The seat in the cockpit of Dig's ship is already familiar to me, but it's gotten clingy. It won't let me get up. It has the same sticky quality as the air. My body feels elastic. The sensation reminds me of Reed Richards; the stretchy guy from Fantastic Four. And I’m floating in a most peculiar way in the middle of this strange dimension. It's as if I were a fish in water, but at the same time water itself. This is a little difficult to understand.
Loading Dig's ship went smoothly. Before departure, we had a nice, relaxed lunch with the Obireeks. They seem like a species that is in no hurry to get anywhere. They do their work thoroughly, just never rushing. Mastering this in my previous life would have been worth its weight in gold. I know, it’s an inanimate thing, but you get my point. The results will become better when all the scrappy stress and rush are ironed out.
The departure from Earth wasn’t dramatic at all. There was no thunderous roar, no violent shaking, nor dangerous moments. It was the complete opposite of our rough landing on the orange farm. We glided through the ever-thinning atmosphere as if there were no resistance. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, but compared to the previous turbulence, it was more like a roller coaster's steep descent than a washing machine's spin cycle.
A short while later, we zipped past the moon. And that was the end of rationality. Dig must've hit the throttle a bit too hard. I remember sitting in this very chair, and then suddenly sliding a few inches to the side of myself. I thought I was going to fall to the floor while still being securely strapped in. And yet I wasn't. Did I mention this is hard to explain and understand?
Sticking with the water-and-fish theme, I experienced a brief moment of that famous "fish out of water" feeling. Inhaling brought something inside me, but what? Then there was a sharp snap. I realized that some force had pulled me at the moment it ended. It didn't feel like a hook in my side, but as if I myself were the hook. Enough observations revealed what had happened. To some extent. I was slightly detached from reality as a whole. Some part of me had lingered on my own side of reality before the grip finally slipped.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
My laptop bag was right beside me, so by some strange coincidence it came along. I grabbed it and pressed it tightly against my chest as if it were a lifeline. Babaru was the first to notice that I was out of sync with them. Shortly after that, Dig eased off the gas. The roller-coaster sensation in my gut finally stopped. Both of my companions tried to communicate with me. Dig quickly switched to gesturing wildly, and Babaru flailed her own limbs as best she could.
Sign language would come in handy right now. I have a really strong feeling that Babaru is doing her best to translate Dig's frantic gestures for communication into a form that humans can understand. It doesn't make any sense... But does anything here? Without realizing it, I'd been absentmindedly tapping my laptop. It's almost as if the two of them were wild conductors. It drew my attention to the device against my chest. There was my familiar coping mechanism. My diary.
Once again, the therapy method Pearl gave me for thought organization offered a helping hand. The panic that’d been creeping up my neck with its cold fingers had to leave empty-handed. Once I’d gathered myself, the details of my surroundings became clearer. The dent I’d made in Babaru's side had healed a little. How slowly do Friips heal? How did I miss it, even though Babaru is constantly with me?
From this strange vantage point, I can focus on details I'd normally miss. Dig has freckles around her nose. Her wild hair and the hood of her cloak usually keep them hidden. But now they almost jump out to my face. The labels on every switch, dial, and button seem to scream at me. Usually invisible, now impossible to ignore.
My observational abilities seem amplified by this reality distortion. Why? Maybe Cook knows. Could I jolt myself back into the right frequency? I'm not that far off. Even a stubborn drop of water can be shaken from your ear. Is this any different? This idea and a hundred others race along the track of my consciousness. Who will win? Does it even matter?
Racing along that same track came the memory of a café customer, the one moving between realities. Is this his normal state of being, or is it the result of some kind of accident like mine? I wrote about him in entry 011. Okay, now things are getting even weirder. Stuff just started flooding into my head. The words I know, built from letters I recognize, are gett!ng scrambled with s0mething ali#n, s?meth!ng Str@n%¤. ! D0n’# un¤e&%t@n( t¤i&. #@t i# h@p¤%n!=g?
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