Then, I lay down on the bed. A soft, artificial rustling of the sheets, followed by a low buzz and the familiar faint throb in my head whenever she got too close, told me she lay down beside me.
My body tensed up immediately.
“I’m not sure if I can get myself into hypnosis while someone is lying next to me,” I confessed hesitantly. The slight tingling in my limbs told me the psilocybin was doing its work.
When she said nothing, I slightly turned my head to look at her, then flinched at the intense look in her eyes.
“I can stand elsewhere in the room if you prefer, cinnamon,” she said quietly. She pulled herself up on one arm and reached out as if totouch me, then quickly stopped herself. “But I’m not letting you out of my sight. I want to travel with you.”
I moved to push myself up on my elbow as well. “How do you know if it’s working?”
“Before the dream starts, the nanotech briefly allows me to feel what you feel.” Zafyra closed her eyes. “I can feel… something. Tingling. Discomfort. Headache.” Her face contorted into a frown. “Is this how you feel all the time?”
I lay back down, avoiding her gaze.
With a sigh, she settled beside me again.
I folded my hands on top of my stomach and focused on my breathing as the psilocybin spread through my body. In on the count of four, hold on the count of four, out on the count of four – perfectly aligned with the binaural beats.
I’d taken mushrooms, acid and other hallucinogens more times than I could count. Lately, I stuck to microdosing, because larger doses made me even more aware of the constant discomfort in my head and body.
Alone or with others, the moment the psychedelics started working always felt like the epitome of loneliness, knowing I was about to get sucked into a trip through the deepest, often darkest spirals of my mind. Now, with Zafyra beside me, I’d never felt lonelier and less alone at the same time.
“Remember,” she murmured. “You can wake up at any time.”
I didn’t react. I could already feel my brain activity slowing down. I couldn’t tell if it was the psilocybin or my usual sensitivity, but I could practically feel the nanobots spreading through my bloodstream – and with them, her.
I felt her through the static in my ear while I tried to focus on the binaural beats. I felt her signal in my veins while my body went limp, like the sleep paralysis prior to wake-induced lucid dreams. And I felt her in the soft electronic buzz, sending a sharp ache through my skull when she leaned in to kiss my forehead. I felt her as if my consciousness merged with hers, human and machine becoming one.
“Sweet dreams,” she whispered, her voice floating through my head as if she were the captain of my slowing brainwaves. “I’m right here with you. See you on the other side.”
My eyelids trembled so much, I could barely keep them open. When I finally gave in to the urge to close them, dark clouds instantly flooded my vision.
The clouds lifted to reveal scorched earth.
I tried to blink, but my vision didn’t falter. Like I was here, but not in a human body, just a floating presence. There was no headache, no tingling limbs, none of the discomforts plaguing my everyday life.
The lack of oxygen clawed at my throat – strangling it with the urge to cough, but no sound came out.
I sucked in a breath that didn’t fill my lungs. With a shock, I realized that being without a body was pleasant. Comfortable.
I couldn’t choke without a body. The moment it struck me, the strangled feeling left my throat.
I intended to turn my head, but when my vision shifted down, my body wasn’t there. The ground was blackened obsidian like the volcanic stone around my neck, rippled with cracks where molten rock had cooled into glass. Sulfur still hung in the air like a fading echo. The sky above was thick with low gray clouds, tinged red and violet like the inside of a healing wound.
Pools of cooling magma shimmered in the distance, no longer boiling, just breathing – as if the planet was catching its breath for the first time in eons.
“Ah, crap.” Her metallic voice in my ear made me stifle instinctively, only to realize nothing changed in a body I didn’t have. “We forgot to set the scene, cinnamon. My bad. If we don’t agree on a setting beforehand, we return to the Somanode default setting – Earth eons ago, shortly after volcanic activity died down.”
I turned my vision, trying to see her, but she wasn’t there. Like me, she was just a voice – one felt more than heard. For the first time, Zafyra and I existed in the same way – by not existing at all.
What happened to my body?I had no lips to move, but her low, metallic chuckle told me she’d heard me regardless.
“A body won’t benefit you here, darling. Humans cannot survive in this era. Should we fix it?”
I didn’t answer immediately. Strangely enough, I liked not having a body.
Nonetheless, I found myself agreeing. Maybe touching her would be even better than floating.
