Author's Note: This is an exploration of Norman Jayden's addictions to the ARI and Triptocaine. I recognise that my interpretation of the ARI device may be different to some. Where I have deviated from the canon or accepted fanon, I have done so consciously - call it artistic licence if you will.
I do not own Heavy Rain or its characters.
Part One: Awakening
At first, it hits him with a force so strong he feels as if his heart might burst. It is like when one leaps into the ocean but is unprepared for the blast of cold water – he cannot tell whether the blood is burning or freezing in his veins, or how many times he must blink before the flashing light begins to ease on his eyes. Such a simple device, so innocuous and small, yet it assaults his senses and shocks his mind into a state of awareness far beyond what he has experienced in his living days.
Tiny little wires buzz along his brain, and he can feel pinpricks of electric sensation lighting up every nerve in his body, snaking their way through the pores in the skin and winding around the fabric of his flesh. He blinks once, twice, three times, and squints against the overload of stimulation forcing its way into his consciousness, crystal eyes fluttering open and seeing a world born from his wildest dreams.
The first thing he notices is the light pouring between the spaces in the tree branches. It is a golden glow, filtering through and casting little patterns of liquid sunlight on everything within sight. Vivid orange and yellow; an autumn canvas sprinkled with summer's last strains of green. Norman almost has to recoil from it all, the sudden change from the office's dirty drab grey still too sudden and piercing. The near-painful opening starts to fade, and the rest of his senses catch up with his surroundings – the glasses are cool on his skin, like the gentle breeze floating from nowhere, carrying the scent of newly fallen leaves and ancient oak trees. A deep intake of breath reveals air so fresh he can taste it, and he feels dizzy from its sheer purity. His heart pounds like a drum and threatens to burst, to shatter inside his chest and vanish into the watercolour leaves and shafts of golden light. It is an adrenaline rush he can scarcely contain within himself, breath panting and limbs trembling with sensation.
Birdsong echoes in his ears, sweet melodies that halt all thought and induce pure feeling. His features are still frozen in wonder, awestruck eyes widening as paradise spreads outwards from his feet and beyond the horizon. Blossoms unfold from his fingertips and scatter themselves amongst the foliage, birds materialise within nestled branches and add their tunes to nature's symphony, and he forgets to breathe as it washes over him. His mind tries to cope but it staggers him, the tiny electric sparks in his head now a rumbling crowd running along the threads of his thoughts. He runs a gloved hand through his hair as his muscles begin to wake back up and he regains a semblance of control over himself.
Stumbling, he tries to take a step forwards, and his foot lands on soft ground – soft, with little blades of grass sprouting out of loamy soil. He casts his eyes downwards and counts, one, two, three, four, but the number is too great as his eyes wander further and further down the forest's twisting paths and through the gaps between tree trunks. His hand reaches out and he shivers as an orange leaf descends into his palm, trembling with amazement. The illusion spun from the ARI is sweeter than the richest chocolate and he still cannot wrap his mind around it – still struck with disbelief, still feeling electricity run through his brain, down his spine, merging with the shimmering world around him.
There is brightness everywhere – but a tender sort of brightness, the type that settles onto one's eyelids in the morning and pries them open into blissful awakening to greet the morning sun. Even such temperate welcoming feels like a revelation to Norman. Not a gradual, easy awakening but an almost violent one that jolts the dusty cobwebs of the corners of his conscious into sudden action, an instant epiphany that completes every puzzle ever posed and every problem ever left without a solution. In a moment he knows that the world holds so much more than he ever believed possible, because the world really is changing before his eyes, evolving into a higher state of being with every new inch of land bursting into full bloom, unimaginably vast, impossibly beautiful.
He continues to walk forward and each step feels realer than the last. He is staring, staring ahead and searching for the end, the flaw, the foil to the world of beauty that surely must be hiding somewhere between the trees – but it seems there is none. Just a flawless plane of glass reflecting a world that is too perfect to exist. He yearns to keep travelling, to run, to jump and glide through the colours and sounds until pure sensation lights up his soul – but he stops, and gasps as he sees a fluttering movement in the corner of his eye. A butterfly. No, not one – dozens, erupting from the leaves of a nearby shrub like foaming water out of an emerald fountain. They scatter out in a flurry, like delicate fireworks of magical white wings, powder-soft and ephemeral. One patters past his face and he blinks in time with the beat of the tiny wings as it circles his head in delicate twirls. The expression of surprise on his face breaks into a smile. What else, he wonders, could this world be for him – what else could he do?
Thank you for reading. Chapter 2 coming soon.