Resonance - Episode 1: Synchronisation Complete

Episode 1: Synchronisation Complete

The stars and the moon illuminated the perfect night sky like magical gems of untold wealth and beauty. The jagged tips of the tall trees of the forest framed the horizon, and the air was sharp and cold.

The glistening moonlight provided an almost ghostly silver lining to the forest and the clearing where Joji stood, looking out into the abyss of the space above him. The faint wisps of his warm breath swirled and danced as they diluted the brisk cold air - creating a ballet of circling life essence floating up before slowly dissipating into the otherwise ever absorbing darkness above him.

He looked down the path toward the cheerful laughter and muffled chatter.

A soft ember hue glowed from the encampment where his friends were drinking and celebrating.

The pastel greys and blacks of smoke rose up from the camp fire - adding more depth and darkness to the sky above them.

Joji smiled as the faces of his friends replayed in his mind. His heart felt the warmth of their smiles and their happiness - and as it did, his dark eyes felt heavy with tears. Joji smiled, but his eyes told a story of grief and hurt. His lip trembled slightly, but he forced it back into the shape of a smile.

Joji felt the emotion and love for his friends, but he knew it clearer than ever; it did not come close to filling the emptiness and space within him, and nor did it come close to the thread of meaning and life that he now needed. He needed it, his mind needed it, his body needed it.

This wouldn’t be enough.

Nothing ever was.

The guilt cut through Joji like a hammer blow to his soul - his mouth tasted iron, and he could feel his brain shooting out cries for help to his body. He knew he had to leave; he knew they wouldn’t understand. His brain was trying with all its might to flood his system with cognition and thoughts of rationality - it had been the main safety valve all these years; it had been there to flood his body with doubt, to blur the emotion and drive that was pulling on his soul and scratching at him. His mind, his thoughts, he had understood, were what kept him rooted to the normal and mundane.

But this time, he had already surrendered to the chaos within him.

He opened the hatch on the mech and strapped himself into the cockpit.

He started flicking the switches for the start sequence; and the cockpit was plunged into darkness. Joji contemplated the noise in his vision - for although the cockpit was darker than the night sky, his vision was still glowing with the ever present static, flickering and firing at all times like a glitching monitor. Hot white flashes, dark red pin drops firing, multicoloured and tiny, it was as though he could see the very firing of the electricity shooting in his body.

Joji sat and waited for the mech to initialise.

The soft humming of the mech’s AI was the only sound filling Joji’s head.

He knew he had to go alone.

The isolation cut through him sharply, like a further glitch, and the static of his vision pulsed.

It was a cruel and damning irony, that his need for solitude and the dull blade of loneliness were one and the same. The noise and irritation of the external grey distractions were a constant bombardment on his senses. The small talk, the pointless conversation, the sighing, the shuffling, the sniffing, the expectations, the energy of the soul sucking insecurities of people that paraded themselves to the world with fraudulent confidence - all attacked him all day, every day. It was like stepping out into a sandstorm every day - and there was only so much he could cope with. He was not made to walk among such noise, and now he had felt the peace and familiarity of resonance, it made the frequency of such displeasure, unbearable.

And yet, when the noise was shut out - Joji found himself alone in the vacuum. It was only with the quiet that Joji could hear that there was nobody else. Amongst the clutter in his senses, the emptiness made it more evident than ever that whilst everyone else was operating with one frequency and in one space; he was someone else entirely, standing alone.

The soft hum of the AI suddenly whirred with an added vigour, and neon green writing on the screens around Joji started to roll and jolt - the glow of the green painted the cockpit and Joji’s face.

Despite the aversion and irritation; he wished he was like them.

He knew his friends wouldn’t understand, how could they? But he wished they could feel it. He wished that someone could understand.

Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.

The Mech’s system started and as it burst to life, “Syncing…” flashed on the monitor. Joji took a deep breath, and the confusion and grief that was weighing heavy on his heart was replaced with clarity and calmness, as though the dense fog had been cut into and swept away.

Joji’s body jolted violently as the system started the synchronisation process.

The glitches in his head came back.

Flashing images filled his thoughts and cut through the static. He flinched and jerked. He saw the memories of times past, and images of emotions and moments that he had yet to experience. Whether they were his imagination, or something to come; he could never be sure.

What he did know was that the more he allowed himself to drift away from the grey, the more he allowed himself to move from his cognitive thoughts to rely on his emotion and instincts, the more that side of him that he had tried to bury was coming to the forefront of control.

He had started to see and feel the threads of life that he needed to have. They split through life like weaving strings of pure chaos - within touching distance and yet always out of reach. Bright yellow and glowing like electricity; he could feel the same energy and danger flowing within him.

He knew that if he could just reach out and grab hold… The noise would stop.

It’s why he needed to leave and continue fighting; the violence and danger of the battlefield filled him with a beautiful calm where cognition stopped and his soul took the reins; pure resonance.

“Synchronisation… Complete.”

Joji glitched again, this time he was walking next to her. Their shoulders touched; not deliberately, but not by accident. He felt the resonance. He could feel her presence and feel her soul pulling him in. It was the same threads of chaos, and the same energy that was desperate to explode from him. He felt the peace. It was pulling him in. He was ready. True surrender. He could feel it and he couldn’t stop - it was as though they were two stars trapped in a gravity field and an inevitable collapsing and collision; he was ready for the implosion, true resonance.

The mech growled into life and the perfect night sky and echoes of laughter and chatter was spoiled by the metallic roar of engines and power.

Episode 2 - From the Abyss