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XIX - Paranoia

XIX - Paranoia

Thoughts began to race and paranoia began to swirl around me as I quickly begin to lose myself. To think that just encountering a creature that is so similar to a human being, even if they don't act like them, broke my mental image - could this happen to me? What happened to everyone? Everyone I ran into, ate, or ran from was human?

Everything goes dark around me as I sink deeper and deeper into unspeakable madness and paranoia of the basic feeling of survival. Out of the darkness, while I'm on my knees, a voice is heard from afar and is trying to reach me. It only gets stronger while the madness surrounds me like a swarm that doesn't want to let go of me. The voice only continues to get closer and stronger until in one word I was able to hear:

"Colin!" A familiar voice was heard and I was able to hear it, but can't make out where it was coming from.

"Colin!!!" She continued to say and a shadow appeared in front of me, behind the black swarm circling me. The shadow got closer and closer as I hold my head, trying to run away from everything, but then something touched me in front and the shadow stood in front of me. The swarm dispersed and light peeked out from above revealing herself - a tall woman with long red hair looking at me, with her hand on my shoulder. The moment I looked at her face, I recognized her.

"Rosalina? Are you here?" I stood up in front of her and touched her shoulders back. She smiles back at me and I'm like:

"You look just before I went into freezing" I said in front of her face

"You have to wake up from this" she replied and everything starts to blur I find myself back in front of the small reed, quickly regaining my composure and looking by me, trying to understand what just happened.

"Colin, you were in a paranoid attack" the AI Rosalina replied:

"I tried to free you from this situation, but Annie is equipped with the tools to deal with such a situation"

I looked around to see that there was nothing else on me before I advanced to the water and began to fill in:

"I know, I'm sorry, simply everything I've seen so far - what happened to the metropolis, to our world, to everyone I know, I no longer understand what I see in front of me"

"I don't know how to treat the human brain, I wasn't equipped with this knowledge, but I know it affects your physiological activity negatively"

I filled the first container before taking out another and filling the second. I didn't answer her back but I could agree with her - we were not equipped with ways to deal with trauma or a psychotic attack or paranoia as I encountered now. We had someone on the team who specialized in these things, but they are not here, and I am almost alone. It's been longer than I remember being here, but the feeling of loneliness, and seeing other people already seems like a distant dream. But if everything works out, I have to remain optimistic and hold on, maybe there are survivors like me, waiting for me. My wife is waiting for me somewhere outside.

After a short while I finished filling all the containers and took a sip of the reed before I moved back into the vegetation towards the car. There it stood as I had left it ready and in order, I continued to arrange the equipment and continued to drive towards our route. As much as I could, traveling and navigating through the trees was almost impossible as at every point, bushes and vines blocked the way and as a result, I had to make major detours that took the whole day.

As the night came and with it, shrieks and whistles were heard throughout the forest before I prepared myself from all the food I could find in the navigations compared to before I arrived they were varied - several types of fruit, large leaves similar to lettuce and a small creature that happened to fall on the colonies behind her death. I turned on the grill and started trying to cook something from what I could cook with them and sat down next to him.

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All I had in my mind was the face of Rosalina my wife, and unable to think of anything else but her, and with it I fell into sleep while the fire began to weaken.

In the morning I continued to drive and try to collect as much as I could until the tree line started to show. The ride became easier as time passed towards the sands until I was already standing between a border like a child drawn on the ground between the weathered buildings and tall vegetation that dominates one side and the sands and rocks that dominate on the other side. The wind that blew on the sands scattered them everywhere and hid from me the horizon where my face prepares for the next place. All the food I prepared as much as I could ready for the journey I am going to now try to go through.

With the car, I began to move and the feeling of the engine and the wheels began to change over the scattered earth to the grains of sand whose constant movement shapes the sands felt very different and the wheels scattered them everywhere while I began to move deeper towards the ridge that blocked the horizon. In the mirrors of the car, I saw how the line of the forest and the buildings that had accompanied me since I first came out of the anesthesia began to move away, together with the broken rail that stood in the sky like a broken statue, it only seemed small at all that I moved away from them until I passed a rocky hill and they were swallowed up behind it.

Now I am officially in a completely foreign and unfamiliar place. The map won't help anymore and I'll rely on visuals again. The sun came high while Rosalina pointed me to where to drive. All around me except for the sky of the ridge and the line of buildings that hardly stands out between the dunes and the rocky hills, only yellow, white, and black sands mixed like a chaotic mosaic as I drive without knowing what awaits on the other side. With it, came the feeling of boredom from seeing the same landscapes over and over, and my eyes almost sunk and closed.

"Colin!" Rosalina woke me up and I opened my eyes:

"Driving without autopilot in such a physiological state is dangerous! I suggest you stop and rest"

I listened to her and started looking for a place where I could stop, but there was nothing that could be defined as shelter or even shade. Having no choice, I stopped the car and sedated him. I got up and started turning around and trying to stretch inside the suit. The suit has a regulation mechanism that can understand different types of temperatures and adapt to the situation. Especially suitable if you are exploring other planets, but it is also suitable now especially since there is no shadow. It's also the perfect situation for the suit and Rosalina to recharge from the abundant solar radiation found here. I advanced to the sides to see how far I had left to advance, but the ridge, as big as it is, still seemed far away, but on the other side from where I came, the tree line was no longer visible. All around me is just sand, sand, and sand with a few rocks here and there. Not a single plant or animal is seen. The sight looks like hell on earth.

I made my way back to the car and rummaged through the equipment to find water and saturate myself with it. I took off my helmet and began to feel the hot winds of the desert and the sands blowing over my face and I felt as if by a fire, to the point of suffocation. Immediately with this feeling, I opened the container that contained the water and started drinking from it. The feeling of the cool water against the warm winds felt so contrasting, but at the same time excellent before I closed the tank and returned it to the place.

"Colin, a seismic movement was felt close to you" I quickly put on the helmet and a point was shown on the map that was moving more and more in my direction. I already had a gut feeling about what it was about:

"Let me guess - giant sandworms are coming our way"

I started running towards the car and started the engines. The car began to shake and the sound of movement in the sand began to be heard behind me. I pressed the gas and started driving on the sands. The ride felt a lot slower, maybe because the sand got in the way but the dot on the map just got closer and closer with unbelievable speed and I pressed the gas as hard as I could. The shaking was so strong that I felt it through the car and suddenly the sands started erupting everywhere and from it, from the place where I was until recently, a huge tentacle that could compete with the device in its size came out and started falling in my direction and falling on the sands! All the dust and sand spread everywhere and the cloud spread so that it blocked my field of vision. I got into the car and kept my foot on the gas as long as I could until I got out of it and in the mirrors I saw who it was that wanted me: his tentacles were covered with snap buttons but his head began to rise on the horizon, with what looked like a white surface and many tentacles all under him, the dunes hid from me what he looked like All of it, but the fear and confusion is already upon me:

"It's worse than a giant sandworm" I said:

"It's a giant sand squid!"