I walk into the diner and already know my face will be buried in my phone while I wait. There are just too many conversations around me, and my senses are already overburdened.

I sit down at the counter and flag Leonard down. He nods at me and returns to the customer he’s with, animatedly talking and taking their order. My phone is already out as I wait, my latest game fixation running on the screen—a surprisingly robust RPG for a phone game.

Leonard gets around to me and calls my name to get my attention. “Sebastian, what can I get you tonight? The usual?”

My head goes up, momentarily confused at having to suddenly make a decision. I open my mouth slightly before looking around for a menu and picking one up. I skim everything, just so I can be sure, and reply. “The usual, plus black tea with milk please.”

Leonard smiles his usual smile, which I’ve gotten accustomed to. “Coming right up.” I know he doesn’t find me weird, in a bad way, at this point. I trust that knowledge.

I return to my game and go through another quest before my meal arrives. Leonard gets my attention again since I’m deep in my game, trying to avoid being flooded. I put my phone in my pocket and look over my food. Bacon, fried eggs, toast, fresh tomato cut into slices. My usual breakfast. On the side, Leonard had already put down a glass of water next to the tea he brought.

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I begin to slowly eat, focusing on my meal helping the same way focusing my on phone does. Bit of egg, bit of bacon, a slice of tomato, rip the toast and dip it in the yolk. Practically mechanical, but the way I find eating to be pleasant.

Leonard stands nearby, looking around for customers needing service. He already knows not to try and make small talk with me. I rarely have enough cool to do so.

I take a bite of bacon when I hear tearing and shattering come right from behind me. I can’t process any part of it before my vision goes black and I suddenly lose consciousness.

----------------------------------------

I wake up somewhere unfamiliar, most of my vision filled with darkness. On my right, which a bit of light is coming from, I hear a cacophony of metal against metal, of pistons and gears and dials moving at a constant pace. My relative calm surprises me.

I slowly tilt my head to the right, no other part of my body responding, to see what is making all the noise. The only description that comes up is a huge machine, although it doesn’t do it justice. I can’t tell how far it is from me, but I can tell I can’t see its entirety no matter where I look. Only then do I notice the figure. How am I so calm?

It looks like a human, or like a silhouette of one, if humans had more arms than I could count. It also appears to be made of light. At the end of each arm, a hand is handling some piece of equipment, the machine reacting to every change. I should not be this calm.

Despite the figure being a silhouette, I can sense it turning towards me. It looks at me before I hear a voice inside my head. “Oh. No. Can’t have you looking at this. It would not do at all.” An arm rushes towards me and I’m too calm. Everything goes dark again and I lose consciousness.