Chapter 14: Finn Slade

เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มี.ค. 2569 06:13

Chapter 14: Finn Slade Inside the darkness of Finn’s Consciousness... Finn was in a weird state of awareness and unawareness. Like the hazy state of awakening from a deep sleep, where your brain hasn’t yet supplied the context of who you are, where you are, or what last happened to you. Usually, such states are very brief, before one’s awareness snaps back and then they remember their orientation, where they are, and what happened last. For Finn though, there was no such relief. He was trapped in this constant state of suspension, without feeling anything except a slight sense of wrongness — a wrongness that without being able to think, he knew he needed to right. So, he did something about it. Or at least he felt he did something about it. The wrongness had been steadily lessening, though, so there seemed to be an effect. Finn didn’t know how long had passed. He didn’t care about it, or rather, he couldn’t feel time at all to even care about it. But when he finally did care about it, that was when he thought again. Terror. Where am I... It’s uncomfortable... Panic. He could ’hear’ his heartbeats thud harshly against his chest as hysteria started to set in. Memories came flooding back. Flashes of his previous fight with his other ’self’ under that spotlight. Is it happening again? No. No. No! I don’t want to go through that a second time! He struggled as hard as he could, squirming, twisting, willing with every fibre of his being for it not to happen again, until eventually, he found that he could no longer move. A different kind of panic set in this time. His mind had quickly processed the fact that this was different, that he was not going under that spotlight again. He was awake. This was the differing factor — He was awake. But he felt so restricted and isolated to his mind that his brain had not processed that fact at first. He could not feel anything. He felt like a man that had been soaked deep in anesthesia to the point where the stuff flowed through his veins like blood. He felt nothing at all. His eyes, nose, mouth, ears... he could not feel any of them. He didn’t even know if they were working. Just stuck in the blackness of his mind, fully aware, yet unable to voice out to the world that he was. It was a different kind of terror. How long would this last? Was it a temporary state? Could someone help him? Anyone at all? Was he going to die like this? Was this some kind of hell?! Retribution for his sins?! If so, then it was cruel... . . . Finn eventually calmed. He reckoned a whole lot of time had passed... or not. Maybe he was simply hyper aware of every passing second that he felt a lot of time must have passed, but in reality, barely any time had. But he had finally calmed. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞 The initial fear had receded, not gone, but simply pushed to the back of his mind in place for logic to take control. His natural fight or flight response to the sudden, strange, terrifying situation had proven useless, so now his logical side could take control. He first thought back to the last thing he could remember — His friend, Rick... and that Revenant... He had gotten into a fight with the Revenant for some reason. Ah. Because of Rick. The Revenant wanted to hurt Rick. Why did he care so much that he made such a decision? Even at that brink of madness he had felt threatening to overcome him, he had allowed it to overcome him for the sake of his friend, Rick. Why? He mentally frowned at that thought. Now that he was stuck in his mind, he could properly assess himself and his arrival into this world more clearly. How did he get here? Why? Was this a glitch in reality? Had he somehow branched into an alternate universe? He hadn’t felt any dissonance when he first arrived, in fact he still mostly didn’t, the Finn of this world’s memories and his were so seamlessly intertwined that he felt like he’d always been a part of this world. Of course it will be intertwined. You won and devoured him, did you not? A voice suddenly boomed in his mind, shocking him into a fright. Who’s there?! Kekeke. It’s me. Your consciousness. The voice spoke again, laughing with inflections and modulations so wildly varied, it set off every single alarm bell in Finn’s being. Whatever was speaking was not his consciousness at all! What? Don’t believe me? Back in kindergarten, during that kiddy school trip, you were the one who wet the bed in that room with the other kids, but you woke up immediately, changed your pants, and rolled some random boy onto your piss to take the blame instead, YOU VILE CREATURE!!! The voice cackled manically in a hair-raising laughter. Fear. Fear like Finn had never felt filled him wholly! That was a memory not a single soul knew of. The kind that whenever he remembered, he cringed so hard and was filled with immense guilt, he knew he was taking the memory to the grave. But here was this voice, retelling it as though it had been there. It could have retold any memory, any at all, and Finn would not have reacted this strongly. The fact that it chose this one in particular showed that it knew him on an extremely personal level. Enough that it could select this because it knew it would have the most impact! Finn was absolutely terrified! He knew for certain that this was not his conscience like the voice had claimed to be. His conscience could not make him feel this level of terror, as though it was the devil himself residing in his mind, mocking him. It was like he was in the presence of evil itself, personified. No. This wasn’t his consciousness at all! So what the hell was this?!

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