Brandon

Chapter 1: Numbers

The smell of exhaust. It was the first thing I smelled as my eyes fluttered open to meet the morning light. It was blinding so blinding in fact that I was forced to press my face against my pillow. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing in the world, more of a place holder actually, more closely resembling a dust mite ridden pancake than a pillow. The mattress was a worse place for my face to rest though so I wasn't going to complain too much. I decided it necessary to remain in the same position for a multitude of minutes because of the still persisting burning sensation in my retinas. With my eyes sealed shut I managed to fumble around with the blinds long enough to block out the intense rays of the freshly risen sun.

I continued to attempt to blink the dark spots out of my vision as I swung my legs over the side of my bed. As my bare feet contacted with the cold floorboards I was greeted with a loud creak which reverberated through the apartment. A shrill sound for such an early hour, it reminded me of how low class this building really was. After a brief session of throughly rubbing my eyes I began the seemingly endless trek to the bathroom. The voyage stocked with creaky floorboards and odd pains from sleeping in strange positions. Once I finally arrived I sighed a long breath of relief and glanced at my haggard face in the mirror. Worn out from constant all nighters and boat loads of stress week in and week out. I'm usually not one for being conceded, but for just a few fleeting moments I thought about me.

Nothing spectacular ever came to mind. Simply my name, Brandon. I had never been particularly fond of my name, it didn't stand out, wasn't unique, heck it didn't even roll of the tongue too well. I continued to lose myself in thoughts of vanity as a brushed my teeth and combed my hair. The time it took me to do those activities was unruly though when considering that I would be sealed within my own home for the next twenty hours. After I finally had had my fill I made my way to my living room and slumped down on the couch, still in my sweatpants, next to the remote. I flicked the TV on and slouched forward in the general direction of my coffee table where stacks of unsolved Rubik's cubes sat. Although I had never solved one before it was a hobby of mine to collect them, I had some that would become pictures when solved, others that were simply a variation on the classic cube's colors. Each day I made an attempt, however feeble, to solve a cube. Today I was going to give the classic cube a go.

I must have spent three hours intently studying the working of that cube. Making each rotation of the cube count in my eyes, but with each turn my goal seemed to disappear deeper and deeper into the horizon. At one point I managed to complete two sides but the other sides were left as a scattered mess. With defiance in the face of failure I continued to fumble with the cube, again my efforts yielded no results. After some time of this madness I pitched the cube into the far wall of the apartment and smashed my head into the coffee table.

I closed my eyes and tried to think about how the cube had looked when it was complete and the ways it turned. At first my visualization of the cube was just like it was when I thought of anything not a truly vivid image but a series of small calculations in my head mixed with vivid memories of the cube itself. The more I focused on the cube the less I was aware of the sensation of the cool coffee table against my forehead or the dull ache in my arched back. The feelings grew progressively more dim until all physical sensation was gone, leaving me feeling utterly alone in a numb darkness. The feeling of being entirely lost was seeping into me as it often did, but this time more intense, in a cold sweat I made a futile stab at opening my eyes. Panic had found its way into my bloodstream and my chest began to knot as my heart pounded faster, accelerating with each coming second.

Then I was calm. A blinding flash consuming the darkness and feeling of my surroundings reemerged. Gone were the blank walls of the apartment and the creaking floors beneath my feet, they had been replaced. Water, as far as the eye could see all around me. I was no longer panicked, just throughly confused as I sat gently rocking in a small galley. Despite the loneliness of it all the scene was quite serene. The boat rocking gently in the almost completely still crystalline water. I glanced upwards at a clear blue sky, a bold star shining down upon the clear water, shattering into a myriad of lush warm colors. The warm breeze pushed the boat forward at steady pace and revealed the complete lack of anything in the open waters. I took in steady breathes trying to understand what might be happening, studying the waters in hope that I might see even a small variation on the water's surface. An unbearably long wait ensued until I finally caught a glimpse of it. A glint at first, then a shimmer. The factor of light continued to multiply until the water erupted in a blazing glow. My barred eyelids were penetrated by the whiteness, throwing me off my balance. After covering my eyes with my hands I realized they too were no use. With one grave misstep I could feel the boat disappear from beneath my feet. My head went under the water first causing my eyes to shoot open in surprise. The water was freezing, to the point of almost instantaneous cramping of my muscles.

It was a struggle but I managed to force myself to where the water's surface should have been. Where it should have been. That string of words made a loop in my mind about thirty times before it finally registered why I wasn't able to get to the delightfully fresh oxygen that awaited me. Ice. A solid three inches to be precise. In a panic began to wail on it with my fists tightly clenched until knuckles turned white. Brute strength was visibly no match for the fortitude of the glassy coating. After some time I was able to finally accept my fate, my chest seemingly roaring with flames as I descended into the water's depths. As I sank I looked to not the ice but rather into light. It had not even occurred to me in my struggle to escape death's grasp that the light from beneath the ocean's initial stillness had not flickered out as the star above the water's surface had. Instead the light source seemed to have grown brighter, emitting even more rays of refracted photons that had made their way to the icy lid of my sopping tomb.

As the burning sensation became too much to bear I felt the air leave my lungs, bubbling to the water's surface. I watched them drift away and was surprised to see that their flow was intersected, it was another blinding flash. As I closely examined it I realized the beam had been broken. Not by the ice but by the air above, distorted through the lens the water's surface had created. With yet another glimmer of hope I made one last frantic strife to get to my next breath. Once again my chest seemed to be burning with the intensity of a thousand suns almost ready to give in when finally my face was meet by a gust of wind. I sharply inhaled the frigid air actually burning the inside of my throat, but one gasp wasn't enough I had to have more. Soon I couldn't stop myself and breathed so much that I became light headed and freezing just meters away from where I had emerged from the depths.

The cold had practically consumed me by the time I got to my feet, on legs I was worried would crumble from beneath me if put under any external pressure or against any force at all for that matter. I couldn't focus on anything. The boat was gone and everything seemed out of place. The most prominent feature among those was the numbers inscribed in the ice. They appeared as though they had been cut by a laser, but with my mind in such a condition I couldn't quite put my thumb on what had done it. I studied the numbers for a few seconds before I realized that my legs had failed me once again and I plummeted into a somewhat sour, somewhat sweet oblivion.