Chapter song:

Memory Distorted

The sound of something hitting outside reverberates through the dark room. A door opened briefly then closes as a man steps inside. He walks up to the only desk and chair and feels for the on switch on the computer, like the many times he had done before. A small monitor intermittently flickers on when he presses the button. A constant scramble of computer jargon slowly scrolled by as it booted. The low hum of electricity from the screen always gave him a headache, it was much louder than what others would think.

He squinted hard to make sure he could see the small worn label of the button named “REC”. Once he pressed the button a sign behind him lit up in a bright red with the words “Room in Use”.

The room was plastered in red from the signs light, contrary to the sky blue paint that covered the walls. The only door that linked the room to the outside hallway, had a faded brown and red stain on it. Although it taunted him every time he was here, he tried his best to ignore it, and with it the cause of why it was there.

With a sigh and scratch to his wild beard, he promptly sat down in the worn out chair in front of the table. A silver outstretched microphone was centimeters away from touching his lips. The man sat in silence for a moment, staring at the flickering screen, watching the “Time Elapsed” text, tick forward. It soon went past 3 minutes, then 6, then 12.

It felt like time wasn’t as precious as before.

Finally, he cleared his throat, coughed a bit into his hand, then sighed once more.

With a deep inhale and a slow breath out, he tried to present the words stuck behind in his throat.

“I'm sure you all have been waiting. If anyone even sees this. But... I admit it... I...” He choked on his words and pushed back from the desk. “Ah hell why do I even do this.”

He stood up quickly, but a quick pain shot through his head. Enough for him to change his mind, he plopped back down into his chair. A loud metal bang reverberated through the room as he slammed a fist on the table.

“DAMMIT! I did want to kill myself! Just like all the others did! There, I fucking said it! I'm no hero. Not even in the slightest! I'm weak! But the voice... That sweet melodic voice keeps whispering in my head. Telling me things. Constantly leading me around this damned metal bucket. Always telling me that They need me... The voice doesn't stop there. It shows me these damn visions and signs of what's going on below. While I sit up here, helplessly. Those images kept me going though. I thought I could be useful in some way. Someone needed me. They Needed me. Even while I endlessly drift out here. I can't see them though, but they can't see me either. Still... We can connect somehow.”

When a slight migraine brought waves of pain to his head, he tried to vigorously rub the pain away.

“Every single damn time… The voice, I'm not sure if it has some kind of gender, sex or some kind of weird alien hocus pocus that make it sound so… Beautiful. What I am sure of though, is that this is some kind of game for them, or, some kind of—”

The sound of an alarm rang outside the door behind him. An orange text with the words ‘Low Power’ flashed while it scrolled around the top edges of the room.

Another sigh escaped his mouth. “I could have sworn I fixed those damn solar chargers... I guess I've got another pain in the ass to deal with.” He pressed the button labeled ‘save’, turned off the monitor and stood up from his chair. He grabbed a white dirt stained coat off of the floor and walked over to the door, gripping it’s cold handle. When he looked back at the monitor briefly, his reflection was all he saw. Brown hair with traces of gray and tired green eyes.

“I'm getting too old for this... When will it end?”

[Author: Enjoy the journey.]