Chanter was pushed aside by urgent feet; the temple was emptying behind her, its inhabitants moving forward to the crowd within the street. The little child lingered behind and Chanter stood there, empty, hollow and invisible as she always was to them.
A hole in the crowd opened as a few people pushed their way forward. But the voices were just a wall of noise to her; she couldn’t make out anything but the feeling of fear; the songs of horror. She wondered if she should leave by the temple’s back door.
But as she looked back, the thin line of reality blurred at its edges. There was a flat canvas before her, and then nothing at all. There were legs beneath her, and then nothing at all. There was breath within her… and then nothing at all.
Static-filled, lock-step, crawling — walking — kneeling? Incomprehensible, impossible (am I?) broken
moments
that unraveled — choking? Dry — were those her hands? Wait — were those her feet? Did she have feet? Or was it sky? Like rough
unbroken
twine, a cord of endless light and the hesitation of moment unfurled and falling sideways, tossed to-and-fro like
ice
like burning fire ice adrift on dark waters, dark moonless waters — and breathe, breathe, breathe
breathe
And suddenly
resolve
Chanter stood trembling at the doorway of the temple wondering, impossibly, if she had been there the entire time or if she had even ever been there at all. Or could it have been the same thing that took…
The boy?
But there was no boy. Chanter felt herself walk-falling down the too-perfect steps of the temple, looking up and down the hard-packed road; the street deserted and empty. She turned her head, a darkness eclipsing her; the temple was empty.
She was alone.
She looked down at her wrist to see nothing at all; just bare skin, impossibly bare skin. She rubbed her arm up and down in a daze, a fevered daze, feeling light and sick, immaterial and insubstantial and the panic did she exist?
Did she ever exist?
Turning around, whipping her hair, half-stumbling through the street in a panic — Chanter ran into her home, nearly slamming into the door even as it opened automatically before her. And it was her home, her small home, her cozy, quiet, invisible home — just as it had always been.
But there were no flickers. There were no lights. In the pantry, there were no glowing, half-visible objects to eat or to order. She threw open her plain wardrobe; empty, no clothing to select, nothing to buy, no hovering points or half-taken scores.
Where am I? Chanter took her breaths deep and slow. If she was a glitch, had she been returned to her world? An empty world alone and devoid of… would she be here forever? Would she be trapped here forever?
Would they notice uptop? Would they see that she was gone? Would they — could they… would they even care? Unthinkingly she looked down at her wrist again, trying to gauge the passage of time — in those weak, half-hour chunks they allotted their time into — but she was denied even that small comfort.
Breathe.
Unplugged: a Cyberpunk Serial 