The world, which is partly visible through the small window, explodes into a blurred flurry of movement that her frantically darting eyes just can’t keep up with. It flies by in an instant. Pen’s sweaty, blood stained hands grab anything they can reach, as she is shoved back into the padded seat, pushed backward from the crushing force of the sudden burst of acceleration forward.

The window before herself fills up with a series of bright boxes and shapes that she can’t comprehend, not being able to see past the rushing world beyond, as they bolt straight towards the C-class head-on. There is a gargantuan roar, audible even through the dampened walls of the metal body.

The man’s voice says something again, as the giant before them readies its weapon for a second strike. The rod, the piston that the C-class bot uses to attack, shoots out from beneath its round carriage straight towards them, propelled by a screeching hiss. The long, blunt beam blasts through the air with decimating speed; the launch releasing a loud, thunderous explosion. In a flash, they lurch to the left, just barely scraping by the beam that slams into the stones, where they stood only a second ago, pulverizing them into a fine dust that clouds the air.

The bottom right corner of the window before herself seems to be some kind of mirror, showing the disastrous ruin laid just behind them, rising up high in a puff of smoke and debris.

As they propel forward, darting around to the side of the giant, Pen’s eyes focus on the sharpness of their movements; the quick succinct dashes. It’s fast. Too fast for her to keep up with. Everything is a blur. She begins to feel a deep nausea within seconds. It isn’t like they’re walking or running. It’s like they’re floating, like they’re gliding over slick ice. There aren’t any bounces or jolts up and down, it’s just a smooth movement over the surface of the giant room; the bot that she is in weaves and dodges around the many piles of metal corpses and rocks with a speed that sends her flying left and right, thudding against the walls over and over with every lurch.

Blood drips from her forehead down over her eyes, stinging them and tingeing her vision a deep red. This. This is why the room is so massive. So massive and empty and open. For this thing, this bot to move with its frightening speed. Her head pounds, her eyes sting. Pen can see the familiar frame of the archway to the tunnel she had come in through, the dark passage that they are charging straight towards.

In the corner of the window, in the mirror, the heavy C-class slowly turns around; turning to pursue them. There is a new pulse of acceleration forward, a second wind as they launch straight down towards the tunnel that she had drug herself down not ten minutes before, her body presses against the seat against her will, her head throbs and her bones rattle as the metal hull shakes violently. Everything is blurry. She can’t see.

For just a moment, as they breach the tunnel, her vision goes black from the pressure of their otherworldly speed.

As if waking from a sudden dream however, Pen quickly comes back to awareness not a second later, as they hurtle straight down towards the abyss. The square light fixtures that line the walls whooshing by second after second.

The voice talks again, but she still can’t understand it. Not that her mind is focused on that in the least at the moment, as they fly like an arrow, her eye only has a few seconds to look at the corner window, at the dozen furiously burning red eyes hounding them not far in the distance. Their collective gaze somehow feels like it is looking straight at her.

Wait.

Pen looks forward, out the window towards the darkness ahead. Towards the great cylinder ahead of them, the one with the collapsed walkways. There’s nowhere to go, this is a dead end! A death trap! They’re hurtling right towards a pit.

“Stop! Stop! There’s nothing there! It’s just a hole!” she shouts, pressing her body forward. But her voice is barely audible over the near roar coming from the crystal at her feet now. The crystal releases a sweltering heat, which fills the tiny space. It feels like she’s trapped inside of an oven. Her frantic breaths feel hot and almost hurt to take in. The metal hurts to touch.

There is a lurch as the chasm comes to make itself seen, for a second, as odd as it seems, she is sure she can see the spot of her blood from before, still sitting there down on the corner of the stones where she had drug herself up back across, after the stairway collapsed. There is another thunderous crash as before. The C-class fires its projectile again, now at their heels. Time slows to a crawl as her eyes look at the massive metal beam launching their way in the small mirror window; as her eyes look at the awning chasm just before them and then for just a second, everything is weightless. Everything is quiet as they fall, as her eyes decide to focus now solely on the darkness looming below them as they spiral towards it.

A fresh explosion of barreling catastrophe shines out. The beam flies just over their falling form, the rush of wind howling as if just past her very own ears, flying out across the span of the cylinder as they both fall into the looming darkness below.

Pen’s thoughts seem strange to her in that instant, as the bot she is inside of tumbles down into the abyss. They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. But… she doesn’t see anything like that in that time-frozen second. There are no memories, good or bad, there is no flash, no last minute revelation. Nothing. All she sees is the metal beam launch past where they just stood just a moment ago and she thinks about the city that she never got to go to. That special place in the world she never got to have.

She wonders what it’s like? What it’s really like, the city. Not her dream or her fantasy of it. But the real, nitty-gritty version of it. Was it like the town above? No, it must be better. It must be bigger. It must be massive. Giant! It must be amazing! Why else would people go there? Isn’t that why she wanted to go there? Because of the promise it held? The opportunity it dangled out in the air for all to come and to reach for?

Even someone like her could make it in a place like that. Even someone like her could have a dream and chase it there. Even someone like her could have a place… a little corner of the world, some run-down crumbling building. Some shack that is barely better than an old tent, but it would be hers. It would hers to call… She shakes her head.

It’s silly.

It would be hers and just by having it, by knowing it was there, it would let her do one thing that she always wanted to do. That stupid, childish dream of hers to say that sentence. That stupid sentence she had heard once from someone who was just passing by on the road, talking to a friend. They were some random stranger’s words that had just become stuck so deeply within her, since she had heard them that one time. Closing her eyes, Pen leans back into the seat and exhales the breath, which she now realizes that she had been holding in for this entire time again; as she says the words she never got to say, just to feel what it might be like before the end.

“- I’m going home.”

“Need a ride?” calls out the man’s voice from above.

They shoot upwards, defying the fall.