Prologue
Glioblastoma Multiforme
The wheezing of the worn-out ceiling fan. The bright white yet dusty walls filled with framed papers. The droplets of sweat on his fat face surfing down, hugging his hairy double chin. It’s slowly moving up and down. In fact, it’s more like jiggling. I don’t know wh-!
“Mr-Mr. Adam, you with me? As I was saying, we’re out of options here, I am really sorry. You could spend a fortune but only to prolong the inevitable. Go home, have some rest and think about the changes you are about to face in the upcoming period of your life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a long day ahead of me.”
I looked at the fat man, who was sweating profusely without an apparent reason. I didn’t say a word back. Instead, I just took the scrambled papers and shoved them into my backpack. Then, turned my back and reached the door knob, quickly going out of the room. I saw faces, lots of them. Some are staring at me, some are sympathetic, some are angry, but all of these faces have something in common; all of these faces are hopeless. Full of despair, void of joy and void of life.
I got out of the building and got into my car, which was still on the loan. Then, like a machine following orders, I wrongfully repeated, “Go home, rest and think about a better way to die.”
You know what they say about the moment before you die, when your life flashes in front of your eyes in just a moment? I discovered that you don’t need a bullet kissing your forehead for that to happen; words are just as powerful as it to grant you that effect. Flashes of crawling on the floor, a mother’s embrace, the first day at school, a first kiss, a college graduation party, crushed dreams, a dull job and a day that has been repeated for eight years.
Wake up, go to work, do your job like a mule, go back home and find something that makes the pain go away; your drug. In my case, computer games and reading, if you didn’t count crying yourself to sleep.
I don’t think it’s time for regrets. I mean, I signed up for this. I could’ve been an engineer or technician or something, something that paid well, but zoology? As a major, even if it’s a useless decision in this fucked up third world country I was born in. I ended up sitting behind a desk in a dull job, how naive I was, but I can’t help the loving nature. It fascinated me since I was a child. To me, animals represent purity and innocence, something humans definitely lacked, at least, after a certain age. I chose to leave my parents’ home, become independent and chose the daily life grind only to become a small gear in the big ugly machine.
I didn’t choose this, though. I didn’t choose this big patch on my head’s MRI, these rebellious cells breeding in my thinkbox. A fourth stage brain cancer. Well, at least I now know why the insane headaches, which usually ends with mini-blackouts, are happening more often.
Oh well, I’m not fond of dying in a hospital bed, thus I decided that I’ll take the pain and do what every death sentenced man would want to do, try to live whatever life I have left to the fullest, spend like a millionaire, love like Casanova, and pray like a prophet.
I couldn’t help but let my tears flow. No use holding them now. There is nothing to do. Whispers came out of my salty mouth, trying to give me false hopes.
“I...” sniff” If I can go back in time, I would live my life as I like. I wouldn’t be the person I am. If… If “sniff” I can go back in time, I would be “sniff” … free.”
The tears kept flowing for a while, washing away a fraction of my depression, allowing me to keep going even for a little while.
I started my car and drove by the river. The sun was setting and the view was mesmerizing so I thought why not enjoy the world I’m about to leave. So I parked the bucket of bolts, sat on the grass and looked up at the sky before exclaiming, “Wow!”
It is truly beautiful, a sunny day with a refreshing breeze and white clou… white clouds? The clouds are… purple?
Suddenly, the clouds started to spread, blocking the sunlight and filling the view with purple mist. What is happening? Is this some kind of those climate wonders, like the auroras I see on the internet, or maybe some kind of biological weapon? Maybe, the judgment day?
People around me are staring stupefied at the sky, some had already begun to panic. Tremors, big ones, started vibrating my world, the buildings were falling down like sand castles hit by strong wind and booming sounds accompanied by dust clouds filled the air, it was happening so fast my tumored brain was finding it hard to process.
Then came the loudest screech I have ever heard in the entirety of the 30 years I have lived, a screech so loud that it made an unearthly melody with the millions of glass shards it produced. People started holding their heads in a futile fight against the orchestrated sounds of doom, blood started gushing from their noses, ears, and even eyes and God knows what else, some are down spasming.
I looked in awe while all I’m having is a small nosebleed. Meanwhile, an old friend of mine had come, greeting me! I did not miss you one bit, the tumor is hugging my brain again, giving me the unbearable familiar headache, then the blackout will soon follow. My vision is becoming blurry, all I can see is hazy purple, all I can smell is blood, all I can taste is rust and all I hear is screams and crashes. So this is how I die… though to be honest, it’s better than someone discovering my smelly bloated corpse in my apartment.
So, this is my fate. I wonder what I’m going to do in my afterlife. I really hope it exists. I’m not a religious person, but I believe in god. I wish I was a more pious person, I wish I traveled the whole world, I wish I’ve felt the warmth of a woman, I wish many things, thinking too fast, but… now, all I can do is-. What is THAT?
Before I go out, drowning in my speedy thoughts, I see something that makes every hair on my body stand straight up like a soldier during a sudden morning drill, snapping my conscious back to reality. In my blurry vision, I see the sky getting torn, something is carving it with what it seems like tendrils, tearing it like a piece of cloth, the tear is getting bigger and bigger until I see something more, an eye, a gigantic eye emerged behind the tear, staring into my soul.
“Man… I have to stop watching these Japanese cartoons,” I thought while staring at the hallucination.
My eyelids were giving up, but the shock kept it resistant. The tendrils started moving, slinking themselves and beginning a straight path towards... ME? Too fast for my brain to process it enveloped me, sinking into my limbs but I couldn’t feel any pain for some reason, less than that a second later I was floating, then shooting up towards the sky at incredible speed. I tried focusing on anything to save myself, panicking and squirming, but suddenly I realized it’s useless. Why should I resist, I’m dead anyway, I’m really tired of all this shit, I should just let go. I stopped resisting my eyelids, and everything suddenly went dark.
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A friend of mine once told me a very shocking story. One day, he was working his night shift at the hospital. The ambulance brought a dying man. well, more like a torso than a man. His arms and legs were sawed off, his genitals removed violently, he was missing his eyes and tongue, his ears were burned with what seems to be an iron. what is more shocking is that this man was kept alive on purpose. He said later that he heard that this man pissed off some really powerful people, and this was their way of revenge. It was so fucked up.
I never thought this level of cruelty existed, and my friend was messing with me with some twisted imagination of his, until today. I felt like waking up to faint vibration sounds while I was floating in the air. I can’t feel anything but in the blurred vision of the corner of my left eye, I saw subtle movements.
The drowsiness faded away. And I saw what a veteran horror movie director would kill to even imagine. I saw three small floating figures who looks like a giant jellyfish with an eye in the middle of their what seems to be a diamond shaped head, with thousands of tendrils coming out of their bodies, much like the giant thing that dragged me into the purple sky.
Then I looked down, I saw … nothing! no arms, no legs, not even my genitals, a slight burning sensation in my head, it seems I pissed off some powerful ... aliens?
I think that moment I had like a brain freeze or something, for I couldn’t translate any of this.
Other than the burning sensation in my head, I don’t feel any pain and I didn’t see a drop of blood. Suddenly, a tsunami of emotions burst within me, and before it swept me away, everything went dark.
No, I didn’t faint yet, but it seems like I don’t have my left eye anymore. All I could feel now was the extreme shock, panic, fear, anger, as I was slowly being dismembered, disassembled, disconnected.
I hear a loud booming sound on the horizon, probably louder since I feel I’m missing my pinna too, the buzzing sound of the vibrations is getting more frequent, then I fade again into nothingness.
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*** Earlier ***
“Increase dismantling operation speed by thirty eight percent, we don’t have time! They found our whereabouts faster than we calculated”, said one of the strange figures slightly moving its blue body.
“As ordered, 214n6355 remains. Extracting second visual receptor in 7n78,” continued the figure to the other two. “The walker is regaining conscious. His heart rate is increasing rapidly.”
“Take out the secondary visual receptor, now!” said a reddish figure, issuing an order.
“As your order,” replied the blue figure.
*BOOM!*
“They’re here! Release the essence!” commanded the third figure. It looked transparent and had a superior commanding aura than the other two.
“But if we forced the essence, the walker might reject it and die,” said the blue figure.
“We do not have time. Calculating risks...” said reddish one, quietly.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Release the essence. Inject yoctobots and... implement the coordinator,” added the transparent figure.
“The coordinator? Matriarch, without the coordinator we cannot… this is …” said the blue one.
“We did not come all this way from the other end of the universe, after eons of searching for the right planet and the compatible specimen to back away now. This is their last hope. I know how precious the coordinator is, but it’s a sacrifice we must make. Now, augment the walker again. Inject yoctobots and install the coordinator,” said the Matriarch, they would not fail.
“What about the anomaly in his head? We need time to stud–,” the blue figure retorted.
“The coordinator will figure something out about it later, now do as you’re told!”, said the supposed leader.
“Yes, Matriarch,” replied blue, finally backing down.
“After you are done seal the walker until the coordinator activates and initiate phase 8442”, said the matriarch, leaving the area as she prepared.
“As you ordered, Matriarch,” both the blue and red figure said in unison and started doing what they were told.
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I regained conscious, floating in my world of darkness, feeling weightlessness, limbless and senseless. What was this weird incomprehensible symbols that appeared in my head? I only saw it with the back of my mind since I have no eyes, it looks like lines of code in some alien programming language.
“So, it wasn’t a dream,” I murmured.
“Earthling…” a monotonic voice buzzed in my head.
“WHAT THE FUCK?” I shouted, flinching.
“Fuck, modern earthen language, refers to the act of sexual intercourse and commonly used to express disdain, the term is also used to-” the monotonic voice started to explain.
“SHUT UP” I shouted, interrupting, trying to gather my thoughts on what the hell this voice was.
“What are you?” I asked, trying to calm myself.
“I am the coordinator,” came the voice in an instant after.
“Coordinator, wha—!“
“I am, what you call on earth, an artificial intelligence, or AI for short. Compared to, what you call the most advanced AI here on this planet, codename ALICE, I am more sophisticated by–”
“–the number presented is above the level of your current comprehension level,” said the coordinator.
“So…? What are you doing here in my head?” I asked, recovering from my initial shock and slowly regaining my rationality.
“I was implanted within your cerebral cortex to distribute the terra essence within this vessel, coordinate the yoctobots within it and help you survive what is to come until you fulfill your purpose”.
“ Yocto what?... p-purpose?” I said questioning the AI.
“Machines regulating your body and maintaining the essence strands. Your purpose is to exist, until the time comes,” replied the AI, quickly.
“What machines, what time and what essence?” I asked, feeling confused as the words came out of my mouth, at least that was what I thought.
“You cannot know at this point in time,” replied the coordinator, which seemed to me like a colder voice than before.
So, I have some sort of micro machines in my body and a super advanced AI in my head that’s telling me some nonsense. What’s ALICE anyway? I’ve only heard rumors but how does it know that kind of knowledge? I thought to myself.
“Correction. Yocta machines. The usage of micro machines stopped centuries ago and my database contains a carbon updated copy of terra’s all eleven layers’ information networks. The internet as earthlings call it, or at least what they call the first layer,” informed the coordinator.
“So, you know everything about the plane... WAIT! Did you just read my thoughts?” I asked, shocked by the fact that he just replied to something that didn’t come out of my mouth.
“Yes. I can read the neuro-signals in your brain and translate it to data And no, I am not offended by what you just thought right now. Also, I don’t have a mother,” the coordinator said, adding more to my uneasiness.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean it!” I said, feeling myself blushing, which was a good sign that I still have blood circulating in the husk that is my body at the moment.
“Do not be. We were communicating by thought from the start of the conversation.”
Pausing for a moment, I focused a bit on my mouth and noticed that I didn’t have my tongue and my teeth. All I could produce was some incomprehensible sounds through my vocal cords. I think I’m more tolerant to shocks now than before.
“So, coordinator, might you explain to me why you aliens made me like this? What do you want with me? Are you experimenting on m–?“
*FIZZZZZZ!*
The sound of a metal getting melted down can be heard in the room I’m in, followed by muffled footsteps. Then, an otherworldly feminine voice echoed in my head.
“Hello! ADAM?”
“Great. Now, everybody is a mind reader now,” I replied, clearly pissed off.
“What are you talking about, Adam? I am merely using telepathy to communicate with you,” replied the unknown person, in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Who are you?” I asked, trying to communicate with her.
“My name is Ijna Alaaly, commander of this sector under the banner of the Noran race, and we are here to save you,” said Ijna, with a serious tone that sounded a lot like a veteran soldier.
“Save me from what? I am perfectly fine,” I said, sarcastically, thinking about my husk looking body.
“I am sorry, Adam. We were late. The Exorians got to you before us, but we will fix everything these monsters have done to you. Do not worry, Adam. We have the technology to regenerate the damage that they have done to your body and even cure your cancer But tell me, Adam… What were you talking about when you said everybody is a mind reader?”
“Do not tell her,” I heard the coordinator, in the back of my head.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because, she is the enemy, my enemy, and your enemy,” replied the AI.
“Well coordinator, they didn’t at least cut me up like I was some sort of burger,” I told the coordinator with a defiant tone.
“I warn you, earthling. if you tell–!”
“They implanted an AI in my head, and machines, also something called essence” I started spilling everything to Ijna.
“Earthling, that is not the correct choice to make. This counterintuit–!” said the AI, a hint of begging in his voice in my mind.
“Adam, Exorian AI cannot read minds. Did you speak with it?” Ijna asked, sounding intrigued.
“Yes. This damn coordinator keeps saying weir–!”
At that moment, I heard a loud gasp after mentioning the word coordinator.
“HAAD BLK’TAAA,” she screamed, ordering what sounds like more soldiers.
Loud explosion sounds, followed by what seemed to be a sound of a beast in pain, the explosions are reaching where I am quickly from all side as my half ear can listen, everything started shaking while Ijna still screaming orders.
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So, I’m falling at the moment, probably the alien ship exploded, to be honest, I am really sick of this shit. Cancer, aliens, dismemberment, machines and AIs in my head, now I really wish to die, this is too overwhelming, I can smell burning flesh, probably mine, dropping from way too high up, for some reason the pain is suppressed by something.
the feeling of my flesh peeling yet regenerating in an instant, that’s probably something the machines in my body is doing, but why? why would they dismember me, yet keep me alive?
So many questions, but I don’t need answers now. Soon everything will be over; soon I will find peace within death’s embrace.
The fresh air of the sea suddenly hit my nostrils, I wonder how my lungs are keeping up with this fall.They shouldn’t, yet... I don’t really care. Soon. Soon I will be released Soon I will be free.
I hit the ocean very hard, my body should explode from the impact, yet the wounds instantly close “So they won’t let me die yet! Bastards, my best hope now is drowning.” I stop resisting the salty water filling my insides, I keep sinking, my mind is fading and a curl of satisfaction forms on my lips! Finally, death!
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*** 2.4 kilometers undersea, Atlantic Ocean floor ***
[dipnoi] [hadal amphipod] [gastropod]
“Cordi, what did she say?” the coordinator heard the unconscious Adam.
“She said. “seize him”, Adam.” replied the coordinator.
“OH… bitch. Thanks Cordi” said the still unconscious Adam.
“….”
“Sleep well, Planet Walker. Your journey has just begun,” whispered the coordinator.
StealthEdit V6.2 13feb17. Please move along, you didn't actually read that line -paranoid author