Hi-ho to all the nice people around, I present to you the fourth chapter. I was thinking, maybe you may want to post what you all think would happen in the next/upcoming chapters? I'll post them up just for fun on my profile page. Either way though, happy reading!
Chapter 3
January eighteenth, 2517
REM sleep.
Parisa knew instinctively that she was wearing a summer dress, even though it was autumn. It was, wasn't it? Probably not, as the sky was still sapphire blue and the fields emerald green. The entire field laid out for her was like that, with a few trees dotting her sight. That was what Parisa saw when the fog, smoke, mist what-be-it cleared. It was silent and still, and the grass smelt vaguely fresh, but it was evenly spread and was not pressing onto her. The wind helped, as it did not blow the heavy scent of spring grass in her face.
Parisa had picked herself up from a bed of tall grass, and left it for the shorter grass surrounding the small patch of long grass that had held her.
She walked, rolled and pranced under the mild sun. She spotted a dome near the river, and she half skipped and half ran to it. The dome came closer, and she could now see that it was made of concrete blocks, not the stereotypical ice that igloos were famed for. She knocked at the concrete walls. It seemed hollow, but it was hard. Relieved, she entered it, even though she felt a chill down her spine. It was cold inside the concrete dome, and Parisa's summer frock had changed into an oversized light blue winter coat. She now felt warm and fuzzy in it. The winter coat was made of synthetic cotton, and was light but warm.
Globules of snow were splattered across the concrete dome and floor. Parisa gingerly took step forward to assure herself that no holes pocketed the concrete floor. But she slipped and fell when she cautiously tested a snow puddle. She tried to catch her fall, but her back hit the floor before she could react. She gasped at the pain, but that was not her most immediate worry.
Parisa had her eyes towards the ceiling, fear coursing through her and wrapping itself around her neck, choking her. She saw a hole was swirling itself into existence, opening a cavity in the curving ceiling. In what she could discern from the small, but ever widening aperture, dark clouds were rolling in, and lighting was roiling across the dark heavens above. It then started to rain. At first, it was a small drizzle, but it quickly picked up into heavier raindrops, which splashed painfully onto Parisa's face. She tried to shake them off, but the rain continued to grow ever more thirsty for strength. Parisa tried to flip herself away from under the hole in the ceiling, but the fast and furious raindrops were pinning her down, and making her coat heavy. Lifting a finger took more than all the willpower she had.
She turned her head towards the door β except there was no door. The rainwater was collecting in a puddle around Parisa now. She curled herself up slowly, excruciatingly, just to retain the little warmth left in her. She felt the water clinging to her coat now, dragging her down onto the floor. Why hadn't it change? The water level was rising, yet Parisa could not remember how to stand any more. She lay frozen in her own embrace, holding herself ever tighter together, fearful that she would crumble from the deep-freeze and fall apart.
The water reached her nose, and Parisa coughed. In a bid to stand, she fell face flat into the water., the hateful, evil liquid which would grab her and drag her deeper into the dark unknowns of the watery depths. She saw that the concrete floor was now meters under her, shadowed in the murky rainwater. The realisation that she was now suspended in water overpowered her, and Parisa, now fully encased in water, struggled for air. Only water entered her, and finally her body gave up. The water invaded her lungs as her body rebelled. Parisa screamed silently, ebbing ever deeper into the livid waters.
Uncle Hayato was watching from the water's surface, face veiled behind a screen of undulating water.
A paradoxically traditional (or was it traditionally paradoxical...?) question from a Chinese philosopher called εΊε(or Zhuang Zi) a long long time ago (no, not Star Wars long, but long enough), I quote: One night, Zhuangzi dreamed of being a butterfly β a happy butterfly, showing off and doing things as he pleased, unaware of being Zhuangzi. Suddenly he awoke, drowsily, Zhuangzi again. And he could not tell whether it was Zhuangzi who had dreamt the butterfly or the butterfly dreaming Zhuangzi. But there must be some difference between them! This is called 'the transformation of things'. Thus we have two rather different things: consciousness (perspective added) and mind (as in the brain and its set computing power which every human has some part of). Go think about it.