Seventh Read Online Free Page A

DSD.
                The darkness began to close in around my eyes, though I struggled to keep them open.
                It is just the DSD.  I'm imagining this.  I'll wake up and be alright.
                I couldn't hold onto the world any longer.  It tumbled away from me, spiraling back and away until it was a speck of white light in the expanding pitch of my mind's eye.  The emptiness flooded in.
     
     
     
                "...I freed them, you can't have them!"  The words came from my mouth, but I felt like I was listening in on someone else speaking.  My head was full of fog.  My heart was racing in my chest.  I was standing, alone, in the middle of a long corridor.  The lights flickered up and down the hall, traveling in a pattern as though something were passing beneath them and blocking out their glow in the process. 
                I took a step forward and staggered, nearly falling.  My leg was heavy and felt numb.  I forced myself to move again, and it was a little easier, but pins and needles exploded through my foot and up into my calf, as though the blood flow had been constricted for a short time.  My other leg was no better, and my arms also felt numb and useless.  I shuffled down the hallway a few steps, trying to clear my head and figure out where I was, and how I'd gotten there. 
                "Odyssey, where am I?"  I asked, and even my tongue felt numb and tired.  The words were slurred.  There was no answer.  I rolled my tongue in my mouth and bit down on it lightly with my teeth.  I could feel the pressure, and even a little bit of pain as I sunk my teeth down harder, so I wasn't completely numb.  I stretched the muscles of my face a bit, and then tried again.
                "Odyssey, where am I?"
                "You are in corridor E13, near the comfort center." 
                Memories of the medical bay came back to me and my heartbeat quickened again.  "How did I get here, I thought I was in the medical bay?"
                "You arrived at this location by walking."  Odyssey's voice almost seemed snide to me, as if it was implying, ‘How else would you have gotten here, idiot?’
                 "No, I mean, what happened in the medical bay?  Why am I here?"
                "There are no records of you having accessed the medical bay since your last routine examination."  Odyssey replied confidently. 
                I had no doubt that it was the DSD that was causing all of this, but which parts of what was happening were real, and which parts was my mind making up?  Even if I hadn't actually been to the medical bay, and was never diagnosed by a doctor, it was clear that something was severely wrong with me.  My reality was fragmented and confusing. 
                I began to walk down the corridor in the direction of the comfort center.  If nothing else, it was a peaceful place I could go to try and gather my wits.  The entire area was designed to simulate an open park on Terra Prime, the home world originally called "Earth."   Despite the fact that most humans were not born there and might never set foot on the planet's surface (myself included), there was something soothing about being surrounded by the ancient wilderness of that long abandoned world.  The whole planet was a designated nature reserve now, and it took special permission to even be allowed visitation. 
                Even thinking about the simulated smell of the wilderness and the open vistas full of green trees and sprawling fields brought some peace to my mind.  I was, however, shaken from my momentary lapse into a better place by the sound of my own footsteps echoing down the corridor. 
                To be more precise, it was the sound of a second set of footsteps that shattered my momentary ease.  I didn't notice them immediately because they