[hr][center][b][u][h3][???? ??th, ???? - ??:??pm - ????????? ????, Low Orbit, ?-?][/h3][/u][/b][/center][hr]

[center][A ZombiesAndHyenas / XianaEvermor collaboration][/center]

Eyes fluttered open to black.  The tingling of nerves returning to their virgin state, untouched by pain or trauma crawled up her spine.  The supernatural softness of her Tinker-made armor liner crumpled gently against her newborn skin as she stirred.

Bleat of static.

She violently tore the mask off her face as the abrasive light seared her retinas and the noise stabbed at her ears.  It skittered across the ground, and her hair spilled out in purple waves down her shoulders.  She writhed on the hard sterile tile as she curled into a fetal position, the hard leather stitching of her gloves scraping abrasively against her face as she pressed her palms into her eyes.  Air lacerated her vocal cords as she raised her voice for the first time.

[b][color=#FA649B]"Scheiße!"[/color][/b]

Soft reset.

The woman sprawled on the ground for a long time before pushing herself up to her feet and staring out into the void.  Where was she?  As if in answer to her question a light flickered from the inside of her mask, faintly illuminating a sign.  A familiar deep thunder thrummed beneath her feet as a Pendrake Arc Reactor Turbine spun up from deep within the facility and lights began clacking on sequentially.  She squinted against the dull ache of her irises adjusting to light for the first time and an icy chill splashed down her back.

Terminal Asylum: Humanity's last hope.

[b][color=#FA649B]"What have you done, Witch?"[/color][/b] she whispered.

[b][color=#ab6879]"Life-sign detected, re-initializing life support systems,"[/color][/b] the soothing British alto of the facility AI announced over the PA.  She stood aghast as the massive observation dome overhead slowly opened, allowing her to gaze out at the softly flickering sphere of dimensional energy encasing the last square mile of unconsummated Earth floating in the void above the ruined planet.

[b][color=#ab6879]"Subject Identified.  Welcome home, Director."[/color][/b]

From without came the sound of screeching, roaring, and a cacophonous rumble. Like a landslide or peal of thunder that never seemed to end, but never seemed to have had a beginning. The world was suffused in a violet-cerulean-teal-gray light. Cold, almost clinical, somehow.

The 'Earth' below was a warped thing. No dirt, nor stone, nor true soil was left. In place of these comforting familiarities was a thick layer of fine glassy white-gray powder. Curious shapes scuttled and scurried in the powder below. Some large enough to lend credence to the idea that perhaps dinosaurs of some variety had returned.

Others larger still.

On the horizon, a gargantuan shape strode through the world, half rotting, half frozen in glass. It bore fifteen limbs, some of which appeared to be nothing more than bone and ligament. All of which were twitching, stuttering through the world as if it were trying to... Teleport? Perhaps? 

It had the shape of perhaps a tick, perhaps a frog, perhaps a badger. Chitin covered the whole of it, and though it was practically falling apart at the seams, the titanic monstrosity could be seen partially pulling itself back together. Thousands of smaller limbs thrashed, and where they passed, organics healed, while glass fell away.

It's head was lost in the thick cloud cover that swirled around it. And reality itself seemed to weep over its very existence. The body split into four segments, and the fourth was drooping, as if ready to rot away and slough off to the world so far below.
Power, of some sort, pulsed from the creature and reached for the sky. Reached outward, and ever higher, for the facsimile of a sun.

Gone was the warm yellow light of Sol. It's murderer sat where the sun had once rested. Wreathed in eight... nine... ten... eleven. Eleven ever circling, ever waving, ever [i]moving[/i] tentacles of what could only be described as script.
Perhaps English, or some sort of code, or some unknowable language.

These tentacles reached out from a perfectly black sphere, sitting in the throne that the sun once held in the sky. Wherever they touched, creation screamed. Reality would bend around these limbs, and as one elephantine creature tried to scurry away on broken legs, the edge of one such tendril passed through it.

It's resulting scream was high enough to be heard even within the sanctuary. It's body gone, only the 'corpse' remained. A snapshot of the beast, mid struggle, encased in glass. Two seconds later, said glass sculpture crumbled into powder that matched perfectly with the 'sand' below its feet.

Somewhere, across the world, and yet only a mile or two away, amidst the ever-churning chaos, an eye creaked open against the weight of time immeasurable. A scream, truly unavoidable, ripped against the world at large.

It hit her like a ton of bricks.  Standing and falling, both silent and screaming.  All she could do was clap her hands over her ears to try and drown out the cacophony.  She squeezed her eyes shut to avoid eye contact with the creature, though its [i]v̷̻̓ó̴̙i̷̛͜d̶̝̈́l̸̰̔i̷̮͑g̷̭̿h̸̨̓ṱ̸̑[/i] pierced through Eva's ũ̸̙̚n̸͇̫͕̐̕͝s̶̞͍̱͘e̸͙͍͔̒͑ë̵̮̗̀n̶̘̋́͋ ̴̜̓̏̒ḙ̴̢̊̓y̴̙̦͒̆̕e̴̜̪͙͛̊͝. 

Even through the darkness she could see herself vibrating in resonance with the dimensional sphere containing the Asylum, a lavender hue still brushing off the roughshod green stitches of [̶̼̬͌̌B̴̟̃Å̷̠Ņ̶̺̉̐Í̵̺Ş̵̛̪̋Ḧ̴͔̗́̕Ḿ̶͈͐E̶̫̮̊̒N̶̹͆̇T̶̗͆]̶̖̄.  All at once every cell in her body screamed.  Blood spilled from her eyes, nose and mouth, and her body crashed to the hard tile dead.  For one single blink, both an instant and an eternity, she was at peace fading into the void.