From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 10: Charge

I sank into exhaustion like a stone through water, my consciousness fell into the nothingness. The pain in my head receded, but the emptiness remained, a hollow space carved out by the Switch that had saved us. Blood had dried in flaky patterns on my face, itching as my body relaxed against the cold stone.

Beside me, Kira’s breathing had steadied, her shoulder still pressed against mine, the only warmth in this damp place. As sleep claimed me, the darkness behind my eyelids shifted, transformed, became familiar in a way that should have been comforting but wasn’t.

I was back in the warehouse.

The cavernous space stretched endlessly before me, metal shelves rose on both sides. The familiar weight of a crate fell on my arms, not too heavy, not too light, the perfect burden. I moved forward, my steps assured despite the dim lighting, navigating the labyrinth I’d memorized over years.

There was a satisfaction in the motion. Take box from shelf A. Carry to shelf B. Place precisely. Return. Repeat. A perfect system. No wasted movement, no uncertainty. Each transfer complete and contained, a problem solved.

"Faster." a voice said, though I couldn’t see who spoke. "The quota’s doubled today."

I didn’t question it. The voice was right. More boxes appeared, stacked impossibly high. I grabbed one, then another. My arms didn’t tire. In fact, each box I moved seemed to fill me with energy rather than deplete it. The sensation was intoxicating. A reversal of physics, of logic. The more I gave, the more I had.

"That’s not how switch works." the voice said, closer now.

I turned, still holding a box, and found myself facing not a supervisor but a mirror. My reflection stared back, but with eyes that glowed a pale, sickly green.

"You’ve been thinking about it the wrong way." My reflection said.

I looked down at the box in my hands. It had no label, no markings. "Should I use it only with boxes, then?"

"No." my reflection said, smiling with my mouth. "The box doesn’t matter. It’s the movement that counts. You can’t expect energy for free."

The box in my hands began to vibrate, humming with potential energy. I felt a familiar pressure building behind my eyes, the static hiss in my brain that preceded a Switch.

"But it hurts." I said.

"Of course it hurts." my reflection replied. "You’re trying to move a mountain with muscles meant for pebbles."

The box crumbled in my hands, dissolving into black liquid that ran through my fingers like tar, leaving behind nothing but a yo-yo, luminous green, spinning at the end of its string.

"Start small." my reflection advised, its voice growing distant. "You’re thinking too big. Switch isn’t about size. It’s about—"

I woke with a gasp, the dream fragmenting into nonsensical pieces that slipped away the harder I tried to hold them. The darkness of the cavern pressed against my eyes, absolute and disorienting. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was or why my head throbbed with dull pain.

"You were talking in your sleep." Kira’s voice came from beside me, anchoring me back to reality. "Something about boxes." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

I touched my face, fingers finding the dried blood crusted around my nose and mouth. "How long was I out?"

"Not long enough to heal." She said. "Maybe an hour? Hard to tell without light."

The hollow feeling in my head had receded somewhat, like a tide drawing back but leaving debris on the shore. I felt stronger... though my stomach twisted with hunger.

Around us, I could hear the restless movements of the others, the soft scrape of shoes against stone, hushed conversations that died quickly into the oppressive silence.

"We’re moving soon." Kira said. "Darien thinks we’ve rested long enough."

As if summoned by his name, Darien’s voice cut through the darkness, all sharp edges and authority. "Everyone up. We’re continuing. Finn, which way?"

There was shuffling, the sound of people gathering themselves, canteens clinking as they were secured to belts, clearing throats and waking yawns.

"This way." Finn’s voice came uncertainly from my left. "The silver signal is strongest through here."

We formed our blind procession again, hands on shoulders, a chain of trust in the dark. I found myself in the back, one hand on Kira’s shoulder, with no one behind me. The ground beneath our feet sloped gently downward, the air growing noticeably damper as we descended.

I started to play with my yo-yo with my other hand, trying to remember the important details of my dream.

"How’s your head?" Kira asked quietly as we walked, her words meant for me alone.

"Still weird." I replied, trying to inject some humor into my voice. "The bleeding stopped. I feel... not great, but functional."

"You know what you did back there was—"

"Stupid?"

"I was going to say brave."

I snorted. "Same thing in this place."

We continued in silence after that, focusing on the simple task of not tripping in the dark, and using the yo-yo. Somehow instead of hissing, I felt how a shiny star was being formed inside my mind.

The tunnel twisted and turned, sometimes narrowing until we had to turn sideways to squeeze through, other times widening into small chambers that we navigated by touch alone.

Time stretched, elastic and unreliable. My stomach growled persistently, reminding me that our last meal had been nutritional paste in the Citadel, a day ago... or more, it’s not like I had a way to know in complete darkness.

And then, something changed. The darkness ahead of us softened, the absence of light becoming something less absolute. A faint, spectral glow painted the edges of the tunnel in ghostly yellow, growing stronger as we proceeded.

"Light." someone whispered from the front of our line, the word rippling back through our ranks like a prayer.

We emerged into a vast cavern, and I had to close my eyes almost fully against what felt like blinding radiance after so long in absolute darkness. The ceiling arched high above us, filled with what appeared to be living stars, patches of luminescent moss that clung to the rock, casting an ethereal glow across the chamber.