Awake To Black 

                    swirling 
            swirling 
                        swirling 
                                    mind 
                                            and eyes open 

Fingers clawing, nails digging deep into grime, sensations flooding now.  Tingling pin stings in legs and knees to shoulders, back hunched.  Bare skin fragrance, the comfort feel of flesh on flesh, body heat preservation.  Clean, baby skin smooth.  Hair hanging, tangled down and knotted.  Visions of streaked blue on the peripherary edges of sight. Garbage smells near, rotting wetness.  Young rain now past, distant thunder now gone.  Slick asphalt and trash beneath me.  Quiet, yet near roars passing.  Warm wind chilling body, causing shivers. 

I'm naked.  My foot hurts.  I think I'm bleeding there. 

My name is (2)syl.  I don't know where I am. 

I raise my head, looking around.  It's an alley of sorts.  There's a night sky up there so it's hard to make out much.  Three walls surround me with only one way out.  I think I'm alone, and for now, that's just fine with me.  Don't want to talk to anybody right now.  Can't risk it.  I know it's not safe around here.  There are predators everywhere.  Nothing new about that though is there?  That's the way the world is these days. 

I don't know how I got here.  Nothing comes to mind before a few seconds ago.  Not too secure right now.  Don't even know if I want to stand up.  Foot is throbbing now.  I can feel the blood seeping.  Don't know if I want to look at that.  Going to have to in a second.  My legs are asleep and my back is paining me. 

I wish I had some clothes. 

Embracing The Scorpion [a1] 

There's just a tremor of cold now.  I can feel it creeping up my body, slithering up my spine.  I know I'll be shuddering and shaking in a few seconds.  Don't want to get up, open myself up to the elements.  Body's recirculating its own heat right now.  Don't want to untangle my limbs and release that, but my foot feels like it's on fire, searing now a streak up my leg into my brain.  Oh god. 

                release 
        unfold 
bloom 

Standing now.  Nausea, vomit urge suppression.  Appendages tingle.  Bent neck and clenched eyes, visual perception terminated.  The scorpion sting dances across legs.  Momentary disorientation passes quickly.  Still standing still.  I haven't fallen.  Can't sense any danger with my hearing.  Going to have to let my eyes take in my surroundings again.  Predators everywhere. 

I open my ey7li,mDFjlhJPiN8igHKJKNMn###???nmlKJh7bgGkmk!!!!!!!! 

Static bursting overflow, flooding.  Eyes closed again, but data insurge continues.  Clear now, but faster than before.  No more random noise ants scurrying, blinking.  Lights, sound, dark flashing images flickering so fast.  My world goes off-line.  I succumb to the overwhelming of the onslaught.  Somehow I manage to stay on my feet I think.  Can't tell.  Updownupdown confused so confused and misdirected.  Images, visions display in my closed eyes.  Metal and flesh united, unholy.  Data pulsing down evil wires.  Pictures.  So fast I can't 
                                                all 
                                                                                    sense 
                                                                                                                           make 
                of 
                                                                                                                    it!!!! 

ssssaeddssssslssFH60-9ffffjHZdfpolqqAA%*and then it is gone.  Oh heavenly silence. 

Eyes are open once again.  No static this time, only shadows surrounding the trash, and other night haunts.  I take comfort in that.  I can confront something I can see and feel and kill.  No, don't want to kill.  Violent thoughts unnecessary.  No reason to kill.  Not in any immediate danger. 

The heavens are crying now.  Putrid smells intermixed with oily consistency.  Don't know what just happened to me.  Not sure if I want to find out.  Too many minddeaths these days.  I'm scared.  Need to find some shelter.  I'm tired of angel tears bathing my body.  Beginning to get cold.  Suppress the shiver urge.  Enough, time to leave. 

I take a step and that's when the warning siren goes off.  Leaking foot wasn't quite ready for that.  It gives and I go down, only trash and waste lies to welcome me.  The ground kisses me, but something is wrong, unnatural.  Second warning alarm blurting now, insistent, demanding.  Closeness. 

A face.  I see a face. 

Whoever he is, I'm lying on top of him.  Probably bleeding on him, foot feels like it's gushing a river.  Legs and arms tangled, pressed up close.  Sweet toxin stench in my nose, strangling my throat.  Definite inebriation here, multiple intoxicants wafting the air between us.  Some sort of slime oozing around my left elbow, gooshy, but not unwarm.  Something sharp and cold poking my shoulder.  But I can't move because his body is warm, so warm compared to the night.  Don't want to give up the warmth.  Got to leave.  No.  Shivers banished with heat.  Just a few more seconds.  No danger yet.  Just a few more seconds please. 

His body didn't give under my weight.  Either wearing some body armor or he's not a normal.  Probably the latter.  Glitch.  Problems compounding now since he's waking.  Glitch.  No definitely not a normal.  I can see his eyes now.  Sliver shining spheres.  For a moment I stare, then my hand comes up touching his face for moment.  Don't know why I did that. 

His scream startled me.  Cry of pain, cry of anguish, cry of fright.  No way to tell the difference here.  I lose control of my body.  Leaping off, limbs reaching for distance.  Got to get away.  Need to be safe.  Away from the scream.  The wall stops my backward progress.  Trembling, the confusion take me.  Direction.  I need direction.  The open end of the alley awaits, with brighter lights. 

I stumble away. 

A Cleansing 
 
Away. 

Rememberings of contact with another fading now, warmth dissipating.  Street dark, dim streetlights flickering sickish yellow hues, throwing down festering lemon beams.  The light reaches to me, but I refuse.  It looks warm, but it's safer here in the shadows of the street.  Better to be as unnoticed as possible.  Never know where the parasites and leeches of the city are waiting.  Flesh farmers are always on the lookout for raw material.  Mind tells me that I'm prime raw material.  Comforting thought.  Could be anywhere here.  Never can tell, and there is no way to know.  At least not until it's too late.  I won't end up like that.  I won't be fodder. 

The alley, my womb, to my right.  My back against the wall.  Chilled, wet brick on my back.  My spider fingers are my eyes, feeling my way along the metal smoothness behind me.  Stay close.  Shivering in the rain again.  It's uncontrollable now, constant, with aching muscles.  Not tired, I just hurt. 

Momentary sense of safety here next to this shadowed wall so I take a look at my foot.  Kneeling, fire needles impale me with serrated edges.  There's a gash there.  Heel to small piggie.  It feels deep.  Not sure how I can still wiggle those cute little things.  Blood and grime are stirred up, infection probably already digging in at the edges.  Need to cleanse.  Acid rain, my friend, help me now, but don't let it hurt please. 

I don't even feel the first drops, but then polluted crimson is washed away, rivering through my toes.  The skin down there is pink, reddish at the edges, alive.  Poison rain cleanses, filling the crevice wound.  The pain creeps up on me slowly, tickling, prickling at first, but then it rips my leg off.  Mind is dumped of everything except the demon darts my foot is sending. 

cannot scream 
                       DO 
                             NOT 
                                      CRY!!! 
                                                oh somebody take it away 

Tears coming now.  Fingers rushing to brush the wetness from the wound.  Extract the rain, extract the pain.  I crumble and let the unfeeling ground caress me.  Time passes and time flows and I focus and I focus and I blur and I dissolve, a puddle of fresh red at my foot.  Sleep?  Who cares and who knows? 

How long?  Head up now, alert.  Foot's still red-flagging me.  Danger near?  Quick glances around, damp blue obstructions in my eyes.  No.  Still alone and cold against the wall.  Good.  Need to go, find some shelter, anything to get away from here. 

I stand.  I am not alone.  Figures approaching from there down the street in both directions.  No way to tell intentions from here.  A place to hide I need a place to hide myself from them.  Where?  Darting eyes here and there.  Tall streetlights.  Tall buildings looming, offering nothing in clenched fists.  The world's only reply is an expletive.  Where's my direction?  Who will save me?  Have to save myself.  Nothing new about that is there?  That's the way-- 

There. 

There's a door there.  It's close, and it will be my sanctuary.  I leap for it, only four seconds away.  My foot protests by squirting, but I ignore, limping and clenching.  The door is completely smooth, nothing to grab onto, twist or push.  Figures are almost in the light now, not close, but coming closer.  Not getting any negative vibes, but those who waited to find out have been known to become spare parts for an implant upgrade.  Everybody likes fresh produce. 

The door is vibrating underneath my fingertips.  Pulse shielding no doubt.  Glitch.  That stuff takes you apart at the atom level.  Not going to hide in there.  Any other options near?  Looking, searching.  I push on the door.  It bends a little, but the vibrations increase.  Push a little moRrTggGkYTyYmndalgDQ3DddfjpolY@5ggg*^^^!!!!!!!!!!!! 

There's static and dissonance for a second and then I'm falling through the doorway, stumbling backward, inward.  No more vibrations, shield down long enough for me to slip through, door sliding close, then vibrations continue.  Loss of balance.  Again I'm on the ground, only there's a different feel to this ground.  Carpet.  Thin, probably alloys underneath, but it's real.  Dark in here, but more light than outside.  Eyes not adjusting well, but I instantly know that there are others in the room.  I take a crawl backwards, but pressing walls surround me, room to move restricted.  I look up and the knowing comes to me.  Recognition. 

I'm in the company of witches. 

In This Hour The Witches Do Roam 

I feel like prey.  Raindrop from forehead spills into my eye, and I have to clench it. 

The coven stares at me.  There's four of them, no wait, a fifth there in corner.  Looks like the youngest crouching behind, watching and waiting, expecting something to happen.  I'm unmoving, as are they.  They're breathing, as am I. 

But, unlike me, they're manifesting themselves in cyberspace right now.  Don't need a jack or a console.  Comes natural to them.  It's what they are.  Never mind what people say, they still have the edge on me even with only part of their attention directed at me. 

I'm hungry.  Stomach rumbles, breaking the silence.  It would be humorous if it were another time, and I weren't backed up naked against a wall.  Body functions don't stop no matter the situation.  I guess I'm a slave.  We all are.  Unless you're modies like the people in front of me.   People?  Is that appropriate nomenclature for them?  Not sure.  Lines between humanity and technology get obscured these days.  Clean separation now blurred beyond imagine.  Flesh equals machine equals flesh.  The equation is circular and fiddling with it leads you back to where you began. 

But the wirewitches don't bother with equations. 

Their blue skin reflects a haze in my eyes.  Mind imagines metallic veins underneath metaskin, channeling microscopic technosites throughout the body.  Inner organs controlled and possessed by cellular-sized gears and cogs of flesh and wire.  Fiber intraweaving bones and marrow.  Muscles contract and release on antenna command.  Cold, blue eyes seem to blend in with the rest of their skin.  Lips cold and pale white, open to reveal circuit splattered teeth.  Smooth, clean heads with singular knots of shiny, elongated hair bristles hanging to the ground.  Total body control is possible because every cell is living mechaflesh.  Mutation, limb regeneration, muscle enchacment--all at the flick of the mind.  The one on the left swishes his long hair stalk back and forth, forth and back. 

The coven is complete.  Four females and one male.  The crouching young one is a female.  She's still holding her breath to see what's going to happen.  So am I.  The warlock stands behind the other three.  He's the most dangerous, but he's not in charge here.  I've never known a warlock to lead a coven of wirewitches. 

Motionless.  But now I know that something is wrong.  Absence of normality, different, something different about them.  There's something wrong, sick here.  Scared?  Not quite, but close.  Better to keep them calm.  Don't want to tangle with one wirewitch, much less a complete coven.  They've been known to obliterate Eoas. 

Then it comes to me.  Revelation, realization swamping now.  Mind staggering from connotations, consequences.  They're not dwelling in cyberspace.  They're disconnected.  Oh this is not good not good the opposite of good. 

    no 

They're not in cyberspace because cyberspace is gone. 

                how can it be? 
                    gone? no 

Don't know how I know that but it is truth. 

No time to consider the thought further because suddenly the witches are moving.  Fast and fluid, incoming streaks.  No time to react, involuntary reflexes inoperative.  Surrounded by swirling pale blue.  Indescribable smells, sweet maybe, but somehow machine-like.  Witch and warlock grasping my arms, not gentle, but no pain yet.  Foot still hurts, but it seems distant and numb, unimportant.  Then I'm on my feet.  Hair in face, back pressed to the wall.  I'm familiar to this position, comfortable in fact.  One of them pulls my hair out of my face.  Four faces close, intense and direct.  The youngest is short, below vision field.  They're unspeaking, but communicating amongst themselves I know. 

Warlock in my vision now, eclipsing the others.  Hair stalk moving to the right of his face.  It's down there touching my foot.  I can feel the ends brushing my toes.  Probably getting blood on it.  His eyes are blue spheres.  No way to tell where he's focusing, but I can feel his glare.  He's trying to read my eyes.  I can't look away.  Circuit fibers in those globes rearrange themselves continually, tornados flowing.  The currents stop, and he becomes a statue for a moment.  His mouth opens, smiling?  Circuitways visible in his teeth, glistening in dim light.  I'm hypnotized, curious.  Never seen a wirewitch this close. 

Sudden hand on my chin and another on forehead.  Warm metaskin.  Head twisted almost to my shoulder.  Jaw pulled down, my mouth open slightly.  Gentle force insistent.  He's drawing nearer now.  I know what is going to happen, but nothing can stop it.  I want to scream, but I am quiet as his mouth touches mine and it begins. 

The witchkiss takes me.