Interfaced

I intend this to be a preface to my book. It is a story of a world taken over by robots. The robots control the minds of humans in fights to the death.

Last chance to get it right.  One final attempt.  Many times before he had tried.  He couldn't remember failing the first attempt, yet somehow... Felt? Thought? Knew?… that he had.  Like a memory that didn't belong being dragged through him... The facade of a historical thought lingering as his own...  He breathed in deep.  The air ripped through his lungs... tore through his veins.  Feeling as if microscopic needles of cold were vibrating through his blood.  Breathing was no longer a subconscious task.  It had become one of the few concise abilities in his control.  Each breathe... a choice to live.  And the choice to live being proof for his existence.   And existential proof being his motivation...  To live... To breathe - a cycle he remembered from before.  His vision blurred and the world began to hide behind darkness...  He breathed in again, and the darkness dissipated to reveal the world behind it...  He thought as clearly as he could, sifting through the thoughts as if swimming through sand with no arms.  He faintly remembered the other times as he held his breath in.  Not memories of his own...  Images...  sounds...  He could feel the emotion of all the times before.  This time was different though.  Another thought... not his own... came suddenly...  This would be the final and consequentially fatal attempt.  Anything other than success...  Would be death...  The realization reverberated through his mind... again and again.  As if whispering thoughts were flooding into him through a pipe, in an attempt to drown him out.  His own thoughts fought to liberate what little void was left.  His vision faded...  and he remembered...  Breathe out... 

            He inhaled more oxygen from the icy atmosphere...  It pulsed through his blood... Racing through his body... like a confetti explosion of nano razors, fighting for first... Just as the race ended at the raw flesh of the back of his eye, he saw a knife being pressed towards him.  Blood dripping...  He remembered...  His blood...  A thought came to him as if an external insertion.  He greeted this thought as though his own.  He accepted it... Deep in his mind, he found himself.  Locked away beneath his own existence.  And he agreed with the thought.  But it wouldn't have mattered.  Because he would've ducked down anyways.  He would've chosen to tense his body the same way, though the choice wasn't his to make...  All these thoughts that weren't his.  So quickly... so many thoughts.  As if an hour were folded over a single moment.  One second? A fraction of a second? He couldn't be sure.  He was somehow trapped.  In some kind of mental cage... time sloshing around.  As if he wasn't fully connected to the fabric of...  reality?  Suddenly he  couldn't think...  He couldn't remember... even if he ever existed. 

            The blade sliced through a few layers of skin on his neck.  He watched...  and felt... as his hand slammed out in front of him, pushing the enemies face back.  A blunt blow of forced inertia.  In the same moment, his other hand pressed towards the knife.  Pain dripped through the cage of his reality... as the blade sliced through his palm.  It was no more painful than the sharpness of the air he was...  breathing?  The attacker fell back.  Time flowed quickly, but his thoughts continued at the same pace.  He felt himself fall towards the attacker.  Pulling his arm back as his eyes moved to the enemies throat.  He didn't want to look.  But somehow...  Like an instinct...  He was forced to watch.  He tried with all his will to turn and run, only tormented when forward he went...  Gravity sucked him forcefully towards the fallen bearer of the knife.  He felt the pressure of his hand tensing, as it balled up.  The skin of his fingers stretched over his metacarpals as he formed his fist tight... every fiber of muscle contracted to its limit.  His hidden mind could see what was coming...  yet could do nothing.  With his muscles locked tight... He felt the bones of the throat crunch, as he fell on top of the... enemy?  Attacker?  And in the faint distance he heard cheering.  Cheering for him?  No...  Not for him.  The jubilee became louder and rolled over the sounds of gargling death beneath him. His head turned to see the crowd.  Standing to his feet he threw his hands towards the sky.  The blood ran down his arm from where his hand had been cut.  The pain...  Distant...  Everything was going black again...  Breathe damnit...  In....  Out....  Suddenly his thoughts were his own.  He chose... to lower his arms and look down.  He was choosing!  He was in control!  He had remembered...  Distant thoughts not his own, echoed through the chasm of his mind.  Enemy!  Attacker! The reflecting light of reality appeared to fade to grey.  Below...  the now lifeless face began to appear as a jumble of shadows.  His own thoughts told him this was no enemy.  He whispered through his tears as reality seemed to evaporate.  "Human..."  Darkness came.  And even as the darkness shaded his mind...  His own thought echoed to him...  Human...  He collapsed, and the memory faded into nothing, as the lack of oxygen affixiated his brain.  The cheers continued to the gentle rise and fall of his chest, once again controlled by the place where he'd been confined.  The rhythmic, shallow breaths... continued.  And the last known human...   continued to exist...

            He opened his eyes to darkness.  He had to blink twice to be sure he was awake...  and still in control...  He laid there as still as possible, for as long as he could bare.  He felt numb and he feared movement would invigorate senses of pain.  He let his mind remain blank.  He feared to even think...  The ground began to shake and suddenly... everything hit him at once.  The vibrating ground penetrated him and awoke his sleeping nerves to an onslaught of pain.  The pain shuddered through his mind, shaking his emotions loose.  He moved his arms reluctantly to feel around.  The ground was wet and slick.  His hands and arms sloshed in the liquid.  He recognized what it was.  Oil...  Used oil...  He heard a rushing sound in the distance.  He crawled towards it.  He realized he was naked as his knees slipped in the substance.  He was covered in it.  He crawled... rather slipped... in this way for hours.  The rushing sounds repeated.  As he got closer they got louder.  In the distance, a cone of light appeared...  He crawled and slipped and groaned.  He flopped himself over on his back.  And now his thoughts crawled over him.  The thought to go on was unbearable.  So he just laid their listening to the echoing sounds.  The rushing sounds became thrashing sounds.  He had to dig through his mind...  his memories...  to recognize the sound.  Ocean waves...  Just then the ground began to vibrate...  And the sound of ocean waves was relieved by a sucking sound.  The air was being sucked out...  The sucking sound echoed around him.  He realized that he must be in a pipe... 

 

            The ocean water came to him.  And carried him...  Out of the pipe he went and into the ocean.  Must have been a small tsunami... He thought...  As he drifted in the oceans arms...  The shaking earlier that had disturbed him must have been a quake.  The water rinsed the oil from him.  And he breathed the smell of salt air deep into his lungs.  Freedom... He thought...  For the moment.  As he floated on his back he looked up into the night sky.  The stars were speckles of beautiful.  The ocean rolled gently under him.  And eventually rinsed him to a sandy beach.  He lay shivering, once again scared to move having been numbed by the cold sea.  It appeared then...  That one of the stars began to shine more brightly.  And as if falling from the night sky, became even brighter.  He heard a whirring above him.  Coming from the light...  Sentinel, he thought...  And again he was forced from stillness.  Just as two more stars began to become brighter...  he got up.  He tried to run, and fell.  And then tried again.  His legs were ice jelly but he willed them into submission after only a couple fumbles.  The sand stuck between his toes and was flung into the air with each eager step...  Sentinels were coming.  

Author's Note

just curious if people enjoy my writing... Is the concept getting across? is it easily understood? Or am I overstimulating the reader? I feel like I might be trying to hard to solve the puzzle for the reader... as if insulting their intelligence... are they going to think , "ok guy we get whats going on, stop stuffing us we are full already!! " haha Thanks!