black crosses {ongoing | on hold}

[0] prologue

Caroline Jacobs saw the undeniable problem. How couldn't she? She had taken it out to investigate it but it had spread everywhere. She blew her ink-black hair out of her face, wiped off the tiny beads of sweat dotting her forehead and tried to contain it.

It was a pitch-black vortex with purple spirals and it was blindingly obvious that its strength would soon overcome her. Only an idiot wouldn't be able to figure that out. No, not just an idiot, the dumbest, most stupid kind of idiot.

Luckily enough, she found a sheet of graphene, which would suppress it much longer than she could. She hurled it over the vortex, which struggled aggressively in return, and took the opportunity to run straight out and lock the door. I need to call for lockdown! she thought and waved her arms frantically, looking not unlike a stressed out duck.

Caroline began to set off one way, realised it was the wrong one and hurried down the other direction (the correct one this time). She slipped and found something on the floor, right below where her foot was. It was a glittering navy stone, round in shape and light as a feather. She then felt the sudden urge to reach out and touch it but she knew that it might not end well. Just to be safe, she slipped on some gloves and picked it up circumspectly.

First, she would warn the others still in the facility about the spreading of the vortex and then try and uncover more information about the strange object. Placing it gingerly in her pocket, Caroline headed towards the surveillance offices and barged in, making the closest security guard jump.

'Caroline! What are you doing here?' he asked.

'Did you not see it?' was her reply.

'See what? And what are you still doing here? It's 10pm,'

'You need to call for lockdown, it's escaped!'

'What? How?'

'It doesn't matter, just do it!' she hissed.

'Ok, Jess, it's a Code White!' the guard yelled to another, who nodded and pressed a bright red button, causing an alarm to start blaring. Caroline winced, shook it off and travelled back down to the room with the vortex.

She peeked through the window on the door and to her horror, it had somehow broken free and was swallowing whole things like a hungry mythical creature. She gulped and crept in, eyes shut tight, pushed against the wall.

Caroline opened one eye, then another and saw a strange light, merely a dot, right in the centre of the vortex.

She bit her lip and edged closer. As soon as she did so, the dot disappeared and Caroline raised an eyebrow. Hmm, that's odd, she thought. She turned her head and was about to walk out when a stream of light burst out, bathing her in light and slowly dragging her in despite her desperate, and fruitless, struggles.

The vortex spiralled inwards, decreasing in size until finally, it vanished, leaving a swirly brand on the wall.