The beeping sound started all of a sudden 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 over 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 hit 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 entire body.
She slowly stepped out and made a few clumsy steps away from the pod, but she didn't have to walk far for her to feel 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 the structure.
She reached back to remove them, but her arm did not bend far enough. She tried again, but before she could finish the gesture, a shock traveled through her entire body in an instant and hit her.
She didn't 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 that noise, she could hear strange voices layered over one another and yet she couldn't distinguish a single word being said.
Then, soon afterwards, 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.
As clearly as she could see it, it still felt impossible, or at best, unlikely. She had figured by then she was somewhere inside. Nothing seemed to be burning anywhere, 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, the conduits detached from her suit on their own with hissing sounds, pulling 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 faded, 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 that 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 also 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 herself.
The writing then changed shape again.
"My name is Seven," it replied. "You just received a Signal Sweep, so you must feel disoriented. That is normal. Take your time to adjust."
Ashe blinked, startled by the realization that those markings seemed to have answered her.
"Who are you?" she asked with a low voice.
"I am a survivor, like you. I am searching for signs of life, looking for 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, but instead they dissipated on their own a few seconds later, then reformed 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 the wall.
"Your name is Ashe."
The moment she read it, a violent shockwave passed through her. Loud whispers seemed to form out of nowhere again, filling her ears so suddenly that she had to press a hand to the side of her head. Light flashed and the chamber blurred, lasting but a moment, and yet even so, 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 and looked at the open pod behind her, still draining fluid into the shallow water below. Ashe moved toward it and placed a hand against its surface. There it was.
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. Seeing this, she looked back at the wall where the writing 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 the explanation sounded at first, the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. There was no experience she could relate it to, but then again, she had no memories to compare it against either, so she continued.
"Where are you sending this from?"
This time there was a delay in Seven's answer, and Ashe wondered whether the person on the other side had gone away completely, leaving her alone in this strange place.
Then the dark letters formed again across the curved surface of the pod.
"Threnos."