Chained

A grimy, brown, rusted cabin presented itself as I stepped through the frame. This was immediately reassuring. I could handle dirt. A man with glasses was bent over a table that seemed to be displaying live feeds from security cameras. He spun a pen in his hand, and occasionally pressed at the videos, moving them or something. I took a step into the room, and his head shot up, staring right at me.

‘Um…hi,’ I said.

He slowly lowered his head, and I slid out past him, through another door. It was a hallway, with flickering lights emanating from the ceiling, though with no obvious source. I passed several doors, and then picked one at random. I twisted the handle, but it was locked. I decided I go to the end door, and when I peeked cautiously around the frame, the same hallway stared back me, identical to the one behind me.

Not just similar-looking. The same. I saw myself looking through the door at the end of the corridor. Slamming the door shut, I ran back down the corridor and opened the door I came through. Again, my head was obscured as I peered round a door.

‘Shit,’ I swore, and sat down.

Podcasting

I appeared in the sky roughly four metres above where my house used to be. I quickly realised that at least gravity was still hanging around, and that I hadn’t screwed that up too. Luckily, my house was now a crystal clear lake, which softened my fall. I floundered my way to the surface, suddenly remembering at an opportune time that I wasn’t the swimming type, and added it to my mental list.

Dripping, I surveyed the land. My house was gone, and so was the neighbourhood. Gently rolling hills extended from the lake, a natural centre of the park. Trimmed shrubbery lined smooth, grey paths, along which strolled suited women walking pods with small dogs trotting alongside. A lawnmower was quietly clipping each rebellious grass blade that dared poke its pointed head above the rest. There was no obvious operator, or even a means of operation. I walked up in front of it, and it smoothly rolled around me, studiously enveloped in its menial task.

As I strolled up the hillside, I took the chance to peer into a passing pod. A small, red baby was sleeping, cocooned in blankets. A screen on the pod measured the inside temperature as twenty-four degrees. The mother, well, walker – I couldn’t be sure whether it was her child – ignored me, so I had to match her pace to keep looking. My inspection completed, I stood still and watched the woman amble away, and suddenly realised she wasn’t actually touching the pod itself. It lazily slid along, perfectly centred in the middle of the path.

It seemed as if my heart grew cold, and with every pump the feeling spread glacially throughout me, until even my bones shivered. I started moving in the opposite direction to the woman. Another pod brushed past, and I jumped, avoiding looking its inhabitant. The dog passed by, oblivious. I sped up, leaping off the path and walking over the manicured grass. A wake of machines straightened the flattened blades of my footsteps. Flowerbeds, hedges, trees, birds; none stood in my way as I scrambled up the slope in panic. I crawled to the crest, and lay panting on the mesa. In the corner of my eye, a framework stood out against the horizon. It was a door.

I stood up and turned around, slowly, hardly daring to breathe.

Pods circled the lake, perfectly spaced, at identical speeds, in precise step with one another, in a horrendous mechanical ballet. I pushed through the door.

The Wire

The man was steadily coming closer. I was steadily not moving. I decided to change that, and started to sprint away from him. Stumbling up steps, I tried to focus on running and also on looking at the Shifter at the same time. The Shifter’s screen was red, and the words “Within” and “Without” were flashing. Next to each word was a number – the “Within” value was increasing, while the “Without” number was dropping.

I hit a wall.

Stumbling off it, I dazedly headed off in the right arm of the T-junction, and kept running. A quick check showed that Shifter’s numbers were barely moving. I slid around muddied bricks, and took a left. The numbers began to move again. “Without” was at fifty, which soon dropped to forty and then thirty-five. I leapt over a crate of chickens that was being hastily dragged indoors. There was a reverberative thunderclap that shook my bones and made dogs howl. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a man silhouetted at the end of the alley.

Thirty.

He began to run.

Twenty-five.

I gave up dodging people.

Twenty.

A glimmering flash of-

Fifteen.

-iridescent-

Ten.

He ran right through a crowd of excited teens. There was a sound like one hundred people breathing in.

Seven.

-pearlescent-

Four. Nearer.

-glowing-

Zero. I pulled the Shifter’s lever. It sprang back up. The screen went green.

-light.