Chapter Four: Log In
My mind screams in awe and horror as my world falls away, becoming a kaleidoscoping whirlwind of colors, as my now digital soul is being flung down a rainbow stream of energy. Chaos and order crashing into one another all around me, forming and reforming incomprehensible patterns of madness and beauty. Despite the screaming, I manage to remain semi-rational in my new incorporeal state, drawing on some of my more intense psychedelic trips to help me contextualize this experience.
It takes me a moment before terror gives way to wonder as I try my best to enjoy having my consciousness tossed about in a wormhole. I try to sit back, as much as a bodiless entity can sit, and enjoy the wonderful color show around me… and just as I begin to wonder about how long it should actually take to transfer a consciousness, I begin to hear a sound that permeates through the cacophony of colors. The sound is just that perfect pitch which instinctively smacks of warnings or emergencies. Whatever it is, it's somehow coming from all around me and also gives the feeling of being far away.
I start to see a light at the end of my cosmic bridge, but the closer I get, the louder the sound becomes, until the sound waves begin to screech against my soul and start to distort the patterns around me. Smeg! What is this torture? This noise can’t be what is supposed to be happening… I watch with growing fear as the distortions introduce a disharmony with the wormhole, cracks begin to spread through the rainbow tunnel, revealing a void underneath.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The sound gets even louder, piercing my brain, sending pain searing through all of my senses, making me wish for ears that I could plug as I silently suffer under the sensation. My disembodied mind thrashes as the cracks begin spreading through me as well, burning pain fills me as my essence begins to tear at the seams. With a sudden crash the energy bridge first implodes and then explodes outwards, causing the pulling sensation towards the light to stop, and sends me plunging into the void that was waiting behind the cracks.
No visuals here, nothing but pain and that ungodly sound! It's pulsing, growing louder and louder, blocking out my ability to think. The noise causes me to give into a screaming insanity as a defense mechanism as it helpfully teaches me all the ways that even an energy wave can hurt. Then, all at once, there is a great crashing, tearing, gnashing, ripping away of the layers of distortion, revealing the sound to be a blaring and repeating alarm. Suddenly a grinding of metal on metal screeches across my soul, and with another great lurch, I suddenly open my eyes.
