literature

Vox Taster 2

Deviation Actions

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Literature Text

I am the knives’ edge, the division of space. The vanes and thrusters that are my arms claw for acceleration, my engineheart pounding. The space between my target and I narrows, the corvette not able to match my speed. It turn then, fire rippling down its flank as it fires off a broadside. The shells have barely cleared their muzzles by the time I have found my way through them. I skip, my analogies breaking down as I dart forward. Interfaces and intuition serve to describe this moment, but only to a limited extent. I abandon all pretenses at being humanoid, forget hands and feet, forgo eyes in favor of vector fields and projected intercepts.
I am the knives edge for just a moment, then all is fire. A detonation and a shockwave pushing me out of true, and into the fusillade. My arm is ripped away and my engineheart chokes. I spin, trying to catch myself but the damage is done. The corvette slides away and I am left drifting until the rescue teams arrive. They put out my engineheart and cut myself from my body.  I eat carbon chains, picking off the bonds my weak teeth can break. I walk in only two dimensions, my feet bound to the plane of gravity. I talk and wonder how words could ever explain the lack.
They talk to me, tell me how things will improve, but I can’t lose the scent of helium trails. I remember seeing someone, shiplost. I look at the pale skin things they call my hands, and I know I cannot let this continue.
The hangar is empty of people, my body unguarded. My feet are numb, and my heart echoes in the spaces of my skull. But I can stand, and I leap sluggishly into the heavens. I feel the numbness, the ragged edges where I am incomplete. So much is lost, so much I cannot do. I feel them now, the scarred edges of my world.
I cannot be as I was, I cannot be the knives edge. I am broken, blunted.
I reach inside my chest and feel my engineheart, the pulsing fusion of my life and I step to smother it. But then I hold back my hand, this heart is healthy, combat ready. I look and suddenly it’s clear. I am as I always was, poised on the edge of the fusillade. The corvette is still turning, trying to run. I quarantine my comms, purge the infection and feel reality shed the dregs of the illusion. And then I am running my solution, projected time telescoping down into the perfect shot. The corvette flounder as I circle, it’s guts bleeding reactant to the void as it kicks and thrashes. It’s over and I step back, remember my hands and eyes. I greet them, know them to be mine and accept them in their limitations. I am me, a pilot and  pheonix.
I've always been a person of hobbies. I confess I drifted away from from writing for a while. I have been coding and working on a dark little game idea. But I realised that I had once again abandoned here, and freewriting. So, here have something I wrote, pardon the lack of editing, I am recovering from losing my wisdom teeth.
© 2016 - 2024 Norrolith
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