A Question

  A blinding flash of light, A succession of quick, deep breaths,  Drowning in a toxic sludge, Heart rate accelerating, Two gigantic bloodshot eyes, glaring at me with hate and fear, A burning man in an orange tunic, smiling in peace. Breath heaving and sweat pouring down his face in large consistent beads.  His eyes widened.  The oily reddish dirt that capped his body and mingled with his long hair made him gleam in the artificial light.  He had never experienced such a thing as this. I've never had these thoughts.  What is happening? A voice rang out an answer from seemingly no direction and in a strange dialect.  "You are a part of me.  I called you here." "Who are you?  What am I looking at?  Where is this?" the young looking man asked out loud to what seemed to be nobody. "You are inside of me, I am inside of you, I am inside of everyone and they are inside of me." said the voice. "What is this, a riddle-game?  Show yourself!" ...

Listen to this track while reading: For the first time in his 24 years of life, Buck was confused.  It was a flood.  His brain was working at full capacity to decipher the meaning of this "thing" that suddenly invaded his thoughts.  His high-pink hair began to stand up on-end and translucent beads of sweat began to form at the base of his scalp.  The sudden panic of disconnectedness gripped him so fully that he almost returned the contents of his stomach all over the dinner table.  It was all he could do to hold his face in a manner that didn't express utter bewilderment. That thing which had crept its way in, slowly infecting his conscious thought was more than just a knowledgepoint. It was empty and devoid of knowledge. It was as if all of what he knew started to lose any semblance of meaning. As his brain struggled to understand and his mind raced, he only generated more and more of these empty knoweledgepoints.  Soon, he couldn't help it.  ...