The Watch – Part 171:

I’m walking upright. I caved and used my watch to combat the pain. He hasn’t asked any questions yet, so I might have gotten away with it. I’ve still got that feeling at the back of my mind that I have taken too big of a risk. He saw me fall to the ground and hurt myself and now I’m walking as if I hadn’t. He should be asking questions, surely. Anyone would consider my actions as suspicious. I just don’t understand him sometimes, I really don’t.

Even though I hate what is happening, I can’t help but admire how he was able to engineer specific sound waves in order to make the person scared, if that is what he has done anyway, I’m just theorising whilst I walk around and around trying to find my bearings once more.

I tried to backtrack, but I somehow found myself in a completely different part of the city to where I just was. Either I really did run a long way without noticing, or something’s fishy is going on. I’m so confused that I can’t think straight. Did those sound waves play havoc with my brain? Was I so scared that I lost myself completely and now have to find my way back? Was this his plan all along? Why am I asking so many questions? I should just keep moving forward, focusing on what is going on in front of me, keeping an eye on things around me just in case anything else happens, and find that door.

Right, let’s calm down and focus on my surroundings. To my left there is a pile of rubble from where a skyscraper had collapsed from old age, to my right is a pile of rubber tires stacked neatly, in front of me is a set of double doors that are barely hanging onto their hinges, and behind me is another set of double doors, which are still holding strong. OK, so what will happen if I step through those double doors? There’s only one way to find out.

Placing the palms of my hands on the doors and pushing them outwards, the artificial sunlight forced its way through, landing on my body, forcing my eyes to adjust from the darkness of the room that I was in.

Wait… hang on a minute. Wasn’t I just outside to begin with. Yeah, I was. To my right was a skyscraper, and to my left was a pile of rubber tires. Then, somehow, without noticing, I was inside a corridor with two sets of double doors, one behind me and the other in front. OK… so, the world is constantly changing? I don’t understand how I hadn’t noticed, though… my head is starting to ache from trying to comprehend what just happened. It’s as if my brain is searching through every bit of my memory, trying to find that moment when it transitioned, but failing to do so, and so doesn’t know how to compute it and file it away.

I should keep going. The sooner I’m out of here, the sooner I can rescue my friends and the sooner I can go home and forget about all of this.

Stepping outside, I expected to see the road that I ran down to get away from what I believed was a rampaging monster, but instead I see nothing but a built up city. Something’s differently changed. It just doesn’t feel right.

A low pitched hum behind me slowly grew louder and louder until it started pulsating. The deep base pounded my eardrums and rattled my ribcage. It slowly morphed into sounding as if a freight train was hurtling towards me. I felt like running and diving out of the way, but I knew that it was all a set up. The sound grew even louder still until the soundwaves were putting so much pressure onto my drums that I had no choice but to move out of the way. I turned to the right and run. The sound started to die down the moment that I started to move, growing fainter as if it was heading into the distance. Was he trying to direct me in a certain direction? No, he’s just having fun with sound. Maybe that’s why I lost my bearings: he was injecting my ears with a particular soundwave that makes people go all confused.

I have to be extremely careful from now on. He could release any certain soundwave that would make me think of anything. Hallucinate maybe. Make me do things that I will regret later. I cannot let that happen. I will go crazy if I do.

How do I defeat soundwaves? Defeat the speakers. What do I do if I can’t find the speakers? Play something louder to drown out the noise. What do I do if I can’t find anything that is loud enough to drown out the soundwaves? Tune my ears to hear something else. If I could tune my ears to listen to something else, then I wouldn’t be affected by any of the soundwaves. Then I would be able to focus on what I must to do, which is finding that door.

I’m not worried about giving myself away anymore. He obviously isn’t figuring anything out. As long as I keep things to a minimal, then everything should – will – be fine.

‘Interface. Can you find out the exact frequency of the soundwave that makes people lose their bearings?’ I asked in my head.

‘Certainly,’ he said, before going quiet. As I waited for him to respond, I took this time to grab as much energy as I could before moving again.

‘I have detected the exact frequency,’ Interface said.

‘Could you make my ears not be affected by that frequency,’ I said.

‘I can,’ he said. Nothing happened.

‘Has it worked?’

‘It has. You will no longer hear or feel the effects of that particular soundwave,’ he said.

‘Awesome,’ I said trying to hide my grin for that might give something away. ‘With every new soundwave that may be about here, could you make it so that I don’t hear them either?’

‘I will do,’ Interface said.

‘Thank you.’

‘You are welcome.’

It felt good to communicate with someone after a long time of silence of just thinking and working things out.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)