The Day I Wore Purple

10.3 Generation 9

the boy removed a handgun from his jeans. he placed it against his forehead—"no!" hannah cried—and he pulled the trigger. the gun exploded with a pop that rattled her core and left a high-pitched, all-too-human buzzing in her ears.

hannah had forgotten about the unrelenting hsssssss. but she heard it now, curling through the stairwell just below her shredded feet.

the virus struck from behind. hannah twirled and found herself face-to-face with the silver smoke.

hannah lurched backwards down the last three steps before realizing the next platform was missing. she tumbled backwards and fell into the dark.

* * *

with unlimited velocity, hannah plunged into the chasm of her subterranean-conscious.

hair snapping in the wind, she craned her head to the direction of her fall. the pressure peeled back her eyelids so she couldn't blink when a rocky platform came zooming toward her.

her body connected with the stone. her insides vaporized on impact, but her skin and muscles stayed very much alive.

she crawled to the edge of the floating summit, peered over the edge, and saw her vortex, blacker than nightmares, swirling and alive with specters of death.

hannah couldn't tell if the vortex was rising or if her rock was falling. she slapped her palms against the stone, forced herself upright, then thrust her arms over her head and commanded the emptiness to do her bidding.

but it didn't stop.

steampunk cthulhu joined the ghosts, soaring through the ether of paint and throat cancer, eyes blaring like headlights through the hurricane.

for the first time since crashing into the rock, hannah turned around. standing between her and the opposite edge of the platform was a control panel about waist height. five blue buttons formed a row in the center of the panel, each as big as her hand. they were labeled, "gratification," "satisfaction," "happiness," "joy," and "euphoria."

the wind from the rising maelstrom tugged at her loose skin. the smell of ammonia was overpowered by a new stench of rotten strawberries and mold.

the vortex spewed a portrait of hannah's mother set in a massive gold frame. anna looked ugly instead of beautiful. her hair was too red and melted into her face.

a fetus left a bloody trail through the storm. as it made it's full rotation, hannah saw that flesh had been torn back from its eye socket. instead of muscle and bone, the baby was comprised of wire and old-fashioned circuit boards.

a sixth button sat above the others. this one was black and contained the phrase, "erase death."

was the effect as obvious as it sounded? as hannah's finger brushed the plastic circle, a popup menu answered her question. "warning: memory modification is an irreversible procedure that directly affects brain function. deleting broad notions such as death may erase—in part or in whole—all associated memories. proceed at your own risk."

if she did this... what would stay? what would go?

the wall of the vortex raised high above hannah's platform. just as she looked up, a rift of white light broke through a fissure in the sky.

but that's not sky, she thought. that's—

to her horror, the fissure cut a chunk from the ceiling and her forest tumbled toward the vortex. origami cranes burst from bushes and trees. they aimed their beaks toward the light and flapped their triangle wings, but the storm was too great and they were pulled—along with their home—into the heart of the pit.