Full Immersion by Gemma Amor

Author:Gemma Amor [Amor, Gemma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857669841
Publisher: Angry Robot
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

COMMAND PROMPT

I decided I was done with the dream. As hard as it was to let go, I knew I had to.

I had work left to do, after all.

I kissed the top of my son’s head. His scalp smelled of nothing, dreams don’t work like that, but a new-growth memory that sprang up like a dandelion out of nowhere reminded me that his hair had smelled of mint, usually, because of the shampoo we always used.

It felt good to remember something positive.

It did not feel good to let him go. Dream versions of him were all that were left to me, now. Choosing to wake from him felt like more failure, no matter how necessary.

I did it anyway.

I woke up slowly, feeling as if I’d been kicked in the ribs by a horse several times over, and then trampled on for good measure. My chest was tight, my eyes were sore, and my head ached. I tried not to think about whether I was actually awake, or a version of awake that suited my surroundings. Going down that path would send me mad, I knew it.

I sat up, looked around for my friend. I was no longer beneath the trees, the last things I remembered seeing before passing out. I was sitting instead on a cold finger of rock, high, high up in the atmosphere. Around me were thick white clouds, so thick they looked solid, they looked as if you could walk across them in spongy, pillowy little leaps. Like clouds look when you see them from a plane: solid, deceptive.

I stood, did a complete three-sixty and made the conclusion that this was the summit of a mountain. It was hard to be completely sure, because my surroundings were peculiar, in that they were inexpertly rendered, like the graphics in an early video game. Things looked blocky and flat, and had strange, cuboid angles to them. But yes, I was on top of a mountain. This finger of rock was the peak, the part that rises above the cloud line, the snow zone, the nival level. The level at which nothing could grow except mosses and lichens, some of which I saw clinging to the rock with soft, green little hands. I tried to recall, was this a mountain I had climbed, once? Was this a memory, or a scenario I had imagined? Or was it something else? The surroundings weren’t familiar to me, which suggested… I wasn’t sure what it suggested. Had I somehow transported myself to a different part of… whatever this was? A different construct, a new therapeutic room? Was I here by design, or accident?

It was scary, being on the mountain top alone with no real idea of where I was, or how I’d gotten there. I wanted to believe the strange new environment was part of whatever my new friend had in store for me, part of the prescribed treatment, but that didn’t feel right. My throat hurt, was sore when I swallowed. I

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