Sarah woke to the sound of dripping water and a rhythmic, wet clicking that echoed off cold stone.
Her head throbbed with a dull, heavy pulse. As she opened her eyes, she expected the bright, neon glow of the 21st-century future or the golden sun of the Eloi’s garden. Instead, she was encased in a tomb of shadows.
She tried to move her hands, but they were pinned to her sides. Looking down, she gasped. She wasn't tied with rope or metal. She was wrapped in thick, translucent webbing that felt like damp silk and smelled of copper. It was sticky, clinging to her flight jacket, binding her to a cold, vertical pillar of white stone.
"You are awake," a voice drifted from the darkness. "The adrenaline in your system was quite high. It took several hours for the sedatives in the silk to wear off."
Sarah squinted into the gloom. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the "Spider-Morlocks" scuttling along the ceiling. They moved with a horrific, jerky grace, their many limbs tapping against the stone like hailstones. Their giant fly-eyes glowed with a faint, bioluminescent green, reflecting Sarah’s terrified face in a thousand tiny facets.
In the center of the chamber sat the figure from the Sphinx.
He was seated in a high-backed chair that looked like it had been salvaged from an ancient Victorian parlor—or perhaps a 2002 boardroom. He looked hauntingly human, though his skin was the color of a mushroom, pale and translucent. He sat perfectly still, his hands folded over a silver-topped cane. And, as before, he wore those thick, soot-black glasses.
"Where is my machine?" Sarah demanded, her voice cracking. "Where is Weena?"
"The girl is being... processed," the Overlord said, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. "She is happy, Sarah. Her eyes are still rolled back, her mind lost in the beautiful violet hum of the sirens. She feels no pain. No fear. She is simply waiting for her purpose to be fulfilled."
"Her purpose is to be food!" Sarah spat, struggling against the webs.
"We all have a purpose," the Overlord replied, standing up. He walked toward her, the tapping of his cane the only sound in the cavern. "You spent your life trying to build a bridge to the past. My ancestors spent theirs building a cellar to survive the future. When the moon broke, the thinkers came down here. The workers stayed above... for a while. But eventually, the roles reversed. Now, I am the brain, and they are the nerves."
He gestured to the scuttling monsters on the ceiling.
"And your machine," he continued, stopping just inches from her. "A fascinating toy. It is a bridge of glass in a world of stone. I have placed it at the heart of our hive. It provides a very unique frequency of power."
"It’s not a toy," Sarah hissed. "It’s my family. Everything I have left of them is in that machine."
The Overlord tilted his head, the dark lenses of his glasses reflecting nothing. "Family. A word for a ghost. You carry a locket, don't you? A small piece of metal with a chemical image inside. You think that by traveling through time, you can make the image real again."
He reached out a pale, thin finger and traced the edge of the locket hanging from Sarah’s neck.
"I can give you something better than a machine, Sarah," he whispered. "I can give you the truth. But first, you must see clearly."
He slowly raised his hands to the sides of his head. "The Eloi require the sirens and the lights because their minds are weak. But you... you are a scientist. You require a more personal touch."
He gripped the frames of his dark glasses and pulled them away.
Sarah tried to look away, but she couldn't. His eyes weren't human. They were vast, swirling whirlpools of iridescent violet and deep, bottomless black. They didn't have pupils; they had rotating rings of light that seemed to pull her soul out through her tear ducts.
"Look at me, Sarah," the Overlord commanded. "Look at the beach. Look at the sun. Look at the daughter who is waiting for you to come home."
The cavern walls began to melt. The smell of damp stone vanished, replaced by the scent of salt air and sunscreen. Sarah’s eyes began to roll back into her head, the white of her sclera turning toward the ceiling as the Overlord’s hypnotic gaze took hold of her mind.
"Yes..." the Overlord whispered. "Go back to 2002.
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Go back to the lie."
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and then Add to home screen.