In a panic, his eyes shot open. He desperately searched the room for anchors to his reality. He was alone. Relief. A hard swallow to clear the lump in his throat and he started to calm.
What was that?!
He felt embarrassed and ignored glancing at his phone to see how long he’d been under. With a sigh, he shook his trembling hands, grabbed a nearby glass of water and gulped it down. That helped. He could feel his body returning to normal then looked at the chair and lamented his cowardice.
I should go back.
His hesitation unmasked his shame and made him cringe. He paced about the simple room, glancing at books he didn’t recognize and furniture he’d never have chosen. His eyes fell back to the chair. Determined, he sat back down.
Slow and easy.
He closed his eyes and this time let himself only mouth the words. In silence he could feel his lips make the vowels and his tongue finish the T’s.
Slowly the flickering lights returned. Dots and dashes at first, they shot across his eyes in running ribbon patterns of white. Then came the cloudy vortexes of purple in cascading circular tubules.
He was moving through them now, sensing himself falling or flying, yet didn’t resist. The pace quickened and a cyclone raced towards him, flat and infinite. It seemed a galaxy in a thimble swirling in his eyelids. This was where he last turned back. Despite his heart racing, he continued and let the gravity of the unknown pull him closer. But the tug became a vice, clasped around his shapeless spirit.
He could feel himself scream but the words fell behind him in the blackness. What few atoms or shapes he could conceive to give form to his consciousness felt pulled to their limit. All his desires and actions, ideals and his past, then collided in an explosive fusion of one singular silent moment.
Did I make it?
He could feel his dress shirt, jeans and the leather of the chair. He opened his eyes. In front of him stood a doppelgänger, a twin, an evil spirit or an alien. He wasn’t sure but it carried his visage and wore his clothes.
Staring at me, it spoke with frightening heft, “Breath…and let’s begin.”