OoC: Sorry for not copying your void exactly, but I thought my rendition of the basic idea had more . . meat to it. Hope you don't mind!
BiC: It had been hours since she had begun surfing the Web, and her eyes felt like they were bleeding tears. That was a clear signal to stop. It was getting boring anyway. The place outside her door should prove to be far more interesting. She pushed herself off the floor with her quicksilver hands and groped her way to the door in the darkness. There was a light switch, to be sure, but she preferred to be alone with her laptop in the darkness as an aid to her concentration.
Penina Hargreaves opened the door to reveal a corridor utterly jammed with doors.
Physics operate in a non-Euclidean fashion here, evidently. She closed the green door tight, and began to wander the halls of the Dome, trying the doors as she went.
While most were locked, the rooms that she could see into were quite fascinating. The first room she looked into was filled with stars the size of her hand. Penina touched one to hear a resonating tone ring throughout the dark void she had revealed, causing the others to respond in kind. It sounded like the opening to Bohemian Rhapsody.
I wonder if my thoughts and knowledge echo throughout this building. It may not have to be sentient, but a highly advanced mechanism that obtains knowledge and power from the travelers through this hub of the universe. Closing the door, she tried to find another room for more evidence.
A room that poured forth sand, then sucked it back in as she closed the door in a temporal reversal. A chamber filled with a lion/tiger locked in combat with a horned dragon/serpent. A ballroom filled with giant dancing insects that evidently had some form of endoskeleton in order to stand upright, though they hissed menacingly when she drew near. The last room she opened, however, was the strangest.
It was an utter blank: the palest shade of white she had ever seen, unstained by shadow or by dust. She tried to walk inside it, but she could not stop herself from floating and drifting through the emptiness.
No gravity. Penina bounced into a wall which she immediately gripped tightly. To her left, a giant maw opened wide, revealing a swirling vortex of colors and shapes. Its teeth were sharp and glistened redly, dripping things best left undescribed away from the wall towards the door, which was closing itself as she stared at it. She worked her way over towards it, doing her best to avoid the teeth and to come in at the hinge. As she slipped inside it, the jaws closed tight.
This should be good.
It reminded her of an arcade game, with the aerial leylines made of blue light and the two-dimensional smiley faces and the strange fruit that decorated the palm trees. She had found floor this time, so she had a bit of leisure to explore her surroundings. Avoiding the occasional ricocheting meteors and the bottomless craters they left behind, she entered into a maze made of playing cards, evidently arranged according to Klondike rules of solitaire. A few mushrooms grew in the corners, which she picked for future investigation.
A face card in the wall noticed her, and rasped, “You are being summoned for training by Tokumaru.”
“But I have not had a chance to rest yet, Jack of Spades.”
“That would be your problem, not mine,” the aristocrat drawled.
Suddenly, yelling from another corridor rang out, “Help her, or off with your head!!” The Jack turned a paler shade than paper-white, to the point where he was positively glowing with fear.
“Just have a tart. It’s good for the exhaustion.”
Pen deftly caught the pastry in her right hand. As she devoured half of it, she queried, “Now how would I find a way out of here?”
“Just go to the heart of the labyrinth. The door will be sure to find you there.”
“Thank you for your assistance.” She strode off towards the center, keeping an eye out for any outlets on the prowl. The walls abruptly changed to brick when she reached the center. There, she saw an all too familiar sight: a Porlock. They were as common as rodents in her world, and as far as she knew, she was the only one who could remember seeing them. She had no idea why their mind scrapes had no effect on her. She was going to find out, if she had anything to do with it.
It was sleeping, so Penina kicked its face. It shuddered to its full height of nine feet and stared with large globular eyes at the young woman with the metal arms. Its white and yellow fur stood on end all over its body. “. . . You!!” It then began to run for its life through a keyhole-shaped opening that was not there before. Penina ran after it. Nothing was going to stop her from grabbing and interrogating this creature.
Dropping through a gaping hole in the floor, though, was certainly enough to make almost anyone stop. At least, that is what she thought as she was falling through it.