Caught amidst a cliché scenario, odd thought begins to evolve. Awakened by silent shards of auditory imagery, I sit up, body sodden with the experience. Awkwardly, I wipe the soaked clinging hair from my face, accidentally gouging my paled cheek. Through hyperventilated gasps, I look down past my constricted chest to follow the perspiration. It merges with the vein juice, forming pools, salted and crimson. With both hands, I cup my face to learn origins. My palms show remnants both nasal and oral. Quickly checking my ears, they too secrete the flow. Have I lost all aural sense? It’s unknown, since true silence is deafening, and the running appliances are just mainstream unawareness. The opalescent moon visits through the window and glistens off the pools, increasing the panic of unknown secretions.
       Fearing these sights with confusion, I throw back the sheet and bound to the window. I yank closed the drapes and drop, sitting upright in the darkness. This state is almost worse, because although I’m aware of the crimson streams, I’m unable to decipher blood from perspiration as it runs down, creating unseen facial symmetry.
       With the feeling of total body shutdown, like the bright balloon slowly losing the very essence that keeps it afloat, I begin to weep. But even now, I question whether these are true tears or might my visual sockets too, be draining that crimson drip. My lids fall gently, perhaps to block, but the vision is the same and the flow is unceasing.
       Sensing a sudden temperature decrease and a familiar pine tree smell, I open my eyes to reveal a surrounding forest. It’s dim now, like an English countryside... misted dawn. Strangely, I’m secure and not disoriented. I begin to run, dodging trees and oddly located stone representations of various items: six house-sized microscopes, high-heeled shoes, aardvarks, and inverted warriors (hand-standing and balanced atop weapons — sword, bayonet, cannon). The fresh and dry pine needles are soothing beneath my tender feet, though sufficient traction is rare.
       A small girl appears holding a book of esophageal architecture. She is cloaked. Although she appears neither aggressive nor intimidated, she hurls the book, striking me in the forehead. Running away, she pauses every so often to throw fluorescent stones at me, which I divert easily, yet purely through mental technique. I suddenly realize that blood is dripping from this newly acquired cranial gash, awareaswell of the fact that if one of these stones hits this wound again, she’ll not only have access to my thoughts and multiple consciousness levels, but that I could in this process lose all power and sense of self. I'm more concerned that there exists such an easily accessible portal than I am that someone has opened it. Nevertheless, I know that it must be protected. Must be protected. protected. protect. Protect.

       A bladeform appears in my palm. Its thick three-sided blade fronts a cylindrical handle that bulges in the center, and a glowing fuchsia ball adorns the hilt. Watching, it not only merges into three slightly smaller forms (all identical to the original), but they become — that is replace — my existing integers, even becoming jointed.
       Enthralled by this cyber-transformation, I fail to see the incoming stone that grazes my ear lobe. In post-reflex, I dodge, and then am off, chasing the young girl. With longer stride, I near her and grasp her bald head with my one stillflesh hand. Holding her above the ground, I turn her face-to-face. Its eyes are solid dark and empty... true, pure evil. With my new hand unit, I press two blades inward to these gaping, vapid orbs. The screams are intense, but do not emanate from this body. Rather, they emanate from far off and forest-hidden. The child’s sneering mouth taunts me to continue. So, I focus on a single phalange until it is glowing and press one side against the sneer and seal it. The screams, still distant, slowly die off into silence. I lay the limp body in a near patch of snow.
       There is a different feeling now, emanating from the child. I approach it and rip the dark, heavy cloak off her. As I gaze at the small body in the snow, I realize that my brief, albeit extreme, gestures have stripped her evil and before me now lies a definition of purity, a containment of light and innocence. I sense these attributes can rejuvenate anything that might have been lost through the  crevice in my head. So, with blade still red hot, I press it against the vertical gash in my forehead to seal it. The pain, full and undiluted, is somehow enjoyable, and the smell of charred flesh completes the satisfaction of experience.
       Quickly, I’m off, again running on the needles, intoxicated by the events but with increased focus and motor function, awakeandaware. Running full speed, faster than ever before, I slalom through the trees. It appears that they’re the only other living existences; all other lifeforms are non-existent or relocated. Ahead, there’s a clearing followed by a cliff. Far from decision, and more part of the understanding, I increase my velocity (or at least attempt it) for flight. With one last strong step for lift, I rise outward, over a vast waterbody, my spine arched, concaved and arms stretched with elbows bent. After the initial lift ceases, the decline acceleration is frightening. But fears are soothed and the fall halted with the full feeling of two symmetrical slits (along each shoulder blade) ripping open from which emerge two immense wings.
       After much time playing in the clouds and solar warmth, like the serpent released, slithering from its dried flesh, I shed my own body. I watch it descend in flames, leaving a grey trail to the deep blue. This spirit release is ecstasy; energy unbound. As the violet sun is setting, the sky is filled with colorful brilliance. I hone in on a location of excessive beauty and radiance and attempt an existence merge. Suddenly, a deafening psychexplosion creating awareness shut-down from absolute sensory overload.

​

       It's black and silent.

​

       I attempt to open my eyes, but it is difficult to tell if they are open in the darkness, because the vision is the same. I’m suddenly cognizant that I’m within a body once again. Feeling my surroundings, I pull back a set of found drapes, revealing my own room and letting in a soft moon light. Truth of the experience is clarified as the dried blood and char remain on my forehead as well as two symmetrical scars upon my back. Inside, my head is no less unaffected; the consciousness increase is unfathomable, and I’ve reached one more level.