Deciding to take a chance and try to get some relief, Iyanna walked down the long platform, peering around to see if any doors marked with a female figure caught her eye. Of course, the Monstrum didn’t have females on their ship anymore but they had once, so maybe such a thing as a women’s bathroom still existed somewhere.
After walking for a little while, however, she wasn’t so sure. She could certainly see why they called this the “Dark Side” of the ship—the further she got from the platform of the Transport station, the dimmer the lighting from the overhead glow blossoms got.
At last she found herself standing in near complete darkness with nothing to guide her but a double line of glowing lights down near the floor, about the level of her knees.
Suddenly Iyanna realized what she was seeing.
“Oh, these must be the upright glow blossoms!” she exclaimed, bending to examine them. She was so exited to see the plants she had come to study in the first place that she nearly forgot about her intense discomfort.
“Aren’t you all just beautiful,” she murmured, as she stroked the colorful petals softly. At her touch, the light the blossoms emitted changed from cool green and blue to a warm, inviting gold.
“Oh!” Iyanna looked at the new color in surprise. “Did I do that?” she whispered.
Apparently, she had.
And it wasn’t just the blossoms she had touched that were changing color. All up and down the double row of flowers, the lights were changing to gold, the new color rippling up the rows in a wave-like effect.
Mesmerized, Iyanna found herself walking down the golden, glowing path. She felt like she was lost in a fairytale—one which had been written just for her. Dimly she remembered Commander Rarev telling her she shouldn’t enter the Dark Side on her own, but hadn’t Stor’kuum told her she would be fine if she stayed on the path? And she certainly was being careful not to leave it.
Then the flowers started changing colors again—this time they went from gold to silver and then glowing crimson and then emerald green and indigo blue. It was like being in the middle of a light show!
Then, to Iyanna’s surprise, something so unexpected happened that it took her breath away. The blooms of the upright glow blossoms somehow started to detach themselves from their stalks and flutter upwards. It was just one or two at first, flying up into the pitch-black sky like errant butterflies. But then more and more of the blooms detached, scattering across the sky like stars, glowing so many colors so rapidly that it was almost too much to take in.
The show took Iyanna’s breath away. She stared up at the flying blooms, wondering what was happening. Was it part of the lifecycle of this particular plant? And when would the glowing blossoms return to their stalks?
Actually, as they flew higher and higher and the light they shed diminished with distance, that particular question began to weigh on her more heavily. When were they coming back? Or were they coming back at all?
“Hey, guys?” she called uncertainly to the last, twinkling, fluttering blooms as they flew away. “Um, are you coming back?”
Her only answer was silence. She suddenly found herself in the middle of a vast, pitch dark space with no idea how to get back again.
Iyanna’s heart began to pound. The blackness pressed against her eyes like wet velvet, giving her the sensation of total blindness. She looked in vain for the faint glow from the Transport station, but it was far behind her—without knowing it she must have wandered quite far down the path before the glow blossoms all flew away.
Should she try to feel her way back? But the ground beneath her practical black flats all felt the same—soft and slightly springy—and she remembered that the entire Monstrum Mother Ship was carpeted in the dark blue moss that was everywhere.
Since she couldn’t see or feel her way, Iyanna strained her ears for any clues that might lead her back the way she’d come. All around her, she heard the rustle of leaves like the wind in branches. Then a new sound met her ears—a soft murmuring like water rushing in the distance.
She remembered Commander Rarev saying that there were rivers running through the Monstrum Mother Ship—could that be one of them? And if so, might it run parallel to the path? If it did, maybe she could use it as a guide to get back.
If she had been thinking straight, she would have realized that blundering off in the dark, looking for an invisible river in dangerous, unknown and unseen territory was an extremely foolish course of action. But the utter darkness was doing something to her—clouding her judgment—making her feel almost dizzy with the need to see light—any light at all.