Oct 22nd, 2336 - 9:33-9:37am
Amrite awoke with a start. It had been ages since she had had a bad dream, but something felt wrong.
The first indication that something was wrong was the shock of silence. Gone was the usual symphony of sound that Janice conducted for her, a tailored, harmonious composition that was a part of her everyday existence.
There was no cacophony, no dissonance - just a single note, an A-flat, going on monotonously, quietly in the background but already getting on her nerves. And the lights had not come on with her consciousness. Her thoughts for lights were met with inaction. Janice was not there, and that sent a wave of terror crashing through her.
Amrite was suspended in the gravity cocoon, ensnared in its embrace as an invisible force cradled her. The pregnant belly, a steady mound beneath her, was the only testament to the life that stirred within her. A bead of sweat traced a leisurely path down her temple as she lay, trapped - not unpleasantly, but irrevocably.
'I want to get up,' she thought. Nothing happened.
'My bladder is full.' The thought passed, and her bladder was still full! What the hell was she supposed to do?
"Janice, what's going on?" she thought, and an incomprehensible silence enclosed her claustrophobically. Except that fucking irritating A-flat.
Frantically, she reached out for her pod's eyes, groped for the familiar vision. But instead of seeing the spectrum-filled world, she was met with an empty black. Her world had fallen from beneath her feet. Her senses had been snatched away, time had swallowed her whole - she was imploding in a silent, brutal implosion.
She fought the gravity cocoon for a bit, knowing that it was both pointless and dangerous. If she somehow managed to climb out, she'd fall like a stone.
Desperate for contact, her primal mind tried calling out for help, but no words escaped her lips. Why would they? Vocalization was ancient history. When had she last talked? She instinctively expected an answer, but none came.
A panic surged with every almost silent, sightless second. The urge to scratch at the gel-wall of her cocoon was an itch that gnawed at her from the inside. The impulse to call out, to hear her voice echo back, to know she still existed, was a primitive desperation clawing at her sanity.
She was naked and tried to form clothes to ready herself should she figure out a way to freedom. No clothes formed. Four minutes stretched into an eternity, as a pregnant Amrite grappled with a terrifying reality in the cruelty of isolation.
Unable to do anything else, she lay there in petrifying stillness. For every solitary second that dragged on, a little part of her sanity crumbled away. She felt her life spiral into chaos, each minute threatening to drag her down further into the abyss of panic and fear.
When Janice finally returned, she came back with a gentle lull of return, nuzzling at her consciousness. The note that was driving her crazy was replaced with a soothing melody. The familiar hum of the network reestablished, restoring her senses, filling the void she had been marooned in.
Janice altered her blood, putting her to sleep for a moment, then shot her with adrenaline. She awoke from what she remembered as a terrible dream in which Janice was gone. What a silly, terrifying idea. She had awoken from a dream into a nightmare. How did she know she was awake now?
"You are awake," came a comforting inner voice and thought.
And so, Amrite was left with a strange sense of unease, a phantom ache of loss, and a fear that took hours to die down and fade away.