Struggling turned into outright lifelessness. Jackie’s body, a body that she was so proud of shaping up and improving on her own terms, was just limb against the warped asphalt. Not even trapped in her own body, but within her mind as well.
All she could experience were static, out-of-focus gossamer. The vision center not understanding the shapes it saw moments ago, motor center too stunned to check if the downed body was truly paralyzed or dead. Front cortex wanting to come back online—temporal lobe, nothing but on fire.
This unnatural, cosmic influence made Jackie experience these complex, normally “invisible” actions for the first time. All of it forming moving, mutable shapes that bent and changed their directions on the moment’s notice—she saw globs trailing down an endless tunnel, only to switch to a moving static screen once again, only moving downward in a pattern that her brain desperately wanted to recognize in some form.
She wanted to curse, if she knew what they were and how they sounded in that moment. Thoughts tangible, but fleeting the second she tried to focus on them. This only proves that the pan-global “last stand for humanity” doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Despite herself, she tried thinking about “NORMACY”. How stupid it sounded, how stupid it looked written out—anything that the so-called “practice” is the “only way” to “not just evaluate Noumena threat, but the last resort, every time”.
Jackie felt her nose flare, huffed angrily at the fact she’s dwelling on this thought... Only to realize that dwelling on everything BUT it is steadily bringing her back alive.
That’s the ticket. While the ping of hurt and humiliation softly crept along her chest, Jackie just had to be the angry girl in this scenario. It’s justified, when it’s normally isn’t.
So she dwelled on it. Dwelled on what these two weeks ended up being, what it measured up to. Why she was basically throwing her entire life away, and that being the only way at this point.
The sweating girl realized that she was looking at her hands, as they pushed away from the streets? No—she was pushing herself up. Feeling steadily returning to her, how her sweat-jacket’s insides were clinging onto her, how her head had multiple veins spread across barely shaping the skin sans the sides of the forehead, how it felt like her migraine was physically trapped within them.
“—zzz—t----THIS IS –zzzt—L. STEEL OF THE—zzt—GOVERNMENT, REPEATING WHAT HALF OF AMERICA MISSED DUE TO MASS TECHNOLOGICAL FAILURE: THE UNKNOWN IS COMING—
THE UNKNOWN IS HERE.
--THE THINGS WE’VE HEARD ABOUT, THOSE FRINGE URBAN LEGENDS AND MYSTERIES WE WROTE OFF—zzt—ALL OF IT, THEY’RE HERE NOW--
--ND THE ONES THAT BOARDED THE CRAFT—zzt—EXPLODED, WERE THE ONLY ONES THAT COULD STOP THIS—”
Jackie quickly, but still weakly, snapped her head toward what she assumed to be her phone, from afar. She wanted to scream at it, tell it to shut off, but only her lips formed the desired words, and only barely.
“—zzft---er… Sorry if I may seem perturbed or unprofessional—but Tammy Glenn here to report that a flying craft has exploded over our fair city just moments before we’ve gotten from break. Sorry sorry, BREAKING NEWS: an unidentified object has exploded over Crest City—debris is currently raining down across the area—and it appears that… That, a-a-a-h—What could only be described as a hole in the sky, has formed where this craft exploded in—rzzzt—”
Despite the crackle from the overheating phone and the influence of the Shift cutting out sound, but that late reporter still rung loud and clear for Jackie. It wasn’t just because she watched the compilations of videos just only last night, but this clip constantly spliced in every single Noumena history debrief ever since this tragedy happened. Seared into the collective’s minds just as much as the cosmic, unnatural disasters.
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“Ph—pha—phone!” Jackie yelled. “End! Turn off video, then turn self off!”
Only for another video to continue, picking off where it left off, immediately playing.
Where a voice somehow more iconic and etched into time, came into the scene.
“Unfortunately, what you have seen, heard and struggled to believe—is true. This—is a metaphysical celestial event that—we shouldn’t have ever experienced. –The Shifting Meta Crisis, or Shift Noumena. Everything—as—known will be broken.”
“I SAID OFF!” Jackie commanded with a roar. “Completely! Stop playing the video!”
The audio abruptly stopped… Only to continue playing, as if Jackie’s phone interpreted her saying “pause”.
. We—can’t stop this. The people—including—yself, were keeping these events in the fringe elements of our society—we failed. And failed you—”
With another roar, Jackie mustered the little returned strength she had to snap onto her knees, circle around, and caught herself to crawl toward the spasming device.
She didn’t care that once she snatched it up, that it was almost like a radiator. She quickly clicked off the video, shut down the app, and held her power button for a total blackout.
Only for a screen to appear:
“I am experiencing Over-Sensory. :( (We can too! Click here to find out more) Use CRUX or adjacent technology so I can function to the best of my abilities.”
“I’m not going to have an EXTANT bomb in my pockets, phone,” Jackie snarked with a gravely tone.
She was going to put away the device, until the thought hit her. A thought that caused her to then shoot up, looking away from the anomaly behind her.
The thought that made her tremble, somehow more than the Shift influence.
Jackie grabbed the wrist of her trembling hand, which was gripping her smart device. No. She had to be more than this fear that’s been eating away from the inside, had to summon the bravery necessary to make the stupid, foolish choice she’s already made.
After all. Her parents should be privy to her now, that their only daughter is missing, when the world is on the verge of being physically torn apart.
Jackie pressed her wavering thumb against the screen, to turn on the camera. Until it started to record on its own, as she prayed that the cursed site didn’t interfere with the technology. The danger of it overheating and bursting in her palm was palpable.
“Okay…” Jackie had to fight against her deep voice from crackling. “I am recording this… B-both for prosperity and in case this ends up going terribly wrong…”
She was forced to stare at her face, her phone acting as an unintentional mirror that she did not want at all in that moment. Her face was pale when it had a hint of bronze, the girl had to brush her long, hanging side bang from sticking to her sweating brow. Her blue eyes were trying so hard to focus, but were shaking.
“I don’t want this to sound, y’know, I don’t want this to be some excuse—o-or, I don’t want this to seem like this decision wasn’t made with any thought behind it, being reckless… I’m doing this because I feel like there’s no other choice.”
Jackie had to take a break, rubbing her eyes as her thin eyebrows furrowed, and her hand slid down the front of her fairy-blue and white-stripped tracksuit.
It was either the stress of essentially throwing herself into a fresh hell or said fresh hell’s influence already taking its passive toll on her. Neither was good, and can only deal with either only for so long.
“I’m just—” Jackie rushed the phone close to her face, inches away. Her mouth wasn’t used to feeling her words jumble and clutter within it. “--On the record, this isn’t me giving up—this isn’t a final note, as it were, being respectful for the people that sadly made that choice… I feel like I have to do this, okay? For the sake of helping myself, my family, my community… And a world that’s slowly going mad and knows it. And I’m willing to take the responsibility for my actions in the end.”
Even walking forward idly, Jackie’s phone began to short out. Sputtering, the data overflowing causing glitches, and the screen flickering. It at least gave her the excuse to sigh, collect herself, and steel her nerves.
“My name is Jackie Jackson Jr. And I’m not just facing the Shift Noumena just to get siVis. I’m facing the Shift because I’m tired of not being able to life live anymore.”
With a quick swipe to send the video message and putting her phone in her jacket’s pouch, Jackie took her first steps into a much weirder world. A world that she, and others of her generation, simply weren’t prepared for.
As she kept moving, her eyes didn’t just start watering—they ached with building pressure coming from her brain. She tried gritting her teeth to keep from her throat spilling anything out. It was like her bones were collapsing in on themselves as she began staggering, versus walking.
Despite the sensory overload, Jackie was able to gauge that she was surrounded now. Within the most chilling aspect of the Noumena that humanity has learned to fear and flee the sight of.
The reality around them starts to shudder in a butterfly-wave fashion. Representing uncertainty and sheer force of power this strange, confusing insanity.
And Jackie could only take a few seconds of it, before passing out.