Part One: A Trip Down Memory Lane.
There are three things you must remember when undergoing Reminiscence.
1. Whatever happens to your past self, happens to you.
2. You can only remain in the past for twenty-four hours at a time before being Recalled.
3. The past cannot be changed.
These were the words that flashed in the center of Amanda's vision as she activated her chronal implant, their abrasive colors searing themselves into her visual cortex as she read along. An old habit of hers that was, and one she had never bothered suppressing, even though the chips built-in artificial intelligence was more than capable of reading the all too familiar warning for her. Its synthetic cadence similar in nature to vocoded audio, albeit lighter, and far more human. Not an unpleasant combination, really, except for when she was trying to read. Then it was most annoying little gadget on the face of God's green Earth. Still she resisted the growing urge to just shut it off. Despite its annoying tendency to break her train of thought, the other voice in her head was simply too valuable to silence.
It was the only way for her to check how much time she had before recall. An experience as traumatic and disorientating as the act of reminiscing itself, albeit in reverse. Where reminiscing felt like vomiting out your intestines, recall felt like having them shoved right back in, but in all the wrong ways. An odd side effect honestly, and one she still couldn't comprehend even after all this time. The entire process of Anamnesis was mental, with the only physical components being the brain and the implant, so why should one be able to feel it as it happened? Seemed like a rather annoying drawback to her. Then again, she hadn't been one of the engineers assigned to work on the device itself, but one of the unwashed masses who had been allowed the privilege of using it after it had left its testing phase.
Letting her mind wander from that thought with a faint sigh, Amanda found herself becoming aware of the AI once more as it finished its recitation. Tearing her gaze away from the seemingly endless vista of snow and ice blanketing the rooftops stretching out beyond her living room window, she returned her attention to the holographic panel floating off in her periphery. Giving the warning one last glance as she scrolled past, Amanda found herself faced with two buttons, each bearing labels conceptually opposed to one another. Stifling a yawn, she made herself as comfortable as she possibly could, sprawling out to take up most of the space on her couch. The coming reminiscence would be difficult. Painful. And it would be best for her to lie down before the worst of it hit. So, finding a relatively languid position, she lay her head against the armrest and closed her eyes. The holographic display remained, waiting, yet unaffected by the darkness that had engulfed it. For why should it be?
It was only in her head, after all.
Shifting her gaze over to the leftmost button, which said 'BEGIN REMINISENCE', Amanda took a deep breath and sent out a mental command confirming her selection. She already had an idea in mind of when she wanted to go and the implant would pick up on that without any need for further input on her behalf. Now all she had to do was weather the storm that was to come, and then she'd find herself in a body several decades younger than the one she currently inhabited. Laying still, her breathing began to increase in speed as the reminiscing truly began. Within the darkness she saw flashes of light as her guts began to twist and turn, as if they were trying to claw their way up her throat. As this was going on a dull noise, akin to granite grinding against granite, began to grow into a loud roar. One that felt as though it were encompassing the entire room, even though the house was silent save for the pained whimpers emanating from Amanda, her body writhing as her consciousness was slowly torn from this present era and cast adrift across the winds of time. What little blooms of color she could see within the black abyss that lay before her began to churn and swirl, before exploding into a violent kaleidoscope of light, sound, and pain. All of which threatened to overwhelm the senses until, finally, they dissolved into nothingness, leaving her free at last to experience the mind bending spectacle that was Anamnesis.
Where before she had simply been lying on her couch, she now found herself moving down a silent glass vortex of color suspended in a dense latticework of crystal spiderwebs, the end of which was nothing more than an impossibly bright disk of light. One towards which she was rapidly falling. Something that would have terrified many first-time travelers, but not veterans like her. If anything it was starting to become mundane, loathe as she was to admit it. Quite shocking really, as something like this-something many considered impossible for the longest time-should never be mundane. Yet here she was, wishing her trip through this metaphysical realm would come to an end. But, of course, it wouldn't. Not for another minute or so anyway. So there she sat, carried along by invisible currents until the lights radiance reached a blinding peak, and she found herself somewhere else.
Somewhen else.
1x Like
