(Episode 0) (Act 2)

The warping of noise made this situation worse, Jackie thought. It turned the place into a cosmic echo chamber, as she could hear Tracy’s unease directly into her ear, the tune of technology cacophony as a background… And Aiko’s laugh made… A minute ago? Constantly cut in again. And again. And again.

She noticed this about herself and everyone presented. They were so in awe, there wasn’t movement. There wasn’t much breathing. They just looked and realize that they can barely see as well.

The bent trees begun to spaghettify toward a path that’s just a green, static filtered void. The water-color blotches that once were their surroundings bled into each other in attempt to reshape into something recognizable again. The time-lapse was long as it was short, lengthy with paced interludes that all ended up being brief. The afterimages that slurred into shapes didn’t help matters.

Jackie’s instincts, the circuitry that ran deep as a living being, told her to look down and fast. She did, noting at the corner of her eye that her hand as it swung also slurred away, creating afterimages of her own.

The final wave was culminating under the girls the whole time.

The epicenter was “colored” by all the primary, almost akin to sparkling sodas or vitamin water has color to them, expanding under their feet and rippled in and cross what once was the ground. Then it outlined everything it touched.

The brittle plants, the non-bend trees, every single blade of grass—turned into 3D gridlines but not exactly. While everything of course had lines and structure; the lines didn’t outline so much made patterns, intersects, curves and stack on. So long as it made sense in the sense of the object.

Jackie looked to her fellow youths and her blood ran cold. Then she shakingly examined herself.

All lines. All specs. All their stories told if one outside of their experience looked at them.

They all turned away from themselves to look at what they’ve chose to face.

It looked soft as it came closer and closer, an oncoming flurry of out-of-sync dissipating wisp. But the sheer volume, the complete reach, the unmeasured speed as it comes is why it’s called a Shift.

Or so Jackie or any of them thought that they knew, that they figured out.

No, it was the fact that it broke down the object it steamrolled with ease, right down to the intricacies that a world’s genius could’ve studied for the rest of their lives on; taken apart by every single angle that said genius would’ve never thought to examine, proceeding to continue on with no signs of stopping. And they haven’t seen the end results of that and any other thing it shifted along its path.

Despite being in a zone where the passage of time, the laws of physics, and the flow of logic didn’t matter anymore, Jackie once again looked to the others, getting a true look, before returning to the attention of reality barreling toward them.

This is what a Transitional Shift is.

This…This is it. The metaphysical manifestation of her…everyone’s problems, the source of them all. And by finally facing it, truly experiencing the scale that can’t be measured, she and her fellow wayward girls can finally have their absolution from the machinations of their existential dread. The potential of this going terrible, where this force can warp them all into a fate worse than death, hasn’t strayed from her mind and has instead enhanced this already transcendent scenario. That look she gave to the girls could ultimately be her last. She thought of her life, her friends, her family…Her father and mother that she lied to. But in doing so illustrated the decline, the tragic truth that she was left with no choice in the matter. And she had to make one, anyone, to achieve her catharsis. True, utter, achieved catharsis.

The Shift turned a sharp left, just moments from coming straight for them. The reality-denying phenomenon, with its barely-understandable nature and beyond-natural movements, it had made a very clear, very easy-to-follow b-line towards the other side of the woods.

And like that, its influence faded away just as it came in a sense; out of nowhere and just as easy to manipulate reality.

They all stood there, shocked, disturbed and confused in their own ways.

All the exhaustion hit Jackie at once, panting just as suddenly and fallen on her knees as her aching legs gave out. The only thing that broke the silence was Maddie’s slow, cackling laughter as it gained traction with it’s volume and it’s form—keeping it inside her throat then it echoing from it, all with a joyous smile that any of the girls wouldn’t even bet that she could make at all. Tracy could only be bewildered, until that bewilderment caused shaking, sucking on her lips, pulling at her long hair with a milking motion as her eyes got wider and scared, barely able to form words as she babbles. Aiko seemed the one that took it the worse, excitable energy turned into absolute, dead-eyed disappointment that ceased all her motion. River… Just said the following:

“Oh,” she looked at the Shift continuing down the deep forest. “That’s… Something that it can do, for sure-”

She was cut off by Maddie’s continued laughter that went sharp in it’s audio, as she fell on the colored leaves, so far gone and so far into her hysterics that she didn’t care as she swayed side to side on the ground, clutching her sides with her arms crossed over one another.

“WHAT A FUCKING BLUEBALL!” she roared.

Aiko furiously throw her hat and shades into the very dirt; her side-ponytail animating within the arc as it was freed along with the rest of her black hair, “Damn right it’s a blueball! That can happen?! That was it?!”

“Um,” River bluntly replied, “Yeeeah. I think. This seems like a moment where I read something about something and it came into play into real life in the worst, possible way.”

Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhg, erupted from Aiko’s throat, her head skyward. “Screw it! I could’ve worked on learning how to sleep erect in a tree and would’ve lost absolutely nothing! Nothing!”

The rest continued to focus on what’s leaving as Jackie focused on what came by.

The sight her eyes tried to make out is the very land still moving, almost twitching in a sense. Everything lost its color, hues, and textures forever; all a sickly, out of place white now. From what was once grass, trees, dirt, stray litter, and the air itself now tries to interlock, connect, break apart, and reassemble. Sluggishly, without aim or reason, but nothing stopping the so-called rhythm.

But what really painted the scene, what she got out of it, was how close by mere inches it was.

She returned to her senses around the time Maddie regained hers, getting up from the ground and wiping the tears from her eyes and cheeks.

“Fuck me,” she whined out from her raw throat, “That was the single best middle finger I’ve ever received. I love it. I fucking love it so fucking much, oh my god…”

“O-o-o-oh god in-indeed,” Tracy shuddered out, with all the desperation in her voice, “What are we going to do now?!”

“Leave,” Aiko giving her the answer that’s nothing close to what she needed to hear. She tossed her hat into her opened backpack as she rummaged through it in a grumble, “Leave and actually do something. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Well-” River started.

“No!” Aiko snapped at her, “There’s no saving this! We planned for this and it turned out to be the biggest nothingburger of our lives! So I’m going—I’m gonna try to salvage this night—Try and have a good one yourselves!”

She pulled her huge sac onto her back in a huff, leaning over and started to walk off into the night, down the hill they were facing away from.

She proceeded to scream out, cover her eyes and turned away from her escape path and fall on her back.

That awoke Jackie out of her funk, turning to head and attention to the fallen girl and instantly rushes over to her, where she too screamed out and shut her eyes.

“That’s why,” River explained.

“Holy shit,” Maddie in a tone of actual concern. She looked to River, “Continue, Glasses?”

“Well, it’s simple. All that distortion can’t all just disappear in one minute or even one month, the universe is currently trying to snap itself back together. Or rather, the stuff that it can snap back together.”

Tracy craned her head over to River, unabashedly afraid, “So what does that mean?! A-are we suck here?!”

“More or less, unless we chance it,” River put her hands in her pockets. “But I’m sure the Shift researchers will come over and use their ‘technology’ to break us out…”

“…Then hand us other to the cops, we sit in jail, and overall will have to visit some shrink for the next, Iunno, ten weeks until they clear us,” Maddie pointed out. “Sooo, we’re fucked. Spit-roasted.”

“It’s the non-lethal Elephant’s Foot: supreme fuckage on every level of…living—” River tried to reason out, only to be cut off by Maddie’s haggard chuckling.

“C-can I—Can I steal ‘fuckage’ I need that. I need to say that more in my life—" Maddie then coughed, stopping her sentence and her laughter.

Jackie recovered from her spell, but kept her eyes closed. She fumbled for Aiko, grabbing her travelbag’s strap, and pulled as she moved back.

Turns out, she found, that closing her eyes wasn’t the solution. She felt it, feedback that hammered to her bones, hummed through out her muscles, and made her blood felt like it was boiling but never heating up. Whatever it was, it could only be described as reality wavering with her in it. She had to rush, she had to leave to escape that awful feeling and she managed to do so with Aiko in tow, quickly acing the group, opening her eyes and then helping Aiko up.

“…Maybe it’s a sign,” Jackie begun, dusting her and Aiko off.

Everyone turned to her.

“After seeing all that… I’m not exactly saying that I’m cured, that I came to a revelation, but I got the scale. I got the fear. All of this Shift related stuff is a very real threat and maybe I didn’t need siVis to meet it. Because I honestly can’t.”

She met the eyes of each girl, “Maybe we all didn’t need it at all.”

“ImeanIkindadid,” River said in a quiet hush.

Jackie shook her head, but in agreement with the sentiment, “Don’t get me wrong, there’s still problems that we have to deal with. They’re not gone. Just that we don’t need to get as complicated, as illogical, as weird as them to face them…Is it my survival instincts rewarding me with dopamine, and this is clearly a ‘I’m alive’ high? I don’t know; but what I do know is that I was clearly wrong. And I was going to do something stupid and I got lucky enough to get a wake-up call. Especially when people who do just as drastic stuff that’s not Shift related didn’t get to when they were…”

Jackie didn’t finish and turns out, didn’t need to. The collective silence was enough.

She looked over her cohorts, with a worn but hopeful smile, “Let’s just turn this into our shared noodle incident, and keep on with our… Well, struggle to figure life out. And since we have time to spare until the researchers get here, let’s just talk and hang. I’d love to get to know you all better.”

“Shit man. I know you gotta play the game to get results but you’re doing waaaay too much to get a fuck from each of us. At the same time. In a renowned Hoe-tel motel. With Brazilian oils and buttplugs…” Maddie said… And didn’t last a second without smiling again, wincing a bit, “Ohgodmycheekshurt—Kidding, kidding. Sure, whatever~”

Aiko sat crosslegged, fist planted into her cheek, throwing up her other hand, exasperated, “No, sure, might as well…”

“I don’t really know how to do this… Talk-ing,” River playing up her monotone inflection, “But I guess there’s not much walls for me to dig, seed and plant myself in.”

Tracy looked the closest thing to calm as she could ever manage, as she then again paused and sorted out her response, “Well… Yeah, of course… You’re not all really strangers anymore… Just… Strange people—”

Jackie laughed as Maddie joined her, and the latter was the one to response, “Whooooa, now the claws come out. Teacher aid by daylight, teacher of sass when the lights turn off!”

Tracy smiled and chuckled a bit, and begun to turn to Maddie, was about to retort.

Then she scrambled onto the ground, exclaiming a bloody curdling shout. Jackie once again darted over, only when she kneeled to pick her up was the muscles aching with the culminated fatigue.

“Yeah, don’t look at the area or else it’s going to rattle you with that feedback shock,” River said.

“I WASN’T EVEN LOOKING THERE!” Tracy shouted, hands over her face as she shakes to get up.

“…Yeah, I don’t think she was looking--,” Maddie turned her head and was instantly blown on her back, screaming from the gut.

Jackie darted her eyes, looking at Maddie before Tracy fell down screaming again, “Guys, shut your eyes, it helps it a tiny bit!” She does so herself, “Crap, was there a spot we didn’t see or-?!”

Aiko quickly scanned across the land before making a hard stop and flinch away, “I-I think it’s growing—”

“What do you mean, ‘growing’?!” Jackie shouted.

River instantly went on her knee, clutching the one that’s up, “T-the influence! It’s spreading!”

Jackie felt the wavering against her back, then at her side, then to her other, she felt it closing in at the point of it being the new normal.

And as she was wavering, it all clicked into place, and she was shaken to her core.

“It’s snapping together, it’s snapping together—RIVER WAS RIGHT AND THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO CORRECT ITSELF; WE SHOULD MOVE!”

It was too late to try.

They were surrounded at all sides. After hearing River crash down, Jackie took the assault as she opened her eyes wildly, desperately trying to understand the situation. The wavering has grown in influence, closing them all in because it’s shifting about itself, trying to correct, trying to readjust.

They were stuck within the problem the universe is trying to erase.

They’re going to be erased. Thrown away. Removed. Nothing premediated, nothing planned. They were at the wrong place, wrong time, and made all the wrong judgements this day. The universe aimed to correct it all, and it’s terrifying.

They were trapped, on all sides, becoming consumed by the correction of reality. They tried getting up but were corrected. They jumped toward the “walls” but were corrected. They flung a number of things from their bags, their pockets, and everything they could grab, but all attempts were corrected. They screamed out, from all the peaks of their collective lungs but were corrected. They tried getting up but corrected. They tried getting up but corrected. They tried getting up but corrected, again and again and again. They tried to run, they tried to hide, they tried. The wavering then turned outright desolation, as the girls turn into blurs, slowly fading out of reality. They screamed, they pleaded, they withered, and then they quickly disappeared.

Their attempt was to face reality so that they can outrun it, and they ended up falling out of it.