3. The Feast

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Source: .writer/books/5. đź“ť Manuscript/3. Reality Jumps/3. The Feast.org

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4. Image

3. The Feast

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5. Content

Next moment, I was again Ardinka Brois. All the memories related to being strapped to that bed, with Kallom-4000 above me, vanished altogether. Even so, I felt dizzy, and for a moment the palatial environment around me seemed to spin. As my vision cleared, I found myself standing in a grandiose hall, a setting fit for festivity. Intricately laid tables stretched across the floor, adorned with gleaming tableware and exotic delicacies, and filled with guests donned in opulent attire. The atmosphere buzzed with lively conversation, laughter, and the clinking of glass, a stark contrast to the tension-filled silence engulfing my own mind. I did not feel well, but even now I can not describe how exactly unwell I felt. Anyway, I could see well that it was a banquet, and the hall was alive with the presence of dignitaries, courtiers, and warriors.

Suddenly, I felt a hand touching me on the shoulder and a voice speaking close to me.

“Are you well, my friend? You seem very strange.”

I looked at him. His black skin and horns protruding from his face, with eyes as deep as two purple gems, were deeply familiar to me.

“Marka, my friend, for a moment I…” I paused. “It’s… it’s alright. It was nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I looked around. Still, something felt amiss. It was as if in a moment I was enveloped by an existential crisis of unimaginable proportions, and even tho ugh I could feel that something was amiss, I was unable to individualize it exactly. The hall felt alien. Overhead, banners descended from the ceiling like giant, floating heralds, each emblazoned with sigils representing the noble houses and legions of our empire. For as much as the glory in our symbols enthused me, I was most focused on how I could not quite describe the colors the banners were painted on. It felt like one of those moments of life in which the common become the most supernatural. To the right, two imperial guards stood as protectors of the great hall, but most of all I could not fathom how exactly their shapes could be that way intertwined in in multidimensional planes.

As my gaze shifted, I became entranced by the surreal assortment of foods that adorned the tables. They were both mesmerizing and unsettling, defying earthly description in texture and form. Fruits that seemed to breathe, meats that vibrated in uncanny rhythms, and desserts that defied gravity itself—each dish seemed like a riddle waiting to be solved. I found myself wondering whether they were to be consumed or to consume us, such was the strangeness of my perception.

Nearby, conversations swirled in a cacophony of laughter and debate, yet the words seemed disjointed, as if I were hearing them from underwater. The people, too, appeared as enigmatic figures; warriors and dignitaries adorned in garments that shimmered in colors I could not quite comprehend, their features simultaneously familiar and foreign. Amidst all this, I felt a lingering sensation of dread, as though the grandiosity of the scene before me was but an elaborate tapestry woven to hide something far more insidious. My thoughts were interrupted by Marka's hand, which gripped my shoulder more firmly this time.

"You really don't look well, my friend. Perhaps we should—"

I shook my head.

"It's nothing, Marka. It’s just…”

Then my mind imploded again in a myriad of schizophrenic madness. I experienced a multitude of colors like a mosaic reflecting impossible mysteries. Next time I was not anymore Ardinka Brois, but a kind of four-legged animal. I remember being so mingled with that entity that it was as if I that encapsulated my whole reality. I was one in a herd of similar animals, grazing on an otherworldly meadow that shimmered in iridescent hues, each blade of grass pulsating in a rainbow. Our fur—or perhaps it was more like an exoskeleton—was coated in colors that continuously shifted, adapting to the fluctuating patterns of the environment. I felt an overwhelming sense of unity, of collective consciousness, as though the herd and I were but different facets of a single, all-encompassing entity.

“Mr. Mike, I am almost there!”

A voice sounded in my head. I did not know who it belonged to, neither how could I understand it. I was a mere animal, trying to live my life like all the others. For how long have I been that beast? Time flowed differently there—perhaps it did not flow at all. Our herd moved in geometries that defied understanding, each movement a collective decision reached without spoken agreement. We drank from pools of triangular liquid, which responded to our touch with ripples that emitted harmonic tones, nourishing not just our bodies but also our interconnected minds. The landscape looked like two-dimensional planes of crystal floating over a purple-like immensity as vast as our Universe.

Then I was back to that bed, my body imprisoned as I tried to get out in despair. I felt sedated, not by some substance on my body, but my own tormented mind.

“Almost there. Just a little more.”

Again, my mind collapsed.