That night, I had another scrange dream. I was standing in the school yard, in between the Kindergarten building and the food building. As if prompted by an unseen force, I took the two chips out of my pocket and used them again. The whole world started spinning as I struggled to keep my head in focus. When I opened my eyes, I was in a cylinder-shaped hallway with bare, white walls lit with artificial fluorescent lights. I turned my head to look at either end of the cylinder and saw a door on each side. Somehow, in my mind, I knew that the door behind me was unopenable for one of several reasons: it was locked, it was simply put there for aesthetic purposes, and could not physically be opened, or – and this was the most frightening of all – there was simply nothing on the other side of the door, and opening it would lead to nowhere, or worse – the mysterious beyond. Like from the Land Before Time! My sense of progression drove me forward, and I glode across the floor as if I was floating like a sugar glider. I came to the door and pressed my sweaty palm against the scanner to its left. The light above the door lit up green and the door slid open. I felt like a secret agent. I strode into the next room, which as comparatively very dark and covered from head to toe in monitors. All of these monitors showed images of outer space, so most of them were mostly black as well, but some showed stars, man made satellites, or even planets. I didn't know how much one of those weighed because I wasn't Goku. One of the planets I could easily recognize as the Earth by its flat shape. I observed the monitors for an indefinite amount of time, mesmerized by the constant, calculated movements of the celestial bodies in their natural habitat. The screen that you are looking at melted away to reveal a close up of my face. After ten full minutes of a blank expression, an unnerving grin crept across my face as my grey-blue eyes stared soullessly into yours. You couldn't help but avert your gaze in discomfort. As you did so, the screen that my face was on began to glitch and crackle with static electricity, distorting it further. Eventually, my eyes began stinging from the dehydration, for I was not Jacques, and could not keep them open indefinitely. I blinked, immediately breaking my concentration, and found myself back in the room with the monitors. The computer screens, not the lizards. Without knowing how long I had been there, I shook my head, clearing out all the cobwebs, before proceeding into the next room. In that room, I was standing atop of an observation platform lining what appeared to be a massive garage. On top of the platform was a massive, complicated looking machine that extended through the top of the room. This was on one side of the platform, and on the other side was a multi-story staircase leading down to the floor of the garage. But even more important than the layout of the room was the woman in front of the machine. Her back was turned to me, but I recognized her silky, waist length black hair and long, white coat.
"Julia?" I asked? My voice sounded a bit muffled, as if I was hearing myself speak through the thin walls of another room whilst simultaneously in a half-drowsed stupor.
The woman rotated about the y-axis to face me. I could instantly tell that she was simultaneously Julia, but also not Julia at the same time. It was as if someone had taken Julia and aged her up about thirty years.
"There you are, Amanda," said the woman. "I was wondering where you'd run off too. Can you help me calibrate the machine?"
I quickly looked behind me. Who was she talking to? I didn't know anyone named Amanda, right?
"Is something not right?"she asked quizzically.
"No," I replied, a bit discombobulated. There was no one else she could be talking to so I guess she must have mistaken me for someone else named Amanda. "I'm fine. Uh, what is this machine again?"
The woman chuckled a little. "That's a good one, Amanda, but I'll tell you again anyways – this machine is used to destroy asteroids, meteors, and any other extra-terrestrial debris from hitting and destroying the Earth."
That at least kind of explained all of the monitors watching space in the other room. But I was still confused. "Okay. How do I calibrate it?" This sounded like an important machine, so I didn't want to mess anything up.
The woman looked a bit annoyed with me now. "What do you want to say, how can I calibrate it? You do this each day."
I didn't want to pressure her for more answers, so I just turned to the diode array in front of me on the side of the machine. Surprisingly, once I touched it, my hands began pushing buttons and keys, flipping switches, and pulling levers on their own, as if being guided by some invisible force, like muscle memory, or perhaps the machine's own selfish desires. After I finished calibrating the machine, it began whirring and rumbling. This continued for a few seconds, and then is stopped. I heard a distant explosion amd jumped a little in surprise.
"You're acting awfully strange today," remarked the woman, noticing my reaction.
"What was that noise?" I asked.
"...the asteroid?" replied the woman, raising one of her eyebrows at me like Jack Black.
"What was that noise?" I asked.
"...the asteroid?" replied the woman, raising one of her eyebrows at me like Jack Black.
"What was that noise?" I asked.
"...the asteroid?" replied the woman, raising one of her eyebrows at me like Jack Black.
"What was that noise?" I asked.
"...the asteroid?" replied the woman, raising one of her eyebrows at me like Jack Black.
"What was that - " Something wasn't right. I looked down at my hands. My vision flickered. I looked down at my hands. There was some sort of liquid dripping off of them. All of a sudden, the room started mildly shaking, and I heard intermittent thuds, as if some disgusting giant had accidentally dropped a handful of golf carts on the roof of the building. I looked back up in surprise and the room was in ruins. Part of the platform was missing, there was exposed earth seeping in through cracks and holes in the room, several of the lights had been turned off, and the woman I had just been speaking to was gone. I felt terribly old all of a sudden. The only thing that seemed to be the same was the huge machine, which loomed over me like a Mayan ziggurat. Feeling intense panic, I sprinted towards the door I had entered through, moving so quickly that I left illusory afterimages as I ran, but my legs felt like they were moving so slowly, as if I was running through jelly. After flinging open the door and going into the next room, I found myself back in the ruined room with the huge machine. Confused, I looked behind me, and saw the white cylinder hallway from whence I had come. I turned around and stepped into the hallway. As I tried to run to the other side, no longer caring where the other door took me, the other door slammed shut behind me, and I didn't seem to be getting any closer to the other end of the hallway. Suddenly, the whole surface area of the cylinder lit up with a rainbow of 3D geometric figures. These figures began rotating, slowly at first, then became faster and faster the further I got through the hallway. Eventually, my sense of balance was completely overwhelmed and I collapsed to the ground. I tried to weep, but neither tears nor sound would be expelled from my body. I shut my eyes and wanted it to be all over.
"Pull yourself together, Amanda." A kindly, yet gruff sounding voice with a hint of a British accent reached my ears. I opened my eyes to find myself, now standing up, back in the large garage with the machine, face to face with an elderly gentleman that looked like a cross between Doc Brown from Back to the Future and Colonel Sanders from KFC.
"Huh?" I asked. "What's going on?"
"No time to explain." His voice echoed through my head as he strode past me, his back hunched and his hands folded behind his back like a male gamer. "We've go'a stop the big one."
"The… big one?" I echoed mysteriously.
"Indeed," confirmed the man. "The Golf Ball."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
The old man continued speaking in riddles. Specifically, Justin riddles. "It is all a part of his plan. You must calibrate the machine to destroy the Golf Ball."
"But I don't know how to do that!" I insisted. "I don't even know what that means!"
The old man chuckled like a chicken. Specifically, a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "It doesn't matter that you don't know," he stated sagely. "All that matters is that you must."
Realizing I couldn't convince this crazy old coot that I had no idea what was going on, I frantically began toggling settings on the strange machine's diode array. However, this time the motions of my hands did not come naturally, as if they had been sealed away in the envelope of a memory of a long forgotten dream. Desperately, like a housewife, I turned to the man. "Can't you help me?"
He scroked his goatee pensively. "Alas, I cannot," he surmised, before adding with a wry smile, "While I may be wise and knowledgeable, that does not mean I am omniscient. I do not have the knowledge of how to operate this machine. I only have the wisdom to realize that this is something that absolutely must be done, and that it must be entrusted to the capable youth of Tomorrowland that know what they're doing."
I continued frustratedly pushing buttons as the man twirled the pen he kept stashed behind his ear. All of a sudden a huge, rumbling roar could be heard just outside of the garage. I looked to see what might be causing the noise and it only grew louder, causing the room to shake violently and tearing at my eardrums. Then, as if it were being sucked into a black hole, the massive garage door and surrounding wall were ripped away from the rest of the room and huge, spherical object began bearing down on us. From the quick glance I was able to steal at it, it was a very low-poly sphere, meaning that it was not truly a sphere, but rather composed of many polygons. This must be the Golf Ball that the old man was talking about. I only had time to begin letting out a bloodcurdling scream before being promptly blunk out of existence.
I reappeared somewhere surrounded by complete darkness. Immediately, I felt a falling sensation in the pit of my stomach and looked down into the darkness. There was nothing beneath me for as far as I could see, for there was only darkness. I frantically looked around for something to grab a hold of, my heart beating in my chest. The only thing I saw, besides darkness, was the bottom of the building I had just been inside of above me, which was rapidly growing smaller and smaller the further I fell away from it. I tried to let out another bloodcurdling scream, but nothing could escape my body, except for darkness. Within seconds, the bottom of the building had disappeared from my sight. Now, only darkness remained. Darkness.