A Fiction: Part XXI

II

“I must say it’s really quite remarkable. We never thought you’d make it this far. But clearly we made the right choice with you.” A small square panel embedded in the chamber wall throbs as the words are spoken. The walls are an unfinished metal, the joints of the panels plainly visible. It is clearly a strong, sturdy structure, yet built by someone with little regard for cosmetics. “I apologize for leaving you literally hanging for so long. The environment here takes some getting used to. It requires a process of adjustment.”

At first the tingling in my toes is a small irritation, but it is slowly climbing my leg – growing in intensity as it goes. Then I feel it in my fingertips. Soon it has spread up all of my limbs and begins to work at my chest and groin. I begin to panic a bit, instinctively shaking my arms to get the blood flowing again. Soon I am thrashing to work the crawling itch from below my flesh – its insidious etching like microscopic knives cutting me from the bone to the surface. My eyes are darting from side to side and the once irritant is now agony. I tuck my knees into my chest and wrap my arms around them and squeeze. Behind my now closed eyes, I am a ball floating in a pool of electric fluid, the less I move the easier it washes over me.

Either the sensation is lessening or my senses have dulled as I open my eyes and spread my limbs like newly formed wings. I am slowly spinning in all directions – end-over-end, around and twisting – but it is not disorientating. I see every scratch and imperfection in the surface of the chamber in perfect clarity. My mind builds a map of the welds and scuffs and I could recite the uneven corners like rote. I raise my open hands before my eyes and feel power surge through them. I make fists and can imagine driving them through the walls with little effort. My body feels of perfection – any cuts or bruises are gone, my worn muscles now taut and strong, my mind clear and full of peace.

“What has happened to me?” I cry out – elated.

“Adjustment, as I told you to expect, Mr. Cole.” The voice is from within the room. I spin my head to see the speaker, but am still rotating in the air, and cannot find the man. “We have such hopes for you. We could not wait for you to reach your potential naturally, as that could take years without this type of intervention. Most never achieve it, though you are clearly not like most.” I still have yet to spot my host and am sure I have rotated past every inch of the chamber more than once.

“Why can I not see you?”

“You will learn to see me, Mr. Cole. But you must be patient. You have come a long way towards your goal very quickly, but you still have a few connections to make on your own. And when you do, many things not visible will be seen and many secrets will be revealed.” The voice is stifling a laugh with much effort, and coughs. “But of course even I am not complete yet. We will complete our transitions together you and I. We will do great things, Mr. Cole.”

My imagination reels with the wonders I am hearing for the first time – disembodied voices, physical (?) transformations… and the word appears in my mind as though it were placed there, which I presume it may have been. “Evolution?” I speak to the air.

“Nature evolves over millennia, Mr. Cole. And the individual knows no benefit. Nature is bound by time. You and I, though – we do not have this limitation. We are our own generations and re-generations. We are on an expedition, Mr. Cole, to discover our potential and the ultimate potential of our kind. We will see the infinite.”

As the cloud of thought clears before my eyes, I realize I have stopped rotating and am moving feet first towards the floor. Before me, a doorway slides up and away and I see a dimly lit passage beyond. Testing my legs, I walk through – my first steps towards the unfathomable.

A Fiction: Part XX

Chapter 3

Abyss

I

I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death. It is death who fears me. I do not fear death.

The scrabbling on the harsh ragged ice has torn my fingertips apart. At first, I am cold – cold like I have never felt before. But gradually, the cold becomes a simmering warmth that grows first in my chest and extends out to my fingers and toes. I cannot close my eyes, the blinding light above my only link to the world above ice and above water. I can see a hint of blue through the pane as day lazes above. One final push on the ice and I drift down into the abyss. The light fades as I fall away into the pitch below. Hope fades and I open my mouth to breathe in and end it. I exhale all the air in my lungs, the bubbles rushing past my eyes and coming to rest on the ice ceiling above. Then I inhale. I expect spasms of pain as my lungs fight to reject the liquid being pulled into them, but there are no spasms. There is no liquid. I am breathing air.

I open my eyes to find myself suspended in space in a nicely lit metal-walled chamber. I close my eyes again, and reopen them expecting to find the chamber gone – a figment of my last moments imagining. But the chamber remains. I breathe deep, luxuriating in the act, as my head clears and my heart slows. As I relax, I begin to ponder my surroundings at length. I stretch my one functioning arm out but I am too far to reach the wall. I attempt to shift my weight to see if there is gravity here or if I am held in the center of a weightless room. Suddenly my head begins to spin and my stomach turns. As I throw up the contents of my belly, I note that it does indeed fall past my feet and onto the floor below, splashing up onto my water logged shoes. Gravity indeed.

The force holding me in place seems equally placed throughout my body – not focused on my torso for example – my head feels as weightless as my feet. I can move my limbs, but cannot generate enough force to move myself about. I am fixed in place. It is quite comfortable and after a few minutes I begin to get drowsy, and slip into sleep.

In my dream I float through the pane of ice into the open air. As I float up beyond the ice cliff wall, I see Angel’s Head. There are men climbing off the deck onto the ice with rope and teams lowering supplies. The rear of the ship is lower than the front, and on second look is actually below water at the furthest point. Angel’s Head is sinking and the crew is abandoning her. There is black smoke billowing from the stairwell on deck – a fire below I assume. Suddenly the scene seems to speed up and the sun moves across the sky until it grows darker. I watch as Angel’s Head sinks lower and lower until finally she breaks away from the ice and slips into the depths. The men on shore all turn to look into the sky. They are waving at something… then I realize –they are waving at me! Wait, they’re not waving, but shaking their fists. I am not to blame! It was Hawthorne and the captain, not me! Slowly, the ice they stand upon begins to fail beneath their feet and to my horror, I watch as 30 men are lost to the sea, cursing me with their final breaths…

“Welcome home, Mr. Cole” the voice says as I open my eyes.