Three Degrees Of Danger (2019)

|| SEVEN ||

"Klara! Activate the emergency exit!" The once empty corners of my room are now attached with pipes that pump out what I recognise as hydrochloric acid with every second. I recall learning about them from when I had to create different methods of killing through acids and I still remember what I was taught about them to this day- They are harmless in minute quantities but greatly toxic when in large amounts.

I find myself frantically racing to the centre of the room but the acid seems to be gushing out faster than I can estimate. "Klara!" I scream again, my lungs raw.

"Sorry. I do not recognise that command."

"Of course you don't." I mutter furiously and shoot a pointed gaze at Lex's unresponding body. Despite being laid out on the floor and unable to defend himself from the acid pouring out, he isn't exactly my main concern. He might be dead for all I know.

The acid is starting to eat their way towards me and I can feel the fear pulsating through my body, the loss of hope that thrums through my veins. There's no way I'm going to make it out alive, unless...

I squeeze my eyes shut and let the world around me disappear. When I open my eyes again, I'm in another place.

Skyscrapers loom over me like misshapened shadows, stretching and arching across the grey sky. I'm in the middle of a sidewalk, paved with dark cement and dirt that spackles it like fine dust. My world is empty. My world is cold.

My void.

Everything has transformed into what I recognise to be my void- narrow blades of metal buildings slash the canvas of a sky. The chrome backdrop stills the emotions within me that spiral like a cyclone as I start my way down the street. The only sound that exists is the snap of my soles against the hard ground and the frantic beats of my heart, still struggling to seek solace.

I can't stay in my void for long. I have heard stories about what solitude does to one's mind. How it affects a person's Software, like a virus. Staying in my void without any human interaction will kill me. Stranded with my thoughts and without distortion or dulcifying them will kill me. This is what I know. This is what I have learned. The only reason none of us die from Danger is because it is a virus that manifests us differently from other bugs and isolation. Danger latches onto our Software but it also finds a way to channel itself through our actions- cold blooded murder. Desolation, on the other hand, implants itself within us without any passageway for it to be exhibited externally.

Death is unescapable if a virus lacks transmission out of a source.

My stroll has turned into a sluggish crawl. The sky is so beautifully grey, I wish to find my way up the tallest building and touch it. Wonder if the colour can seep right through and turn my fingers, my hands and skin grey. Wonder if the colour can exist as fluid alone and agglutinate with the blood in my body.

The staccato taps of my shoes grow into a ghost of a whisper, trembling against the world that has turned into stone around me. There's no way I can last here for less than a hour, I estimate. But there's also no way I can leave my void and drown myself in acid.

I let Lex's voice play in my head and go over them slowly the way one is able to pause recordings and ponder. He is, without a doubt, a trained liar and competent in banter. But setting up an unecessary ploy that was nothing more than a thief of time contradicted the traits well established in him. How he is able to manipulate Klara, how he bleeds and doesn't bleed when cut- those actions have to mean something. He acts just like anyone else- drawn towards the idea of murder and death, but his motions are foreign concepts that I have never heard before.

I can manipulate people, but I can't manipulate AIs the way he did. Bleeding is an involuntary action that is prompted by one's Software. It isn't something that can be controlled the way Lex had power over it.