by Sean Adami
A lab researcher with a name tag reading “Earl” inserted a five inch key with intricate grooves into the ignition of the communicator system. The system made whirring noises and electrified, sending a neuroelectric current to the Spirit Emissaries of Marco and Andrew. Instantly, Marco and Andrew grew unresponsive with their mouths open and eyes closed. Unconscious, Andrew’s vision had faded.
CHAPTER 5:
Where is Andrew travelling?
Is his trust unravelling?
Coded neurons lead to a new atmosphere.
Brother by side, he must be sincere.
A few moments later of blackness, Andrew started to get his vision back gradually. The colors that appeared before him were blue and green. Andrew’s first thought: this is Earth-like. Trying to recognize what was around him, he finally perceived a green-like substance on the floor. He had gained full exposure to what he could see. He looked down and saw his whole body stood intact, including the clothes he wore at the lab.
Andrew gained full conscience and witnessed several green hills that laid throughout the horizon. He gazed to his left and saw his brother wearing the same clothes that were worn in the lab. Marco oddly looked more life-like to Andrew. Marco’s eyes opened up as he tried to gain conscience in this unvoyaged dimension. There was a white source of light coming from above, which appeared to be some sort of sun or star. The sky was blue with a tint of purple. The grass on the hills appeared green but with a tint of yellow. Marco finally gained conscience and looked at Andrew.
Marco’s first impression was “ Woah . . . this is awesome!” He bent down and felt the grass with his hand. “This grass feels very—”
“Life-like?” Andrew completed.
“Yeah, it definitely does. I feel that I ‘feel’ more.”
“This dimension is communicated through the neurons of our brain, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, wouldn’t that mean that we feel more because of the coded sensory neurons that affect our normal senses then?”
Feeling the grass with his hand still, Marco said, “I think you’re right, Drewster. Our perceivings are exaggerated from the coded neurons, like you said. You’re pretty dang smart.”
Andrew looked down at his hands and felt a wave of joltiness. He saw that his right hand was missing his three mechanical fingers. Feeling a wave of confusion now, Andrew asked Marco, “Where did my prosthetic fingers go?”
“Maybe it’s because you don’t have nerves in your mechanical fingers, so, therefore, the communicator can’t project it through this dimension.”
“Hey, Marco, you’re pretty dang smart too.”
Smirking gently, Marco said, “I think we better explore this place.”
Marco and Andrew walked towards an area where there was less yellowish grass. The source of light or some sort of sun object began to radiate more heat on the surface of the floor. They continued walking towards the huge patch of less yellowish grass, which turned into white shades of grass. Andrew felt hotter than usual while he walked.
After walking for what seemed to be a pretty long time, Marco said, “Why is it getting hotter?”
“I have no clue. And why is there nothing on this plain white field? I haven’t seen any form of life yet in this dimension either. Everything has been so simple and plain in this dimension.”
Walking yet for another plentiful length of time, Andrew saw the white grass begin to fade less as they walked forward. Yellowish green patches of grass atop a hill were in front of them. Appearances of clouds took form behind the hill. The air was cooler as they reached closer to the hill. Andrew said, “I think there is more life behind this hill.”
They hiked up the decently large hill of grass and made it to the top. Andrew viewed what laid behind the hill, and he gulped in a spoonful of air.
Marco made it on top of the hill and saw a hundred meters away from him what seemed to be trees that grew a kind of purple fruit. Growing curiosity, Marco departed from his standing point and quickly ran to the trees. He got a closer look at them and found that the fruit had the shape of an apple but was purple. Andrew, catching up to Marco, said, “Wait! Are you going to eat those purple things?”
“You mean this purple apple? Hell yeah I am.”
Andrew exclaimed, “I don’t think you should. I mean, who knows—” Marco without listening plucked the foreign-looking shaped fruit and ate it casually.
Andrew said, “What are you doing Marco! Are you crazy!”
“No, I’m Marco, and that was a damn good purple apple,” Marco answered wittingly.
Andrew, feeling annoyed as if Marco was poking him with a twig, said, “Okay, don’t do anything stupid anymore.”
“You should try an apple. It tastes exactly like a regular apple as if it was from Earth.”
“I’d rather not. I don’t wanna die..”
“What’s the big deal? You won’t die in the physical world if you die here. Don’t forget that this dimension is only based on feelings from our nerves and not our physical bodies being at stake.”
“Well, I guess you’re right.” Andrew with hesitancy grappled the purple “apple” and slowly propped it into his mouth. He slowly chewed it, and his taste buds felt enlightened. “Oh my God! This tastes great!”
Marco, a few paces away from Andrew, bent down and looked at one of the tree stumps. He put his hand on the stump, brought his hand to his face, and smelled his hand. His eyes slightly glowed up, and he said, “This yellow stuff smells amazing. It smells exactly like honey!”
Confused on what the substance was, Andrew asked, “Is that honey?”
Marco licked his hand, and his taste buds enlightened even more. “I’m pretty sure it is. Tastes exactly like it.”
Not as nervous of the foreign objects around him, Andrew put his hand up to the “honey” and smelled it. The substance smelled as if it had been a gift from a mother bee.
Laughing from amazement, Andrew said, “So far, this dimension has been amazing!”
“What’d I tell ya? What even is this place? I feel like I am in a fairy-tale right now,” Marco said.
Obtaining more energy, Andrew said, “Let’s explore more of this fairy-tale place!”
Andrew and Marco quickly sprinted their way towards the other trees and ate the other purple apples with glee. While sprinting, Andrew realized that he shouldn’t get too ahead of himself in this unforeseen place. He contemplated the following to himself:
Hey, Andrew, don’t lose your focus. Your father wants to see if this place is habitable for other guests. Try to discover new things in this dimension. Also, remember that your father is trying to make you create a closer bond with Marco. Don’t put your full trust in Marco or your father since this dimension is unseen territory by every human being. Take your time, and don’t jump ahead to conclusions so fast.
Andrew began to slow down his pace and fell behind Marco a bit.
Marco said, “So far, I feel that my five senses have been enhanced. The smells, the tastes, the looks of this place have been extraordinary. I’ve never felt this alive before.” Marco slowed down and waited for Andrew to catch up.
Next to one of the trees, Andrew saw a river flowing down with a glistening blue color. He studied the river and saw that it stretched a distance of about 10 meters in length. There were a substantial amount of thick tree roots that crossed the river. The tree roots had almost formed a type of land bridge between the river. Andrew also had noticed that the trees with the purple apples stood hundreds of meters tall. The tender leaves quivered from the slight breeze. Across the river were thicker thickets and bushier bushes. More green laid across the river from them.
Following his nature of curiosity, Andrew put his first step on a thick tree root that was near him. He maintained his balance on the one meter wide root. The river moved at a pretty fast rate as Andrew continued to walk on the slightly slippery tree root.
Marco said, “There you go, Andrew. I like that you’re taking the
lead.” Marco got onto the tree root himself and followed his younger brother’s lead.
Andrew looked down into the water while walking and thought that he was going to fall. Making a minor mistake in footwork, he slipped a little but still maintained his balance. He broke a sweat and tried to keep his sanity from not going off the charts. Andrew was about halfway between the river.
Andrew began to hear an eerie buzz noise in front of him. The noise grew louder and Andrew grew confused. Andrew asked, “What the hell is that noise?”
“I have no idea, but it sure doesn’t sound friendly.” Marco started to break a sweat too.
The tall tree branches that were in front of them ruffled and shaked. Moments later, Andrew saw a rapid huge bee-like species come out of the tree branches. This bee-like foreign creature with neon green stripes flew quickly towards Andrew’s direction. It’s bright blue stinger was vibrating and was aimed at Andrew’s head. The bee moved so fast that Andrew couldn’t even react to it. The bee moved so swiftly that it sliced through time with its speed. The bee’s stinger punctured in the middle of Andrew’s forehead.
Andrew with great force flew off the tree root from the collision with the bee. Falling into the water, Andrew grew unresponsive. The bee’s stinger stopped vibrating and fazed to a gray color. Eyes closed, Andrew flowed down the river rapidly. (Hey, reader! The perspective changed to Marco now .)
Clueless on what just happened, Marco yelled, “Andrew!” Not getting a response back, Marco, ignoring the bee being right next to him, instantly hopped off the tree root to go after Andrew. Penetrating the warm river water, Marco swam downstream with all his strength. Marco heard the buzz drawing closer to him again as he swam in the river. Looking behind, he saw that the bee was gaining on him. Feeling fearful, confused, and mad, Marco exclaimed with water partly entering his mouth, “Get the hell away from us you god forsaken creature!”
Near Andrew’s body, Marco was able to grab hold of Andrew’s arm. Trying to find a way to escape the gigantic bee, Marco took hold of Andrew’s body and was able to push him out of the river to the side where there was more vegetation and green. Marco pushed himself out of the water as the bee’s buzzing was amplifying. The bee’s stinger began to glow to a light blue color and the vibrating emanated. Rejuvenating its stinger, the bee flew towards Marco’s forehead and struck him there with his stinger. Marco was knocked out cold and lost conscience next to Andrew’s body.
CHAPTER 6:
Where did Andrew go?
Back to Earth? How so?
The bee was provoked,
Leaving Andrew’s body soaked.
(Hey, reader! The perspective switches back to Andrew.) Andrew woke up in the physical world and gained back his conscience while Marco awakened moments after Andrew. Dazed and confused, Andrew saw the lab researchers and his father around him. He asked, “ What just happened ?”
Robert said, “It appears that there was a bee with huge size proportions that injected you with dopamine into your brain. You reached such a high sensation of dopamine that the coded sensory neurons were dispatched, hence waking you up. This bee seems to have some sort of dopamine compositor in its body. According to our neural sensors, this helluva creature could turn the most depressed man on Earth to the happiest man on Earth through its dopamine byproduct.”
Earl, the man who ignited the Spirit Contrivance in the first place, said, “More specifically, the dopamine neurons that penetrated the frontal cortex of your brain reacted with our coded neurons, creating a chemical reaction. This reaction created a malfunction in the interdimensional communicator system, and the coded neurons were aborted.”
Andrew asked, “But I thought I can’t feel the dopamine neurons in my physical brain since the bee didn’t sting me in real life physically?”
Earl answered his question by stating, “Yes, that is true, but you are missing one link in that statement. Since the coded sensory neurons in your brain open up to all the perceivings of the Spirit World, they interacted with the dopamine through that neurological feeling the coded sensory neurons are opened up to. When foreign neurons, a.k.a. the dopamine neurons, travel to your brain in the Spirit World, these neurons mess up with the neurons that we coded in the communicator system through the chemical reaction.”
Andrew asked, “How is it that you can send coded neurons to our head? I wanted to ask this earlier before we changed dimensions.”
Robert said, “I’m glad you brought that up.” He walked to one of his neural-sensing holograms. Playing around with the screen with his finger, he brought up a graph that slightly resembled a Richter scale. “These are your brain waves, or your neural oscillations. We change the properties of your neurons by extending or shrinking the amplitude of the brain waves. Changing the waves changes the outlook on how your dendrites perceive the senses. Your dendrites are the part of the nerve where the impulses are received. For example, when you were in the Spirit World, the amplitude of your sensory brain waves were tinkered an inch taller in retrospect to the graph at this x value. Every change in the x axis in accordance with the y axis constantly changes your neural waves, hence they are called coded neurons. The complexity of the actual code though is insurmountable.”
Not expecting the science to be this deep, Andrew said, “That’s cool.” Robert closed the hologram. Talking remained extinct for a few seconds.
Andrew said, “So, what now?”
Robert said, “Now it’s time for you and Marco to take a break from the high-tier sensation of the Spirit World. Go on a lunch break in the cafeteria. I hear they have medium-rare steak there. As for you, my lab researchers, converge in my headquarters to discuss further research.” Robert and the lab researchers, including Earl, left the black room through the vertically shifting-up door.
Once the room was empty with only Andrew and Marco, Andrew departed from the Spirit Contrivance and tapped the shoulder of Marco. Marco had been a little out of it and seemed tired. Andrew asked, “Wanna eat something?”
Putting his measly energy into the muscles of his mouth, he said, “I don’t know why, but I feel weak and exhausted.” Marco still got up wobbly with little oomph and made his way towards Andrew.
Before leaving the black room, Andrew asked, “Marco, what in God’s name was that bee creature doing, and why was it in the Spirit World?”
Marco said, “Not exactly sure, but those creatures seemed awfully vicious and dangerous. Let’s make sure to never go around those things again.”
“Also, why didn’t Dad send us out of the dimension before the bee stung us? I mean—that bee was trying to kill us.”
“Maybe he didn’t react quick enough to abort us out of the dimension, or maybe he just wanted to see what would happen to us.”
“Why would he want to see that horrifying beast sting us in the forehead? What if we died ?”
“Like I said earlier Andrew, if we die in that dimension, we don’t die physically. Quit analyzing this so much, and let’s eat already.” Marco, losing patience, walked past Andrew and left the room.
Once again before he left the black room, Andrew quickly studied the equipment that were used for the Spirit Contrivance. He noticed that the interdimensional communicator was still on. He realized that he could access the Spirit World at any time as long as the communicator system was lit. Numerous gray desks rowed across the back end of the room with holographic three-dimensional screens. The screens displayed different overlays of the Spirit World. Thinking that the lab researchers wouldn’t want him invading their desks and property, Andrew left the black room and set his destination to the cafeteria.
The entrance door just shutting vertically closed, Andrew walked to his left through the many white hallways that existed. He was about to look for other researchers for guidance to the cafeteria until he realized something that he totally forgot. He wondered where they placed his Sporksterbeale. He rearranged his body 180 degrees behind himself and set his course to his dad. He wanted answers on where hi
s car was.
Andrew walked the opposite direction since he figured that his father wouldn’t have travelled to the cafeteria and instead his headquarters. As he strolled down the white hallway wanting feedback, Andrew saw Rufus down the hallway walking towards him. When they reached a fair distance near each other, Rufus intruded and said, “Where are you going?”
Feeling as if he was interrogating him, Andrew said, “Just going to see my father. Also, would you happen to know where his headquarters are?”
“Oh, I don’t think you wanna go there.” Rufus came personally closer to Andrew’s body and put his hand on his shoulder.
Feeling a bit intimidated, Andrew said, “But do you know the way to my father?”
Rufus cleared his throat and gave Andrew a bit of a shove. Rufus responded quietly but aggressively, “Like I said earlier, how about you go eat at the cafeteria?”
Feeling that he really had no other choice, Andrew submissively said, “Alright.”
“Great. Let me take you there.” Rufus took his hand off Andrew’s shoulder and pulled his hand out like a tour guide and pointed his hand to the opposite side that Andrew faced. Rufus softly guided Andrew’s body towards that direction with his other hand.
Andrew detected this as strange. He didn’t want to be in a brawl with any of the security guards, so he just followed Rufus’ lead. While heading down the hallway of the cafeteria, Rufus said, “How would you like to have your steak? Medium-rare?”
Andrew awkwardly said, “Sure. That’d be fine.”
“So, how was your trip to the Spirit World? I saw a glimpse of you from the neural sensors. That world looked more alive than this planet were stuck on.”
Unsure on why Rufus was engaging in conversation, Andrew simply said, “Yeah, it was a whole new experience for me.”
The rest of their trip to the cafeteria lasted in awkward silence until they reached the feastly destination. Rufus said, “That door leads you to the cafeteria. May your soul find you a good appetite.”