Witness ★ CNS Issues #1 &#2

Anonymous bystander, 2029 | San Diego, California | Awakening

I got a job cleaning one of the high end condos at City College Trolley Station and i knew that this particular TreeBnB was not due to be rented out again until 3 pm today. It was early in the morning- the sun wasn’t even out- and i had nowhere else to go, so i helped myself. It was the first time i’d slept in a bed or anywhere clean in a very long time, despite my 3 1/2 jobs, and i slept into the late morning hours. I was so stressed out for so long about absolutely everything, i couldn’t even begin to tackle my stressors. When i woke up, i decided to take a long, hot shower, then made a small bowl of instant oatmeal- i carried packets with me for when i came across hot water. I finished eating then i cleaned everything up and rewashed the sheets, making it appear as if no one had ever even been here, as if the condo was simply magically clean after each guest. I was about to walk out the door when i heard noise from the balcony’s screen doors.

"What the hell," i mumbled anxiously to myself after what sounded like two gunshots went off. I paused then walked over to the balcony. The usual protesters were violently overrunning police officers as they beat a woman brutally. The protestors pulled them off of her and attacked them as a teenage boy darted around the young woman who had been shot. She was stumbling backwards into the trolley tracks. I looked both ways and, of course, two trollies just so happened to be headed toward her, but the tracks sparked and i could hear metal screeching angrily as the trollies came to a violent stop, smashing into an invisible barrier. A few people in the crowd- the few who noticed- gasped and stared in shock.

The woman started rising into the air and she seemed to be flickering between a human form and pure light. She floated farther and farther up. Was i dreaming? Most of the crowd still wasn't paying attention. She kept rising until she hit about 20 or 25 feet, then she stopped. She reached for something, i followed her gaze to a man who was running to her, yelling and pleading incoherently, looking around frantically. All i could make out was "no, not yet,” then i followed his gaze. I saw dense black fog, almost like smoke, racing toward him. He started eating it. I shook my head and squinted. What?! Yes, he was eating it, pushing back. He was doing all he could, but so much was coming. The smoke appeared to be conscious, aware, and it was trying to get to the floating woman. The man started eating it and fighting it, psychically batting it back as he ran. Some of the dark appeared to be helping and even protecting him, but it just wasn’t enough. He started panicking as more of this fog sped toward the floating woman. The scene was breaking my heart.. it was like they were losing a battle that was detrimental to- i winced and grabbed my head as it throbbed at the thought- to our very existence.

The floating woman was trembling and crying hysterically. She reached out to the man and choked out “no!” Sparks and arcs of light were popping and snapping out of her and getting unbearably bright. He was cringing as it hit him, and the protective dark was doubling down, but he didn’t stop his advance. The light was sporadically tolerable as it sputtered in and out of sight, my eyes adjusted and I saw her face. She was crying, in pain, screaming. I wanted to save her from whatever was hurting her. So did he. My desire to help her became an ache that just kept getting more and more unbearable. I dropped to my knees. Some of the crowd felt this too and mimicked my response. Even more lights were shooting through her and she appeared to be having a seizure, yet somehow she looked determined. Everything started shaking from the ground to the air, i gripped the railing and the wall to stand up again. I saw another woman on the ground looking up at the floating woman, to the running man, then she threw her hands up toward him; she appeared to have put a shield around him and it was deflecting the light as much as it could, but it was also faltering. She was straining to keep it around him, barely standing as she struggled.

I saw more popping lights spinning around the floating girl then the lights rose out of sight. The sky opened up- unbelievable!- and let a few dim rays of light through. Hundreds of winged spectral beings, some with glowing bows, appeared above the floating woman. Some of the spectral lights appeared to be hostile toward the man, but the ones with the bows took aim at the hostile lights and the colossal black cloud directly opposite of them. Most of the onlookers had hit the ground, out cold, and they were shimmering, disintegrating, but very little and very slowly. The remainder of the crowd burst into odd forms; some appeared as black smoke, some were grey and lighter grey, some were even glowing silver. Several of them were moving toward the young man in poses that reminded me of a predator just before it attacks its prey. A few of the spectral beings released their arrows onto the ground on either side of the pleading and panicked man, creating a barrier that blew back the angry crowd and formed a path protecting him as he ran to her.

Song | Muse, “Knights of Cydonia”

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