“Huh? Where did it go?!” Milly moved her head side to side, trying to find where the little light had gone.

In front of her was a rather strange looking dead end. It was best to call it an “aperture”, maybe a bulkhead. It was nearly transparent if slightly frosted. Looking closely, it seemed like aerogel with a light smoky blue haze. She could tell this since some of the surroundings behind it reflected the light from her helmet.

However, other than that, the other side was completely pitch black and shrouded in darkness.

The spiral of this aperture like bulkhead would remind anyone of the spiral buds of tropical trumpet flowers with the tip overlapping itself, only instead of a spike like a bud, it was flat like an iris of a camera. Looking closely, there were thin dark red and green veins running just beneath the surface giving each of the seven segments of the aperture a living insect wing or jellyfish like look.

Backing up, she pulsed her thrusters away from this “door”. After all, she couldn’t continue in this direction and it seemed her sample was gone forever now. So going backwards she attempted to leave the hole.

However, her attempt was impeded!

Only a few meters away after reverse thrusting, her back hit some sort of hard object and rebounded a little. Surprised by this, she jetted herself to turn around and look at what was in her way.

There was nothing there, only the emptiness of space and the rim of the hole she had entered.

Moving again this time forward, she tentatively thrust her hand ahead of her and slowly started moving. It didn't take her long for her hand to touch what was stopping her. Although invisible at first, when her hand was stopped, she pressed against what seemed to be the “surface”. The outline of her hand glowed lightly in a whitish blue light with an almost smooth wispy tendril like energy that looked similar to in effect to that of a plasma globe, which revealed a flat expanded plane that capped the entire hole from outside space.

“Ah? Ventra are you seeing this?! It’s some kind of energy field. Its blocking my exit, I seem to be trapped.”

There was no reply.

“Ventra! I know I told you to shut up, but this is important?! I’m suck in her-” Before she could finish her sentence a notification came from her suit in red, followed by its voice narration.

--Error 404: Connection to host server, unavailable. Switching to Entangle link.--

--...--

--Error 526: Entangle link unsuccessful, incorrect waveform parameters. No secure connection available. Switching to independent mode.--

This was quickly followed by her gun.

~~Unable to detect host service, though central connection, switching host to Tartarus EVAS.~~

A chill went up Milly’s spine when she heard this. Panic and slight terror flooded her body in the form of a cold sweat.

“How?! HOW?! How can quantum communications be severed like that?!” Several realisations started to dawn on her. Realisations that should have hit her as soon as she knew she was trapped.

The first of these was; This ship, or whoever owns it, knows she’s here.

Next was; That there was someone or something here, that they were alive or could make active choices.

Then; That whatever it was, wanted her to stay and wasn't all that keen on her talking to the outside. After all, the use of quantum communications on a small suite was a last-ditch attempt, in an emergency due to the power draw, but somehow, this un-interceptable link had been severed the moment this energy field appeared.

And lastly; That they were more advanced than anything she could understand, and if they put their mind to it, no matter what, she would be dead. Although she couldn't quite imagine the ramifications of the last part, she knew she was in trouble this time.

Calming her breathing before she passed out from panic, she adjusted herself to see the bulkhead behind her.

A change had occurred. As if trying to be polite enough and wait for her to find out that something was about to happen, the edge of each segment on the bulkhead started to rhythmically glow red, like the phosphorescent hairs on a deep-sea jellyfish. These lights seemed to be some sort of indicator. The wave like pulsing starting from the outer edges, coalescing into the centre. It did this for about five or six times before stopping.

The lights vanished, and slowly from the centre, it began to rotate and unravel leaving a hole that would expand as it opened. Once the segments had uncoiled and disappeared within the “archway” that Milly had just now noticed, becoming flush with its surface, all movement stopped. Behind the bulkhead was a “hallway” filled at first with darkness. That is until she started to see a slight white glow behind what seemed to be another bulkhead no more than ten meters past the first.

Dim red lights started to illuminate the dark hallway. It was then that Milly realized she was upside down. A flat floor to an otherwise circular tunnel looming above her.

Stillness filled her with yet another realisation.

“This is… an invitation… isn’t it?” Cold sweat started to drip down her face, and her body trembled, but it was then that her habit kicked in again. “The only way out is to jump first.” Taking a deep breath, she held the rifle in readiness, and pressed forward, slowly rotating herself to what seemed to be the orientation of the floor at the same time.

Before she realised it, once she was over the threshold of the first bulkhead, it had closed behind her. Turning her head back to see it close, she then started to notice sounds almost at the moment after the bulkhead closed completely.

“Wait… sound?!” Its was then the lights that were a dim red started to pulse on and off much like it had when she had left the airlock aboard the Ventra. A dull hiss could be heard through her helmets onboard microphone as the corridor seemed to fill with gas.

--Atmospheric compression detected, Requesting analysis--

Tartarus announced uninvited what Milly had suspected from the beginning. After all, without air or substance, sound could not reverberate.

~~Detecting habitable Nitrogen Oxygen atmosphere with trace amounts of Phosgene and Sotolon. Unidentified organic nano structures detected, hazard level incalculable.~~

“I’m not stupid enough to actually take my helmet off you know?!” Rebuking her gun despite the fact it didn't have the intelligence to reply. Giving up her futile one-sided argument, Milly attempted to press forward, only now dealing with the drag the air in the room gave her.

A low, wubbing sound started to phase in and out underneath her, slowly speeding up. It was strangely familiar to her.

“What is that? It sounds like the artificial gravity generator actuator coil… wait… Gravi-” Before she could finish, she was, at some force, hurled towards what she had assessed to be the floor.

Hit with the heavy impact of feeling her body return to an almost natural amount of gravity, which is a far cry from anything that the Ventra could create considering its small size, Milly lost focus on herself as she impacted with the entire length of her body. Thankfully nothing hurt too much, but it was a hard-enough hit to wind her, causing her to cough. This exploded passed the rubber like seal of her breathing mask and fogged up her helmet briefly.

Dazed she lost track of time for a brief moment. She laid there until her eyes focused on the lights shining into her eyes.

Eventually her disorientation disappeared. Struggling at first with both her hands she slowly lifted herself off the floor, the weight on her body something she’d not felt so strongly since she’d left for this mission.

Looking towards where the light had come from, she saw where her feet touched the floor, ripples of light radiated in clear thin phosphorescent waves leaving behind a glowing outline of any object that touched it. Every time she took a step, like disturbing the surface of a still lake, the ripples would rush out towards the edge of the path in all directions.

It gave her dim and dark surroundings an oddly mysterious yet tranquil feeling.

With the dim red lights above, the effervescent glow of the ripples below and the lights of her helmet, she walked on towards the next bulkhead. Pointing her head towards the walls, she couldn’t make out much, since like the outside, everything was quite chard and black. Signs of explosive residue and burning all over the walls.

When she drew close to the next bulkhead, just like the bulkhead before, hair like incandescent lights appeared again, pulsing in waves, but in the opposite direction to the first time. The colour that shone was also different; a vibrant electric green in the centre, gradient by an equally electric cyan blue before and after, then finally fading completely. The mix of colours that merged into each other, almost hypnotic to look at.

Again, this continued for five or six times before the bulkhead opened. As it did, the lights to the corridor beyond it began to brighten with a light tint of yellow, as if reminiscing a Mediterranean summer's afternoon. Not that Milly would know this, but it was bright enough for her to squint at first, as her eyes adjusted to the light.

Walking past the last open bulkhead, she could finally begin to take in her surroundings.

As expected, the hallway was like a tunnel, rounded walls running along its length, the only real flat being the floor, which seemed to be raised up by a few tens of centimetres.

Noticing the floor more closely now it was in the light, she registered it was made from a cloudy whitish brownish grey semi-transparent crystal, that seemed to be completely polished flat and continued on as if the entire thing was made out of a single piece. The inside of its cloudiness was filled with cracks and striations running parallel with the length of the path. These were only interrupted periodically with striations that seemed to go perpendicular with the ones parallel. It looked rather chaotic yet naturally formed with a rectangular floorboard like style as if geology itself had decided to do some interior decorating. Due to its fogginess, she could not see how deep the crystal was, all she could tell was that it was far deeper than a few centimetres.

Floating her eyes to the side of the path, she noticed that either side of the path had a narrow channel filled with what seemed to be water. The edge of which came up to just below the edge of the path. The bottom of the walls curved on the other side and seemed to overhang just above the water, as if these “pools” continued underneath it. The width of each channel less than half a meter wide. The base of these channels could not be seen for the slight foggy water and the light blue light that came from the bottom.

Lastly, living in the water, plants grew in abundance such as lily pads and reads. All of which only grew to less than half a meter but decorated the pools in a mysterious manner. All of the plants, instead of green, were white, and some even slightly transparent. Some of the stranger of the plants looking like tendrilled fern stalks with a small glowing bulb at the end, much like the light of an angler fish. There was even an umbrella like plant, whose thin stalk seemed to proudly shoot out the water, with a top that looked like a web like leaf that was shaped like the cap from a poppy flower pod.

Everything in the water felt alive yet quite alien. Parodies of things Milly had seen before growing in the wilds on far off planets that had once been natively to Earth. It was strange yet familiar. To Milly this was an uncomfortable juxtaposition to be feeling.

Just what was all of this? Were they aliens or were they not?

The discomfort she felt from the familiarity only creeping closer to herself as she continued to walk along.

The discombobulation from seeing something known yet unknown to her continued when looking along the walls and then to the archways to what would have been the next bulkhead if it wasn't already open. Each archway spaced at exactly the same distance and seemed to be made up of what looked like slightly gnarled wood, or roots, without any bark, much like the old vines or roots of a fig tree. These vines, although uneven in thickness and shape, were also solidly flush with the walls, trailing along connecting each archway together. They also followed along the edges of what seemed to be long thin knot-less geometric pine wood panelling, that had its grain in parallel, running horizontally. It gave an odd feeling of the modern manufactured and the organic. It was as if the two worlds of nature and technology had merged to perfection.

Looking up to where the lights had come from, more vines of different thicknesses converged to form a webbed like pattern, almost as if each archway was the trunk of a tree, and the top of the ceiling was the canopy of branches. Hanging from those branches in an evenly spaced yet randomly positioned distribution, were little thin cages of vines, that made teardrop shaped nests that held brightly glowing crystals within.

One of these nested lights flickered quite badly, giving the impression that despite its state of disrepair, it was trying its hardest to stay alight. This gave Milly a compelling feeling, and she couldn't help but speak up to herself as if the light itself could hear her.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to try so hard, just rest.” She didn't know why she felt the need to say such a thing, but as if listening to her, the flickering light died out completely. Moments later, a small glowing blue fairy light, like the ones outside, flew towards the now dead crystal and started to buzz around it energetically.

It was then she noticed more fairies all around her, mainly among the vegetation. It was if they were hiding from her before, but now being used to her presence, went back to what they were doing.

Eventually this increased to the point where the amount of them there seemed to form some sort of “highway”. This ran on both sides of the wall, at about halfway up from the bottom. It was nothing more than a half tubular recess running along the wall, framed by vines, where the little things would come and go. As they flew along quite fast, it gave the impression of flying cars in a night city’s bustling sky. On occasion there were small dark holes that seemed to go somewhere deep into the wall. From Milly’s observation they seemed to act as intersections where these fairies would duck in and out off. The highways would continue on and pass through the archways of each section by going through a hole on either side that seemed specially placed to ring around this recess. It was likely it would close along with the bulkhead in the event it was needed.

Feeling calmer now, since she could see around her, Milly started to admire this odd scene. She still couldn't get over her discomfort, but at least she felt she could move a little bolder now that everything was illuminated more clearly.

Crouching down a moment to admire the water plants at the side of the path, she quietly held out her hand, as one of the lights flew towards her fingers, like a bird about to perch.

At wonder at what she was seeing, the light of the little thing dimmed, and she could make out more of what it looked like with her own eyes. It was indeed a little fairy, only a few centimetres tall, with body of a young woman, wings lightly flapping on her back, and naked, not a single thread on her minute body. It was hard to grasp any of her colours such as skin tone etc, due to the light blue glow she emitted. However, what Milly could tell was that her hair was relatively long for her size, and although it was difficult to make out, she seemed to be very fair of face and feature, with tiny pointed ears.

Milly smiled as the fairy leaned a little forward as if inspecting her out of curiosity.

“You really are a fairy, aren't you?” As curious as the fairy, Milly too was fascinated.

Then as if satisfied, the little thing stood bolt right up, her little legs agape with her hands on her hips, and what Milly could just make out to be a broad grin. It then turned around bent over a little and shook its little buttocks at her before lighting back up and flying away, the sound of childish giggling could be heard in Milly’s ears as she left.

“Oi! You cheeky little...” forgetting her earlier fears with a smile, she got up from her crouch and watched while the light sped away into the highway and into one of the intersections. “*sigh*, that was incredible.”

It was then she noticed another particular light… Or better put, she noticed what that light was carrying. “That things’ still got my sample! Hey give that back?!”

Floating in the left most recess in the wall, the tiny fairy held onto Milly’s sample, flying much slower than before, feeling somewhat encumbered under the weight of gravity. When it turned around and noticed Milly come after it, as if flustered at being caught, it jittered around a little and then sped up along the highway as fast as its little wings could carry it.

Knowing it would all be over if the little thing decided to take a turning into one of the many small holes in the recess, Milly thought to give it one last try to get her sample back.

‘I’ll have to head it off!’ Thinking the only way forward was to get in front of it, she started to run down the hallway as fast as she could.

Three segments of hallway down, as the path curved slightly to the right, she noticed a T junction ahead, that went straight on and left. The forward most shut off by a bulkhead, red lights pulsing like it had been before on the first one she saw. Behind the bulkhead was dark, which got her to realise the lights were only on in places she was at. Looking behind her a second, the corridor she was just in was also closed off now by a bulkhead with red lights.

“There's no going back huh?” She felt slightly ominous about it, rekindling her fear a little, but then realised she had taken her eyes off the sample, and rushed to lock back onto it. This was despite the fact she knew she was getting deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole that could be her undoing.

Taking the left junction, which was the only one open to her, she scanned around for her sample and the little ‘imp’ that took it.

As she jogged, failing to re-find what she was looking for, the path started to curve to the right a little again.

Slowing down, she was about to give up but just then the end of the hallway came into view. The section after the last archway formed a small alcove like room to then morphed into a taller door frame. If the doorway were to be described it would be like a church or castle door in shape; curved sides leading to a point at the top, with the only flat part of it being at floor.

It was at this moment, for a fraction of a second, she caught a glimpse of what she was looking for. Panicked she sped up to a run without thinking, through doorway and directly into a much, much, larger hall.

Stopping in the room she had now entered, surprised at first, she shook herself out a daze and looked around, unable to see the fairy or her sample.

The place she found herself in was long but massive hall, her left and right being the expanse much larger than the corridor she was in before.

Like the smaller doorway into it, the hall was pointed at the top, but the slant was much less pronounced on the side that was in front of her as it eventually came to a vertical straight. There wasn't even the expected water way lining that side of the path on that side. This was all because for the first time since entering the ship, there were windows.

The windows were away from the wall to allow the area that had become more vertically straight to have handrails made of the same vines that were everywhere on the ship so far. At first it seemed there was no glass, in fact there was no indication of any separation at all. The size of the windows where huge and expanded to the width of each section of the hall, that, like the corridor was split up into periodic archways.

What struck Milly the most was how the feeling of the room was different to corridor before. Gold leaf carvings of plants and leaves formed a ribbon like relief that ran horizontally, dividing the wall in half. When nearing an archway, it would then splay out top and bottom like a fan, to become string like vines that intertwined with the woodier archways that made the halls structure. The golden leaves coming out of the carvings becoming almost life like leaves. This was accompanied by gold highlights gilding the edges of various panels attached to the wall and floor.

The bottom of the wall behind her at the edge of the path, no longer having a narrow water way but instead replaced by uneven mini hills and slopes of strange soil covered in a dark green moss. The plants had also become much grander, with small bushes and trees. Toadstools, mushrooms and lichens all fashionably peppered around the place as if to give a feeling they were placed there by an expert woodland florist.

The sound of crickets and what seemed like flowing water could be heard in places. Tiny streams meandering through the moss covers mounds of dirt.

A thick metallic line was embedded into the middle of the floor making only a minor rounded bump in the floor, that would split into a circle at equal distances, that was also filled with soil covered in moss and a small yet majestic white leafless tree planted in the centre.

The ceiling, mirroring the smaller hallways, had a cathedral style roof of netted vines that connected to each archway, only this time it was much more uniform and less haphazard, as if its grand scale gave rise to uniformity. The lights were much larger globes hanging from stalks lined symmetrically in a line all along the hallway.

Instead of the indentation like highway the fairies used in the smaller corridors, there was instead periodic rings on the wall side of the ceiling. The fairies to had made their home here, darting around the plant growth making it hard for Milly to try and find her quarry.

With the colour schemes of gold, white and coniferous cream, enhanced by the natural almost untouched feeling of ancient woodland with a mix of elegant over-technology, it made Milly feel somewhat small, like a child visiting a massive castle for the first time. The entire scenery almost taking her breath away.

“This place… A promenade? No, an observation deck maybe?” Catching her breath as she continued to look around. She noticed that the windows looked towards the ship’s midsection, as well as the opposing windows of an identical looking deck on the other side, and the remaining intact half of the ship.

Suddenly, as she looked at her left, she saw one of the doors in the hall’s archways close. Unlike the circular iris type bulkheads in the smaller corridor, these ones were like long leaves or insect wings, whose base attached at the topmost point of the ceiling. Like a fan unfurling from the wall side to the window side, five segments closed off any entry to the other side. Like the small corridor, each edge of a segment started to shine like the hairs of a deep-sea jellyfish. Red lights pulsed indicating there was no way through passed that point.

“You want me to keep moving? Where are you taking me?” More odd notions popped in her head, but thinking about all that had happened so far, it wasn't so strange after all. She knew herself she felt compelled to move forward, whether it was something about this ship that was subliminally influencing her in some way, or it was just her own impetus, she didn’t know, nor felt comfortable confronting. Then it was the actions of the ship itself that seemed to physically herd her to some sort of destination.

“But why?” Thinking more about it, Milly realized that if they wanted her to go somewhere, they could have come personally, but since there was not, then did that mean there was no one on this ship? Then did that also mean it was the ship alone getting her to move? Why not make direct contact? Why go in such a roundabout way?

Question after question just stacked on top of each other. In the end it all boiled down to motive. What did, whatever this was, want with her? Why go to such lengths?

Not knowing this gave her a sense of nagging frustration. All these emotions she had experience over the last few hours had played havoc on her sense of mind, making her forget, that regardless of the first sample, she should have also attempted to get others by now as well. This absent mindedness, that was also affecting her awareness of the situation, could also be attributed by the lack of Ventra’s constant nagging as well as the wonder she felt in her new surroundings.

Leisurely she walked along the right side of the hall, her left hand absentmindedly brushing along the handrail by the windows as she soaked in the scene.

Before long she was met with a small change. Beyond the next archway, to which she had already passed five of them, the section that connected to the next archway had turned into a slightly larger circular room with the majority of its volume taking up the wall opposite the windows. The windows himself remained normal, as if it was just a continuation from the previous hallway. On the other side of the room, another archway that continued in the next section of the hall.

This new room at first didn't seem much different than the hallway, except the ceiling had become a dome, with a large hole in the centre that led up somewhere. Not that Milly could see, since the hole shone down bright yet hazy rays of light, like the warm hands of the gods shining their blessing upon her.

Gradually other details came to mind, like the small three-meter-wide circular platform that was raised only a few centimetres off the floor. Then there was the ring pool, split into quarters surrounding the platform with path that went in all four cardinal directions.

However, that is when her attention stopped. This was because right there sitting on a toadstool on the far end of the platform, opposite her, the little fairy she’d been after seemingly trying to catch its breath while it hung on to the sample for dear life.

It was then Milly made several mistakes. So far that was nothing new considering her track record so far, but these particular mistakes, if she were to reflect on them, would be considered complete idiocy.

The first was getting excited and acting without thinking.

“Hey you!” Avoiding the water, she rushed over to the closest path to the platform and towards the toadstool the fairy was sitting on.

The next mistake she made was not taking into account her surroundings, and failing to ask why these features existed.

Approaching the rim at a fast pace, she did a steady and energetic deer like hop up to the top of the platform. However…

Her last mistake was not noticing the toadstool the fairy was sitting on, and how, in equal distances all around the platforms rim, planted in little circles of soil, forty-two similar such toadstools were also growing.

Right then in mid-air from her hop, with her hand stretched out to try and catch the fairy, the toadstools around the ring started to glow, and before she knew it, her vision filled with a bright sparkling white light.

Sat on the toadstool with a slightly smug yet relieved expression on her face, the fairy whipped her brow with her tiny forearm, right when she watched Milly completely vanish into a bright flash of light.