alternative futures: glitch (part 2)

glitch - part 2

2067 - back bay (vr) - zi

no one responded for another minute. by that point, i was just angry.

“yall!!! what the hell is the hold up…”

“ZI! HELP!”

i stopped bouncing.

in front of me, alexei, a teammate i knew well, seemed to be… in half. like, half in the world and half out. all i could see was their right-side and it wasn’t pretty.

i ran over. why wasn’t she fully appearing?

suddenly, the other half of their body flashed, flickered, bloody, and then vanished again.

something was very, very wrong.

i reached out to hold alexei up, but when my hand passed through where the left shoulder should have been, my arm felt an instant and incredible amount of pull and pressure. somehow, ii felt as if i were being pulled by my arm into a black hole. i jolted forward toward’s alexei’s body and felt my consciousness slip away. i blacked out.

when i woke up, i was on the ground. alexei was there, all of them this time, lying crumpled next to me. our other four raid mates were there, too. each naked, breathing heavy, waking up. i, too, was naked.

we were in the same spot, but it felt different… i could feel the air rushing across over my skin. i could smell the dirt i was laying on. i could smell and feel the cool air that was somehow rushing outwards from the elevator.

“who are you!? why are you in icaz?! how did you get here?!” a voice yelled from nowhere.

i jolted up and turned my head all around to see if i could find the voice.

a short little human, covered in tattered but well-made clothes was yelling at me from the edge of the clearing that was in front of the mine elevator. the person was clearly very muscular and even though they were 10 feet away, i could see that their eyes were clearer than any i had ever seen. whoever this person was, they seemed like they’d whip me in a heartbeat.

i chose to try and make friends… i would later, deeply regret that decision.

“hey, we’re hurt. my name is zi and i come from the bay…”

words / writing / post-processing
366w / 16min / 5min