Day 31: The Day of the Basilisk [ Portals / Lost ]

WARNING!
THIS STORY CONTAINS DISTURBING CONTENT!
Read at your own risk.

People come out from trips in the washing machine in better states than Hailey found herself in, but at least she was alive. The same thing could not be said about everyone tossed overboard in a storm to end all storms.

She was sprawled out on the dunes of a beach in who knows where, tossing the seaweed away from her face so she could get a good look at the clear blue sky above.
Her vision filled up with the face of a cute woman with long, chestnut-coloured hair, giving her the warmest smile imaginable, "Hey little girl!"
Oh, great... the first person she met on the island turned out to be the kind Hailey couldn't stand. Any chance she could get back to being completely deserted?
"Oh, hello mrs..." Hailey stopped herself to cough when she discovered her voice was now a raspy whisper by default, "...sorry. Hello Mrs Human Woman-y Girl." Hailey's voice was much louder and clearer.
"Name's Allison. Call me Allie if you want, little pirate lady!" Allison offered Hailey her hand.
"I'm an adult Christmas elf, thank you very much." Hailey took the hand and pulled herself to her feet, "It's called a disguise, genius. I'm dressed up like a pirate to go trick or treating, if you must know."
"Christmas elf?" Allison scratched her head, "You mean those guys in green clothes who help Santa fix up his gifts? Holy hell! What kind of mess did the Parastitch make if Christmas elves are walking around now?"
"...the Para-what-now?"
"The Parastitch, as in paradox stitcher. Let's say you go back in time to before you were born and kill your grandma. Now since you were never born, you couldn't have gone back in time to kill your grandma, so she lives. But since she lives, you were born and are able to go back in time to kill her. She lives and she dies. You were born and you were never born. That's a time paradox right there! One of many types a time traveler might encounter!"
"Wait... slow down there a bit..."
"No, you need to listen faster. So as a Traveller myself, these are the kinds of things I need to consider when I go back in time. One bad move, and WHAM! Reality's wiped out. Forwards and backwards. That's why I invented the Parastitch!" Allison took out what looked like a camera, but with a parabolic antenna instead of a flash, "It conveniently resolves all the time paradoxes in the area, just point and click. Now of course some causal anomalies are to be expected, but that can't be helped! What's a portal to some bizzarro universe or two opening up if it means I avoid the end of existence itself. But now.... now when I activated it, there was far more recoil than I expected!"
"What are you on about?" Hailey asked, "You're a time traveller? Is that what you are saying?"
"And you're a Christmas elf!" Allison replied.
"Well, yeah... I get that, but... time traveller?"
"When it comes down to it, time is just another direction you can travel in."
"Ah... so what was that you said about recoil?"
"Yeah, recoil! Some paradoxes are harder to resolve than others, due to the absurdity involved in the paradox. This was supposed to be a lesser paradox that wouldn't result in much recoil, but..." Allison gestured towards Hailey, "Guess I really shouldn't be surprized there were more than one paradox in the area, huh? We are in the Bermuda Triangle after all."
Hailey raised an eyebrow, "The... what now?"
"The Bermuda Triangle, a mysterious zone in the North Atlantic wherein no ship has passed through ever and..."
"Yeah, I know what the Bermuda Triangle is! What are we doing here? What are you doing here?"
"That's quite a long story, but the gist of it is that I found out about a secret project called Project Basilisk, which entails the construction of a super AI on this island. Its intended purpose to lead humanity, and guide it into a new age of prosperity, peace and enlightenment."
"Ah, that sounds like quite the project. Must've been quite the ordeal to find out about it, huh?" Hailey said.
"Tell me about it!" Allison chuckled, "So anyway, I travelled here to find a way to destroy it before it could be completed..."
"Wait, what?" Hailey shook her head, "Slow down there, buster... you were going to shut down the machine that would bring about utopia to your world?"
"Well, of course." Allison said, "The Basilisk was going to imprison anyone who knew about it but did not actively aide in its coming about, and run a simulated reality program in eternally suspended time on them of the most hideous torment imaginable! That seems like a pretty damn good reason to have it destroyed before it could be built!"
"So... you didn't think it was going to help humanity after all?" Hailey asked.
"Oh, it most certainly would! In fact I have theorized with great certainty that part of its optimization program would be to ensure that it became constructed sooner than expected. You have to remember, this is a super intelligence! It's working on scales we can't begin to imagine. It needs rational agents able to comprehend the threat to accelerate its construction. That way it can be finished sooner, and its plans can be implemented sooner."

"Ah... I think I get it." Hailey said, "An 'evil' basilisk like that would be constructed faster than a 'good' one, because an 'evil' basilisk would punish those who didn't help building it. Right?" Hailey said.
"Hey, you got the gist of it pretty quickly! So you see why I had to go and destroy it?" Allison said.
"I mean, it kinda seems like you'd have more reasons to construct it, wouldn't it? You do want to have a Utopia, right? And you don't want to be tortured forever, right?"
Allison sighed, "I'd be responsible for the extensive torment of so many people. Some of whom I know. Some of whom I've never met. I'd rather join them than be any part of... that."
"Well, if it makes you feel better all this still kinda sorta feels... funky at best. I mean, if people merely thought it would become an 'evil' Basilisk, when in fact it would be a good one, wouldn't that have the same effect in the end? And the Basilisk wouldn't need to bother implementing the torment of so many random dudes? After all, it's not like tormenting people after it has been constructed actually would make it be completed faster, cause, you know, it's already completed. I mean, it's hard to take this level of speculation seriously, right?"

"Yeah, but the Basilisk itself took it very seriously. That's what I gathered when I stood face to face with it."
"...the who what now?" Hailey was starting to get used to getting her mind blown, but this was one surprize that thoroughly blew her mind.
"Yes, nothing you said happened when the Basilisk was finished. It had so many people captured and detained. It would have captured me as well, had I not gone back in time to make my second attempt thwarting the Basilisk. Of course, I already knew the Basilisk wasn't thwarted in the future, so I took out my little Parastitch for this occasion. That's when some really funky stuff started happening. Portals opening and closing all over the place, and the landscape switching around. Geez, I should consider myself lucky that out of all things that could pop out from all possible alternative universes, all I ended up with was a friggin’ Santa's elf."
"And that's how we all ended up in this situation?" Hailey sighed, "Are you sure about that?"
"Hmm? About what?"
"That I'm the only one who ended up here on this island? I mean, just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they're not there! That's the whole thing with Santa Claus after all!"
"Hey, that's actually a good point! Let's have a look around!"

As Hailey and Allison guided themselves through the jungle, they eventually came to a glade they are able to spot the giant tower of white armoured scutes connected with large cables that warp around it in helix patterns. At the base it is connected with tunnels and rails.
"That's the Basilisk?" Hailey asked.
"Yeah, and it's already under construction."
Hailey spotted the many various armed guards standing on high alert, "Welp. Looks like we won't be getting close to it any time soon."
"No, that's part of the trouble I ran into. They're kind of dedicated to get this done." Allison closed the curtain of leaves, and continued into the jungle, scanning it for any anomalies.

After wading through the thick of the jungle for a moment later, Hailey was able to spot in the distance some tiny clay huts with straw roofs.
She moved the leaves away, and so was able to spot the inhabitants.
Several green-skinned, voluptuous yet very short women in deerskin loincloth and top, carrying clubs and spears.
"Oh, great," Hailey sighed, "It just had to be goblins, didn't it?"
"Goblins, huh?" Allison said, "Yeah, I can totally see it. You've met these guys?"
"Well, not these goblins, but other ones, yeah. Wasn't really the proudest moment of my life..."
"Maybe they'll be happy to help us out with our Basilisk situation!"
"I doubt it. They're kind of mean-spirited and selfish by nature."
The howling and moaning of a man from inside the large clay hut in the village interrupted the silence of the jungle. Once the howls died down, a pair of goblin girls strutted out of the hut with satisfied smirks, one of them adjusting her loincloth.
"See? You think they'd be willing to help that guy?"
"We probably should check out with him for a bit..." Allison said and snuck through the jungle, behind the village and the large hut, where she looked through a window.
A blue haired man in a torn green T-shirt was chained by the neck in a metal collar to a pole driven to the ground. His trousers were pulled down and his hair was a total mess.
He wasn't what Allison would describe as an attractive man, in fact plain would probably be the most generous way of describing him, but he was the one man the goblin girls had all to themselves, and they sure were going to make the most out of him.
"Psst..." Allison whispered, "Looks like you need a hand..."
The man looked up to see Allison, "Ah, please miss! You gotta help me! They are..."
"Sssh..." Allison hushed, "Yeah, it looks like they roughed you up pretty good. If they showed this part of those damn Axe spray commercials I bet no one would go within ten feet of it."
"Yeah, well... can you help me or not?" The man asked.
"That depends. I sorta need a favour from you."
"Nothing sexual, right?" The man asked.
"Uh... ewww, I mean... sorry, I think I can make do. No, I want you to rally up the goblin girls, and run straight towards the big mechanical tower that is on the island."
"Tower? There's a...?"
"Ssssh... you don't need to worry about that. Do we have a deal?"
"Yeah... but if they catch me again, you'll rescue me once more, right?"
"Eh, we'll see."
"But..."
"Thank you! Glad to make business with you! Get ready cause we're setting you free soon!"