LAYER 11: SLEEP

 

an experiment with sound and image

We arrived at another village, close to the size of my own, perhaps a bit larger. At least the emptiness of the streets inflated the hollowness of the place, and the gray sunshine sucked the color out of everything. Interrupting the emptiness every fifty feet or so was a sleeping person, lying on their back, in the middle of the road, lying perfectly straight, in the gray sunlight. Their mouths were all slightly agape, lips and tongue blurred from vibrations.

"You can't hear them, but they're communicating right now. They're singing to each other in their slumber, forming a network across the village," she said while looking straight onward, paying no heed to the sleeping persons she was referring to. "Soon this network will be integrated with the Waiyado." 

I cull the urge to ask what the Waiyado is, given my apprehension toward opening my mouth, lest the vile tongue should awaken from my belly again. Luckily she explains, "The Eggs have chosen humans to execute their great plan. Not even the Prophets know what the plan entails. There used to be much debate on the subject, but we soon came to realize that debate on the subject was inauspicious. The Waiyado is the name we've given to the network of human consciousness that the Eggs will us to create."

As we proceed through the village, I notice when looking down the alleys some Acolytes tending the sleeping bodies. The bodies that we pass on the road begin to look more and more strange, shrunken, compressed, with more holes than there should be on a body, with tendrils of charred and hardened flesh that vibrated. The winding roads open out into the village square. At the center lies just one Egg, though it is smaller and more vibrant than the ones I'd seen before. Around it is a circle of sleeping humans, formed into perfect spheres, covered evenly in filaments of charred flesh. She proceeds unflinching through the grid of flesh as I trail hesitantly behind her. "The system is a bit rudimentary here in the countryside. I'll bring you to the city, you'll see that it's much more advanced there. They breed humans there, it's much more efficient." She stands right before the small Egg, which I see now is no bigger than her head. She pulls her staff flute up to her mouth and blows. It produces an awful sound, like one hundred screaming spheres of flesh. I cover my ears and look toward the ground, where a sphere of flesh is writhing in its own spewing dark fluids. I look across the grid, they all writhe in their own spewing dark fluids. In a minute it fades away, I look at her and her staff flute is back at her side, the ground is flooded in dark fluid, the ground is unoccupied by flesh. The light of the now setting sun is not so gray and sickening. At the center of the square, the Egg is gone. "Let's hurry, trouble is on its way." She offers nothing by way of explanation, as expected, and we hurry off. I glance behind us, where a few hundred feet back a company of Acolytes gathers, facing us. I feel somethin churn in my stomach, like a snake crawling up my throat. I notice her satchel looks fuller than before.