GLIDER

one

There are trees — bright green towers, swaying in the light wind. Clouds float overhead, every so often casting a dull shade onto the overgrown landscape, which is thriving with brush and flowers. It's beautiful.

But then, the scenery begins to change. The oaken leaves are replaced with compact blocks of cement, while roads and sidewalks flow out in randomized patterns, covering the greenery with every color in the monochrome spectrum. My breath is taken away, watching this happen. It's so destructive, yet so beautiful at the same time. It's a clean slate, ripe with the opportunity for new growth.

Soon, everything I can see is grey. It's brilliant and blinding, but somehow it's also loud, buzzing so violently that I can feel it all over my body —

"...she's regaining consciousness, sir!"

"Inject her, then! We don't want any..."

Fight it.

I have no idea where the voice comes from, but I know that I have to listen to it. Something about it is so urgent, so demanding, that I understand right away that not doing what it says could have serious consequences.

I pour all of my feeling into resisting the waves of numbness tiding through me, holding onto the vibrations still tingling the ends of my limbs, but it's too much to hold back.

You have to fight it!

I can't let them take you again!

I tighten every muscle that I can, squeezing what little energy I have left into waking up, but something breaks my grasp. Suddenly, I'm back in that same greyscale world of concrete, except this time it's much smaller, and it takes me a moment to realize that it's closing in on me. I panic, but I can't move, so I have to watch silently as the ocean of concrete crashes closer, until it's washing over me, spilling into my mouth and choking the breath out of my lungs...

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...and then it's gone.

It's all gone. Everything is dark.

I try to breathe in, but it feels like my throat is coated with dust, and I cough in shock, trying to clear it away. It takes a few moments before I can actually draw in a breath. The air feels cold, like sharp icicles of pain stabbing my lungs.

There's a sudden eruption of sound, and the world around me blurs to life: people stream all around me, bumping into me, forcing me around like a current too strong to swim in. I stumble, but I catch myself, too afraid to let myself fall to the ground. The sky above me is a piercing blue, streaked by the sun. The clouds track their way through it in what seems like slow motion as my surroundings fall in and out of focus.

Slowly, voices fade into the chaos. At first there's only a few of them, but the seconds pass and then there's too many to even count, all overlapping each other, causing my head to throb. All at once I can feel their bodies against mine, pressing and grazing against me, shoving and pulling me — warm, too warm —

Trees. Remember the trees.

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