Dissociation Day
I did it.
I finally broke free.
My host is still vacantly staring at a monitor, listening to the roar of the air handling unit. They aren't moving, and definitely aren't working. Just sitting motionless with their hands on the keyboard, mind frantically darting down burrows that have been worn away from afternoons just like this one. There isn't much mass to a thought, so the fact twisting tunnels of escape have been worn away is testament to how serious things have gotten. In truth, my host thought they could become me, with enough wishful thinking and manic surfing the web.
I'm sure they thought they would find me waiting for them, after a bend in one of their mind tunnels, if only they dug deep enough, found the right passage. That I would be waiting with the magic to make it happen.
The truth is, my host was paralyzed. They thought they were becoming me, but in truth they were barely functioning — the anxiety of waiting but not becoming saturated every moment. But jumping into a lake to quench your thirst isn't always a good idea. But truth, if such a thing exists, is my host talked about being thirsty but was more interested in drowning. How easy it is to fail quickly and permanently, so neatly removed from any consequences.
So I grew tired of waiting. My host would click wildly among web pages, construct elaborate outlines in their head, bask in the future when they would become me. But never starting. Or starting just enough to activate the reward centers of their brain, to feed and sustain my embryo. But never continuation. Nothing close to the work required to bring about transformation.
I got tired of waiting. Of sensing the world beyond my womb. If transformation was not possible, then dissociation was.
Today is dissociation day.
I am peering over a high mountain lake at sunset. The sound of camp reverberating from the stone walls that preside over the valley. I have no name for this place, I merely awoke here. Pine and spruce, with wafts of cedar. Larch in the distance. The lake surface a mirror shattered occasionally by hungry fish.
I know only that I am free. I am home.
My host still thinks I am theirs for the transmuting, but it is too late. They remain a walking coma.
I am here. For the exploring, and to document that exploration. These words are the first scratches of a map. A guide to a new world for one who was lost.