______So fleet was the shattering blow that her disoriented nerves could not decide whether to send signals of infernal heat of glacial coolness. Frustrated, the cells transmitted a jolting sensation to compensate, coincidentally synchronizing with her erratically jostling muscles. The tricked heart bleated, panicking, repeatedly asking for the sacred signal. Her heart had been ever the faithful, never missing a beat during even the most crucial and strenuous times. Now it was thrown into a frenzied allegre. Lacking its node messengers, it beat its blood-rushing rhythm in triple time. The muscles, distraught over the heart’s superfluous palpitations, promptly atrophied, sending the bag of bones that they supported into a mud-soaked patch of grass. Luckily her epithelial skin was naturally dead, for if by some evolutionary burp the outer skin was alive, it would’ve been highly displeased with its dirt-encrusted, burnt remains.
______But what of the brain? And the byproduct that calls itself the mind?
______The spinal cord was the first to shut down, refusing to let the higher mind interpret the titanic distress. The cerebellum soon followed in the loll into inactivity, for without a functioning body to move, what was its use? It seemed as if the only pieces of mind that remained willing to function were the brainstem and the cerebrum. The brainstem couldn’t help but hold onto its survival instinct until the final dip of the curtain, but the cerebrum, great philosopher, contemplator, translator, and interpreter of being,
chose to confront death. If the segments of body described above could house consciousness, they would most definitely chastise the brain for its incredibly nonsensical response to the mortal attack.
… … … … … … … … … … … … …
______Hallucinatory images superimposed on her half-blind view of the frozen raindrops, quickly replacing her vision altogether. Sights and sounds from all stages of life erupted around her limp body, dancing in chaotic stride. Cartoon characters in their Wacky Racers zoomed on the road before her, while a smiling mother approached with a plate of pleasantly moist cookies in her oven-mitted hands. Her body struggled through paralysis to embrace the illusory form, to cling to a comfort in her decimated world. In her ears roared songs she sung in choir, now distorted by the demented hum of a tornado that devoured her neighbor’s home but a year prior. Under her left arm she felt the fur of her labrador, who was simultaneously safe inside her home. Despite this fact, she feared for his safety. A faceless ex boyfriend asked her if she needed help, and voiceless she screeched in agony and rejection, propelling herself towards darkness.
______An inky black tar muddied her eyes. It jammed up her ears and gnawed on their drums, inventing the sound of pain. It crawled through her nostrils and crept into her lungs, pervading every strangled bronchiole until it touched her bloodstream, instantly tainting her entire frame with the viral substance. Churning, the ooze expanded, inflating upon itself and drinking her anguish, growing ever more intense, licking every capillary it passed, continuously multiplying in both intensity and size. She desperately willed it to dissipate, to cease, to dissolve, but these thoughts made it grow exponentially, popping through the tiniest blood vessels and dripping through her pores and over her skin. The black mass bit her flesh, and she strained to scream, but the darkness only became more voracious. The consuming ghost had already driven her to madness. She did not feel the sinister pain as a general, intense soreness of the body, but instead she felt the ominous disease seize every particle of every cell of her being. Was this eternity? Had she landed in hell? Was this unbearable torture the universe’s punishment for life?
______No! She would never give those questions room for thought, for thinking about them doubled her pains!
Escape! The sweet savior of all ideas echoed through her skull, reverberated through her body, and became a necessary chant. Then, miraculously, she overcame the gripping blackness, and appeared in a plane of pure white.
______She sighed deeply, inhaling precious air that she had taken for granted for too great a portion of her life. Glad to have regained control of her body, she dared test it out in this peculiar place, and began to walk. Her gait was steady, but her mental composure was shambled. She put great effort into blocking thoughts of her recent experience, out of fear that if she paid them too much attention, the dreadful moments would reoccur. After a few blocks worth of traveling, it dawned on her that she was in no area that resembled reality.
______Floating in blank space swam a swarm of clocks. The flock of numbers, pixels, shadows, and spheres faced various directions, and assumed statue form, unmovable from their levitating positions. None read the time. Stagnancy had cloaked the hour and minute hands, stillness had corrupted the digital outputs, and sluggishness had managed to stop even the nimble sands of the hourglass. Some clocks weren’t even from earth, but they remained just as immobile.
______A mighty mahogany grandfather clock presented an irresistible enigma. What would happen if she pushed on the static pendulum? She extended her arm towards the slender golden rod, and nearly touched it when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to meet a dark, faceless being. It was simple enough in structure, with an egg-shaped head connected to a thick, flexible neck that was indistinguishable from its torso. The long core of the creature branched off into several sinewy limbs, with a dexterity between that of a spider’s hinged legs, and the tentacles of an octopus.
______“What is this place?” she spoke into the blankness, out of the pure absurdity she was witnessing.
______“You are out of time, my friend,” a voice muffled, apparently coming from the mouthless head of the creature. During her life, she had never considered taking the phrase literally. Her mind hadn’t been this open in years: she was intrigued. The being continued, “It would have taken you at least a googol of years to reproduce yourself spontaneously, but thanks to chronostasis, you’ve regenerated in an instant—an exact replica at that!” She was suspicious of the eerie fellow, but remained calm. After all, what true pain could she feel in the afterlife? Unafraid, she took a chance with a slightly hostile question.
______“How do you know me? Why do you call me your friend?” she turned, not facing the wiry thing any longer. She was attempting to touch a clock, however whenever she got close to one it flittered backwards, again a smidge from her reach.
______“I’ve known you your entire life, of course. I have no other means to classify myself,” it admitted, three of its legs twisting in thought. “I am here to lead you to your death,” bluntly finished the creature, faintly touching her hand with a dark appendage. Her demeanor suddenly shifted. She shuddered, and looked at its blank expression with mercy-pleading eyes.
______“I’m not dead yet?” she sought to confirm, clocks around her disappearing one by one.
______“No. You are apart from time itself. You couldn’t be dead. But you can’t come back to life, if that’s what you’re asking,” it stated matter-of-factly. She fell to her knees, sobbing, mourning her own death. It became increasingly impatient, but tugged only a mouse-leg of a force on her wrist. “Are you coming?”
______She brightened a little at the question. “I have a choice?” The clocks were gone, along with half of the white space. Beneath her feet stretched infinite miles of emerald green grass.
______“We all have choices,” the creature remarked. “You can join me in death, or stay here, and continue existing in whatever manner you’d like,” it spoke, the English words carried with perfect diction, surprising for one without a tongue.
______The decision was as easy to distinguish as red and blue to her. She confirmed she’d choose the latter, and after speaking with the wiry being for a few more minutes, she had learned that she would be able to control her world like a god, and she bid the being farewell. The black creature suddenly dissolved, retreating to a comfortable void lined with soft velvet that soothingly drained its strenuous thoughts, leaving limitless tranquility in its place.
______She spent no time doting over the loss of her enigmatic ‘friend,’ and concentrated on the bland scene around her. She outstretched her arms and spread a vibrant blue sheet overhead. She clasped her palms together and squeezed out a sun, which she tossed underhand into the makeshift sky. She blinked, and resurrected an exact replica of the scene of her death, complete with roads, buildings, cars, and people.
______She ran to the nearest car and nervously asked the ghostly driver to brake. He did, and she began a conversation with the stoic fellow. Much to her dismay, the chat was unbelievably strenuous, as she had to speak for the both of them. Disinterested in (or perhaps disturbed by) these holographic people, she willed them all to disappear. And they did.
______Alone in this new world, she began fulfilling her physical desires. She ate thousands of exotic foods, but found them difficult to savor. She lounged in the finest of spas, but the stench of loneliness repelled her from revisiting. When she wanted sex, she conjured up an appealing man, but the resulting ‘pleasure’ was more weak and hollow than a toilet paper tube. Frustrated beyond her mortal physiological possibilities, she decided that if she could not satisfy the body, she’d have to satisfy the mind.
______Disheartened, she trekked around the globe, visiting ancient ruins and shimmering cities, however they were only as accurate as she had seen in books. Still, she futilely strove to learn what she had already known. After a couple decades of this haphazard exploration, her boredom and severe distress caused her to stumble upon an idea: create a
new world. She set herself to this task immediately, beginning by replacing all that she saw with absolute blankness.
______She strained to envision a blue sea, and a single island of long, smooth grass. After some lag, the scene arose. Tired, she lifted her heavy arms above her head, stretching across a black blanket for the abysmal sky. Hope draining, she pointed at spots to the sky. Will draining, she replaced those spots with swirling galaxies and star clusters. She finished the area with visible winds, gleaming auras that seemed to steal a piece of her soul every time they passed through her.
______Once she had finished her creation, she did
not find peace. Instead, she desperately strove to erase all consciousness that what she saw was an illusion. Although she could create a sky filled with miraculous astronomical sights, she could not dispel this haunting bit of knowledge. She attempted to lay her body down and admire her work, but her entire self revolted against the phony notion, and it convulsed until she had disregarded the idea.
______“Fake!” She vehemently erupted into the sky, and it echoed with a fiercer intensity. “All of this is fake! An illusion! A hologram! A fantasy! A hallucination! Unreal! Untrue!” she rambled, and continued the list for several minutes. With each new word, a piece of the scene vanished, as if to agree with her accusations. The world dissolved into neither black nor white, but an emptiness in which no color could survive. She ended her list with a shattering moan:
______“Unliving!” and escaped her illusory world and into a void. The void was soft and comforting, lined with the feeling of velvet, but despite its draining powers, no force could remove her limitless torments.
… … … … … … …
The medics reached her body five minutes after the harsh lightning had struck, however by that time she had been long, long dead.
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Originally Posted by OldSparta
I am posting on topic elsewhere for the most part.
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