energy.
"I... I'm sorry for intruding," I stammered, backed against the stone as more of the mechanical soldiers circled me. "I just woke up here."
"You say you woke up... here?" The leader leaned in, its cold, glowing oculars scanning me with clinical detachment.
"Yes," I said, forced into a corner.
"Impossible," the machine hissed. "Show me. Show me where, or you will die."
I led the nightmare parade back to the chamber. The leader stood before my open capsule, its head tilting at an unnatural angle as it interfaced with the console.
"Interesting... your words hold truth. You did emerge from this vessel." It turned back to me, its voice devoid of any warmth.
"I have no data on this unit. You are not one of us. You are not Necron."
"Is that what you call yourselves?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
"Mhm. Strange," it muttered. It turned to one of the mindless soldiers. "Bring her to the lab. Summon a Cryptek to examine the tomb and the trespasser."
Before I could protest, a pair of cold, iron-hard hands clamped onto my arms. I was dragged away, my boots scuffing against the stone, as the mechanical lords whispered behind me.
"My Lord, this tomb is not of our design," I heard a new, clicking voice say as I was hauled through the doors. "Yet it sits within our walls. The human must be a trick."
"The probability of a trick is low," the leader replied, his voice fading into the distance. "No intruder entered. She simply... appeared. Perhaps she is one of us in a different form?"
"One of us?" The Cryptek's voice dripped with mechanical disgust.
"Find the answers," the Necron commanded. "Now."
"As you command my lord" The Cryptek said before leaving.