the world is just illusion trying to change you

My boiler exploded from the demands of prying Ya Yimawa's sharklike maw open with all my limbs until it cracked. Nothing I have ever encountered - from the inferno of Erebus to the radioactive wastes of Earth's devastated future - could rival the horror of what I saw inside that beast. How quickly, then, did the souls of its victims fly out to the freedom of their promised afterlives! Their gratefulness whispered as they vanished was more than worth the cost to this, my shredded chassis. Ama had worked her magic and destroyed its soulcage just as Dr. Beck's spirit escaped.

My last victim, Shiny Toy!

A sickening snap. Loss of connection to body. A fraction of a second in that primordial abyss before the monster discorporated, and my elevation dropped. I landed on the wreckage that was once my own abdomen, saving me the indignity of sinking into the polluted muck. Power supply was fading quickly. Last instructions to Ama.

Closing cranial display. Adjusting to internal perception. Standby...

I perceive myself as intact, but I am not actually whole again. This spherical chamber I am in, full of damaged machinery spewing steam and smoke, with pipes spiralling around the Sephiroth that glow brightly above me like a celestial chandalier, is not literally the inside of my skull. But it does give me an accurate representation of how tenuous my existance has now become.

The gyroscope rolls wildly. I hold on tightly as the craft tumbles over itself again and again. Through the twin portholes in the outline of my eyes I see I am rolling into the water, mingling with human bones and filth. This can only mean that the boxcar is sliding into the bay. The Revenge would have no choice but to cut the air vent. There is pounding outside the chamber, from all directions.

There is...a mob outside the portals? Impossible! How can this be?

Who are they?

I see Bloodwing, cursing me as a traitor as he strikes his sword against the glass. The same sword he used to pierce my reactor core.

I see Grandfather in the black uniform from his dystopia of New Erebus, his eyes glowing beneath his goggles as he patiently grinds an energy blade into the translucent barrier.

The gentleman in the drab gray uniform with the brass buttons? An agent of the Labs. Carrying a warrant for my family's capture.

The other eye - there is Doctor Mason in his labcoat, I see from the tic in his brow and the glow behind his goggles that he demands to perform more destructive experiments on me.

Koen in his sleek ebony fur bloodied at the tips, scraping his claws down the glass, eyes burning red as coals and hissing as he displays his vampiric fangs.

Behind him, a pale Aleister in his outdated and frayed coat, gesturing for me to inspect the new porcelain skull he will place me in. Complete with fangs for extracting blood...to deliver to him.

Behind them swarms of wasp drones and Qlippothic clones.

Why would my subconscious be attempting to torment me? Especially in a survival situation such as this?

A chemical readout develops on one corroded panel. The water in this flooding chamber is polluted...from Ya Yimawa. When his body dissolved, its conents mingled with these waters.

I am stewing in the gastric juices of a soul eater. Much like the jellyfish, the death of the creature does not render its venom inert. Despite the images beyond the eyes, it know the toxins have already made contact with my soul chip. If I am not rescued it will corrode the circuitry that defines my psyche, and my identity will...dissolve.

I have never seen fit to pray for aid from undetectable sources. But now, it is my only recourse, if only a distraction.

I can hear their voices now. My voice quavers.

The Lord is my...