The beeping sound reached her in repeating patterns followed by long hisses that echoed through the chamber like the breathing of an ancient creature coming back to life.
Ashe opened her eyes.
She immediately perceived light coming from somewhere above her. The ceiling was indeed not whole anymore as some sections of it had collapsed at some point in time. Through the broken gaps, beams of sunlight fell downward and through them, Ashe began to make out the chamber around her.
It looked like an abandoned facility of sorts.
She realized she was standing upright, held in that position by a transparent enclosure surrounding her. It was filled with a bluish fluid that held her body in suspension, clear enough to let her see through it.
Around the pod, flowers grew from the flooded floor and from cracks along the chamber's walls, gathering around the base of the structure in clusters so thick that they nearly covered one another. Some had climbed onto the pod itself.
Suddenly, the surface in front of the enclosure clicked, and the door opened on its own. The fluid rushed out immediately and Ashe's body followed with it, no longer supported by anything.
Air rushed into her lungs and she coughed violently, unable to control that first breath. When her breathing began to settle, she looked at her own reflection in the water and noticed how pale she was. She had long white hair that clung damply to her shoulders and back, and a grey bodysuit covered her from neck to ankle.
As she took a few steps away from the pod, she felt a pull at her back. She turned and realized she was not free from it at all. Numerous conduits still connected her to the pod, extending from the rear of her bodysuit and back into it. She reached back to remove them, but her arm did not bend far enough. She then tried again, but when she did, a shock traveled through her entire body at once and hit her.
She did not understand what it was, only that it was violent. Her head began to buzz, and the chamber seemed to tilt, losing its natural shape. Through the noise, she could hear strange voices layered over one another, but she couldn't distinguish a single word being said.
Then a second wave came.
It was stronger than the first, and by then she had no energy left to resist it. Her vision flashed and blurred, and for a moment she could have sworn ash was falling from above.
But that was of course impossible. She figured by then she was somewhere inside. Nothing was burning, so there was nothing that should have been shedding ash. And yet grey particles drifted down around her, soft and silent, making the moment feel even more unreal.
She tried to move forward but her foot slipped in the shallow water and she fell to the ground.
One by one, some of the conduits detached from her suit with hissing sounds and pulled back toward the pod.
She stayed there for a while, breathing unevenly, waiting for the room to stop spinning.
When the buzzing in her head began to fade, she pushed herself up again and looked around. Nothing in that room felt familiar so she tried to remember, hoping her thoughts or memories might offer some sense of grounding. But there was nothing.
She did not know who she was or what this place was. She did not know how she had gotten there, why she had been inside the pod, or even for how long.
As these thoughts cluttered inside Ashe's mind, something moved on the wall in front of her. It looked like a stain spreading through the stone at first, then it organized itself into dark marks.
Ashe stared at them, unsure whether she was seeing another hallucination of sorts. Then the marks changed shape slowly. They seemed to form from black ash itself, gathering on the wall and dispersing again.
"…ou alright?"
She frowned while challenging the reality in front of her eyes then moved a little closer.
She tried to speak but the first sound that came out was too ragged to form an actual word. She coughed and tried again.
"What is this?" she asked mostly to herself.
The writing then changed shape again.
"My name is Sven," it replied. "You just received a Signal Sweep, so you must feel disoriented. That is normal. Take your time to adjust."
Ashe stared at the wall trying to formulate an explanation as to why those markings were answering her.
"Who are you?" she asked at last.
"I am a survivor, like you. Others like me are searching the network for signs of life, looking for more Emergents."
"Emergents?"
"There is a great deal you don't know yet," the writing replied. "It will be easier if you take it slowly."
She touched the wall with her fingertips, expecting the letters to smear under her hand. They didn't. They dissipated on their own, then formed again a little farther along the stone.
"Breathe in slowly."
"Why can't I remember who I am?" she asked.
The answer appeared on a broken and unlit section of wall.
"Your name is Ashe."
The moment she read it, a violent disturbance passed through her. Loud whispers seemed to form out of nowhere, filling her ears so suddenly that she had to press a hand to the side of her head. Light flashed and the chamber blurred again. It lasted only a moment, but it was enough to leave her unsteady.
When it passed, she looked back at the wall.
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"It is written on the pod you came out of."
She turned immediately.
The pod stood open behind her still draining fluid into the shallow water below. Ashe moved toward it and placed a hand against its surface. There, faint but visible now that she was searching for it, was the name.
ASHE.
"What else does it say?" she asked, scanning the glass and the frame around it as though another answer might reveal itself if she searched carefully enough.
"Nothing else, I'm afraid."
This time the writing appeared directly on the pod's glass.
She looked back at the wall where the writings had first formed and back again.
"How are you doing this?"
"The conduits that were attached to you served multiple purposes," the writing formed slowly. "One of them was ensuring sensory enhancement. I am not literally writing on these surfaces, it's your perception that is interpreting the signal I am sending this way."
As coherent as it sounded at first, the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. There was nothing she could relate it to. But then again, she had no memory to compare it against, so she asked for more.
"Where are you sending it from?" she asked.
This time there was a delay in Sven's answer, and Ashe wondered whether the person had gone, leaving her alone in this strange place.
Then the dark letters formed again across the curved surface of the pod.
"Threnos."