I used to wonder what it was about people that made me want to be around them while wanting to leave them all the same. What made me want to do something but never quite seem to feel like getting around to it. Why I called myself brave when I only ever ran away.

I don’t wonder about those things anymore. But I do remember them, sometimes. Maybe it’s because my best friend of twelve years seems to hate me now. Maybe it’s because I’ve been working on the same New Year’s resolution for three years and six months as of today. Maybe it’s because I’m still unwilling to go back and see my father, even now.

I sigh and sit up, hearing the sound of my cheek skin reluctantly peeling away from my palm. No doubt a red blotch has been left behind and will be visible to everybody who passes by during the next five minutes. There is a constant stream of them—this is the last leg of their journey through the 'port and the dark circles under their eyes, fidgeting, and sour expressions make it all too clear that they would like nothing more than to get it all over with and get some sleep. It’s worse, perhaps, because many of them have been staring at the Tunnel for at least two hours already, moving towards it at a rate comparable to that of dripping molasses.

It's an alright job, sitting at the last information desk before the Tunnel. Nobody really wants to risk losing their spot in line a this point in the journey, so I hardly actually had to deal with people. When I do, they're eager to get the interaction over with and get back into line, so it doesn't usually take too long anyway. To be honest, my job probably has more to do with making sure nobody defaces the terminal next to me out of bald-faced boredom than actually helping people. It's all just as well—peoplewatching was something I had come to enjoy doing, and you got all types, here.

It didn't hurt that the pay-rate is higher than any of the other information desk positions, given the increased statistical probability of having every particle in my body suddenly barraged by interdimensional radiation and up-shifted into tachyons, doomed to shoot across the universe faster than the speed of light with no perception of time while everyone I knew and loved died in less than a relative blink of the eye, only for my own life to end once my particles calmed down and returned to their baryonic form somewhere in deep space where I would likely implode, freeze, and have every ounce of moisture in my eyes and mouth boil away at the same time. But hey, that had only happened twice before, back in the early days of 'port technology and under the purview of less-developed nations.

I glance up the line to the batch of people who are funneling into the Tunnel right now. The doors close behind them, and a sharp whine begins to emanate from the hidden machinery that I know runs for miles below-ground. It slowly rises in both pitch and amplitude until it is almost silent and yet somehow that much more piercing and unbearable. Then, it all goes suddenly quiet and still, and thanks to the glass walls I'm able to watch as everyone inside seems to vanish from existence.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Back in the early days people use to refer to such scenes as "teleportation," but it isn't, really. Faster-than-light travel? Yes. But not instantaneous, technically. I know a lot more about the process than most interns—definitely more than I needed to know to pass the practicums. It's all knowledge that came from abandoned dreams and wishful thinking.

I'm cut from my self-pity when the whine of the machinery abruptly starts back up. I glance back to the tunnel, noting that the door is open and nobody has filed into it yet. My heart leaps into my throat, followed by the rest of my body leaping to its feet as I instinctively try to put as much distance between myself and the ever-growing humming of the machinery. In a moment of moral duty, I begin to yell for others to evacuate.

Most didn't need the warning. What had once been a huge, sluggish river of molasses was now rapidly transforming into a writhing maelstrom of limbs and screams.

The sounds the machinery is making are clearly wrong—where before it had been a whine, now it is full of deep, rumbling noises and oscillating sine waves, all overlaid atop an overpowering hum that seems to resonate with my very bones.

I glance back just in time to see a blue flash of light, flames rushing towards me, when everything disappears in a sea of inky blackness.

I can't move my body. My limbs seem to whip about in every direction, twisting into painful positions. I know that they aren't, really. If it were still been physically present, I'm sure my throat would have seized up in the utter terror of the situation I now found myself in.

I was nothing more than a stream of loosely communicating, self-aware tachyons flying through the depths of space.

Funny how you can dismiss an existential threat so easily in one moment, only to be faced with it in the next.

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I won't subject you to any more stream-of-consciousness memories—you wouldn't get much out of them anyway. In fact, you might lose yourself. Recalling those events now, it's hard to remember exactly what happened after that.

For the first few days of perceived time, I tried desperately to keep my mind working. I did mental math. I reviewed my every life decision up to that point. I made up stories.

It didn't take long for things to fall apart. Humans need stimulation. Without it, the mind begins to create its own. My phantom limb syndrome was a symptom of this human condition. Soon, I began to hallucinate. It started with flashes of light where I knew there could be none—as I was outpacing light itself at that point. It eventually evolved into distorted, monstrous faces. Smiling figures. Eyeless sockets that could see straight into my mind. Then came the auditory hallucinations. People calling my name. Phantom music that shouldn't have been frightening but nonetheless evoked sensations of dread and helplessness.

Screams.

I'm not sure how much perceived time I spent like that. I don't think I want to know, or even guess. Something tells me I wouldn't guess high enough.

What I do know is that when I finally returned to a baryonic state, I wasn't a person anymore. I wasn't an individual. I wasn't me.

Let me tell you about how I survived tachyon transmutation. Let me tell you about how I came home.