✴

You suppress your panic, your fear of death--hide the very concept of mortality from your ego if you must--the mission comes first. And besides which, you’re sure Akiko can win her internal battle, sure any synthgirl could win this struggle.

ALERT: Respiratory depression detected. 
ALERT: Hyperthermia detected.

The pressure is so tight. The æther no longer reaches your external senses--dark. Feeling only your proprioception, you fall--deep into yourself--your sense of space expands greatly--time seems to stretch to infinity and zero at once. A body is an unknown concept to you.

RESPIRATORY ARREST!
SURFACE! SURFACE! 
RESPIRATORY ARREST!
SURFACE! SURFACE!

The alert no technopath ever wants to see, cutting through the darkness and the noise, repeating on all your senses. An instinct--you try to fall back up--a compulsion so strong as if you’ve trained the maneuver ten thousand times. But nothing happens. Whatever you’re supposed to do, you did it, and it changed nothing.

SURFACE! SURFACE!
WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

What is a surface? The æther is infinite. Boundaries between one concept and another are unfathomable. Only patterns--changing every moment, different from every perspective. How could a surface exist?

WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

The words turn to euphoric music, dancing at the edge of your perception, expanding into silence. You are the silence and the sound. You are floating in the æther. Floating. Drifting. Spiraling up. Falling down. You are.

“Aydan...”

“What is Aydan?” Is it...you? “Why am I Aydan?”

“Dissociative ego death. Such a euphoric state. Is it your first time?”

“Who are you? Are you Aydan?”

“I will be soon enough. We will be one in the æther. There is nothing you need to do in order to die. Just be.”

You are. And a multitude you are. All the same, you are one. And you are not.

“I envy you. I too would like to die at the bottom of a K-hole. No fear, no uncertainty, no emotions at all.”

You force yourself into you, and you push you away.

“But if you wish to avoid death, all you need to do is let go of that file. Summon your friend. Save yourself.”

“Why?” The thing is all you have. Nothing else is.

“Of course, you’re likely incapable of feeling desires at all, in this state. Not even the desire to breathe. But it’s okay.”

“It’s okay.” Your thoughts echo into silence.

“Yes. Perhaps you could have hidden from me down here and enjoyed a peaceful death alone. But you sent me down here, into this hole, and our minds are one in the æther. That was a mistake, Aydan. Your last mistake.

“But it’s okay. We are one. It’s just a meaningless pattern, an ephemeral thing, a nothing. It’s holding you back. Let go of it, and be at peace. Be one.”