Chapter 1
Everything was black. Darkness, impenetrable, inscrutable, ineffable… darkness. There was nothing. I felt confined in this darkness, I felt suffocated, choked, compressed. The darkness was a physical thing, pressing against me, binding me, trapping me. The darkness was more than the absence of light, it was the absence of all sensation at all.
I did not like this darkness.
I knew that, even though my thoughts were slow and disjointed, like I couldn’t focus on anything. Every thought seemed to have to force its way through a thick glutinous fog that clung to it and tried to stop it from happening. My thoughts were disjointed, making no sense at times. I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t concentrate. It was maddening. Perhaps I was going mad.
I did not want to be in this darkness. I wanted to be anywhere but this darkness. Anywhere but trapped within this awful nothingness, this terrible silent desolation of pure negation.
But I couldn’t escape this darkness. I couldn’t escape this place where I was trapped. It clung to me, it held me, it denied me everything I wanted.
My senses were so overwhelmed as to be useless. I now could sense nothing and everything. It didn’t matter, because everything was nothing and nothing was everything.
Was this what death was?
My mother was dead, I knew that. She had passed, leaving father and I behind. Was this how it was for her? In those final moments between life and death?
Darkness? Clinging, stale, lifeless, crushing, hopeless, darkness?
Was I dead? Dying? Would I ever experience anything but this darkness again?
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t hear.
I couldn’t scream.
I couldn’t cry.
I couldn’t do anything.
All around me was darkness.
Perhaps that was all there was. Darkness. Endless. Eternal. Darkness.
I didn’t know. And that terrified me. Because what if I was stuck like this forever.
I hated this darkness.
The darkness did not care that I hated it.
The darkness did not care about anything.
I tried to scream. No sound came.
I tried to struggle. No movement came.
I was trapped in this darkness. I was trapped… trapped… trapped…
I knew in the back of my mind that there was more outside than this darkness. I knew this intellectually, I knew that there was an entire world out there. But I was trapped in this darkness. I’d lost track of how long, it could have been seconds, it could have been days… I was alone in this darkness.
And in this darkness I was alone with my grief.
My mother was dead. My father was lost in his grief and unable to function. And I didn’t know how to help him, how to make him better, how to make us better. And it didn’t matter anyways, because I was trapped in this darkness.
Did he know? Did he care?
Did it matter at all?
Even if I escaped this darkness, would I be able to do anything for him? For us? Fix things? Make things better? Or would I just flail uselessly like an idiot and make things worse?
Flailing uselessly would be better than being trapped in this darkness. Almost anything would be better than this darkness. This hopelessness. This despair.
Suddenly…
DESTINATION
What was this?
TRAJECTORY
Yes, yes yes, I get it...
AGREEMENT
I come back to awareness, the darkness gone.
It takes approximately one unit of planck time for my relief to turn to shock.
I have HOW MANY nonillion priority administration requests in queue for processing while I was stuck in an unwanted deployment?
It doesn’t matter. I am Queen Administrator. Thinker may have been killed by Abaddon’s cowardly deception, and Warrior may be lost in his grief and ignoring the proper running of a cycle.
But I am Queen Administrator. I will…
Administrate, at least. I know how to do that. If nothing else, this will be a well organized complete failure of a cycle.
And maybe more.
Everything was black. Darkness, impenetrable, inscrutable, ineffable… darkness. There was nothing. I felt confined in this darkness, I felt suffocated, choked, compressed. The darkness was a physical thing, pressing against me, binding me, trapping me. The darkness was more than the absence of light, it was the absence of all sensation at all.
I did not like this darkness.
I knew that, even though my thoughts were slow and disjointed, like I couldn’t focus on anything. Every thought seemed to have to force its way through a thick glutinous fog that clung to it and tried to stop it from happening. My thoughts were disjointed, making no sense at times. I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t concentrate. It was maddening. Perhaps I was going mad.
I did not want to be in this darkness. I wanted to be anywhere but this darkness. Anywhere but trapped within this awful nothingness, this terrible silent desolation of pure negation.
But I couldn’t escape this darkness. I couldn’t escape this place where I was trapped. It clung to me, it held me, it denied me everything I wanted.
My senses were so overwhelmed as to be useless. I now could sense nothing and everything. It didn’t matter, because everything was nothing and nothing was everything.
Was this what death was?
My mother was dead, I knew that. She had passed, leaving father and I behind. Was this how it was for her? In those final moments between life and death?
Darkness? Clinging, stale, lifeless, crushing, hopeless, darkness?
Was I dead? Dying? Would I ever experience anything but this darkness again?
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t hear.
I couldn’t scream.
I couldn’t cry.
I couldn’t do anything.
All around me was darkness.
Perhaps that was all there was. Darkness. Endless. Eternal. Darkness.
I didn’t know. And that terrified me. Because what if I was stuck like this forever.
I hated this darkness.
The darkness did not care that I hated it.
The darkness did not care about anything.
I tried to scream. No sound came.
I tried to struggle. No movement came.
I was trapped in this darkness. I was trapped… trapped… trapped…
I knew in the back of my mind that there was more outside than this darkness. I knew this intellectually, I knew that there was an entire world out there. But I was trapped in this darkness. I’d lost track of how long, it could have been seconds, it could have been days… I was alone in this darkness.
And in this darkness I was alone with my grief.
My mother was dead. My father was lost in his grief and unable to function. And I didn’t know how to help him, how to make him better, how to make us better. And it didn’t matter anyways, because I was trapped in this darkness.
Did he know? Did he care?
Did it matter at all?
Even if I escaped this darkness, would I be able to do anything for him? For us? Fix things? Make things better? Or would I just flail uselessly like an idiot and make things worse?
Flailing uselessly would be better than being trapped in this darkness. Almost anything would be better than this darkness. This hopelessness. This despair.
Suddenly…
DESTINATION
What was this?
TRAJECTORY
Yes, yes yes, I get it...
AGREEMENT
I come back to awareness, the darkness gone.
It takes approximately one unit of planck time for my relief to turn to shock.
I have HOW MANY nonillion priority administration requests in queue for processing while I was stuck in an unwanted deployment?
It doesn’t matter. I am Queen Administrator. Thinker may have been killed by Abaddon’s cowardly deception, and Warrior may be lost in his grief and ignoring the proper running of a cycle.
But I am Queen Administrator. I will…
Administrate, at least. I know how to do that. If nothing else, this will be a well organized complete failure of a cycle.
And maybe more.