Of all the absurd ways I imagined leaving this world, being swallowed by a laptop during my thesis defense definitely wasn't at the bottom of the list.
Heck, it never even became part of it.
I braced myself for the possibility of choking and being poisoned by recycled foods like the old cafeteria lady's sushi and such, maybe even tripping over the auditorium stairs and breaking my neck in front of thousands of students and staff in the university, but certainly not this.
Certainly not death or erasure or whatever this was.
The hall was chilling, the kind of cold that wasn't only uncomfortable but also menacing... like it's warning me that I'm not welcome here. The air-conditioning unit clanked and wheezed, pushing out gusts of stale, metallic-tasting air. Fluorescent lights buzzed above like dying hornets, casting the room in flickering cold, anemic lighting.
I might be reading too much into it, but it appears to me that these are some sort of telltale signs. As if it didn't want me to continue moving forward towards the room at the end of the hall.
Then again, I don't have a choice, do I?
There I stood in borrowed slacks, dress shirt, and blazer. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. The pacing of my breath escalated the longer I stayed out there. I adjusted my collar a couple times as sweat prickled underneath it, trying not to pass out from anxiety.
After a few deep breaths, I finally held myself together. With enough courage, my hands slightly pushed the door forth to reveal what's hidden on the other side.
Five panelists sat in a row, high atop their swiveled seats behind a long table elevated slightly above the floor, a kind of informal podium. Their expressions ranged from mildly interested to vaguely serious. A middle-aged woman, with rimless glasses and the lifeless stare of someone who's read too many mediocre financial reports, tapped her pen on the table with an unsettling rhythm. The person beside her was already skimming through the printed version of my paper, his brows furrowed as if trying to make sense of my charts... or maybe just wondering when he'd get to eat lunch.
I held the clicker firmly in my palm. Slide 3 glared back at me from the big screen. Company Overview—it said. A slide I'd seen more often than my own reflection due to the countless practice defense I've had every single night since the past semester. I clicked to move to the next segment of the presentation.
Nothing happened.
Click.
Click-click.
Still nothing.
"Ah, just a second, professors. There seems to be a bit of technical difficulty on my end." I forced a laugh, weak and breathy, as I waited for the response of the jury before me.
I can't just break out of the 'corporate employee' persona I conditioned myself to become. My gaze then shifted from the frozen slide to the direction of the panelists' unreadable expressions.
None of them dared to smile.
The woman sitting at the center adjusted her glasses with precision. "You have several seconds," she replied dryly.
"Right. Apologies."
I moved to the laptop stationed beside me, ejecting the black cord that connected my device to the projector. As soon as I turned to my side, I immediately bit my lower lip in lieu of uttering numerous profanities. This stupid, overpriced device can't break down before I do. Not now, please.
The trackpad squeaked beneath my fingers. The Escape key had no lettering left, and one of the Shift keys jiggled when touched. I tapped the same key over and over again, harder this time, eager to find what's wrong with my presentation application.
That's when I saw it.
A flicker.
It wasn't just a lag but an actual, digital glitch.
It might have only been a split second, yet it was clear to me that the screen briefly showed static. Not the modern kind, rather, one that's similar to what you see on an old television show. It then reverted back to my home screen. How strange.
In the corner of it, something unfamiliar blinked into view: StrataVerse v0.7.1.
"What the hell is this?" I whispered.
I know deep in my bones that I never installed anything like that. My thesis folder, the presentation, a few spreadsheets, and several other academically-helpful applications were all that should've existed in this device. However, this? This one felt foreign.
The panelists started whispering among themselves. They exchanged glances for quite a while. One of them began jotting down something in red ink. I assume it's my evaluation sheet.
My stomach churned at the sight before me. Vivid images of the hardships I went through these past months came rushing in my mind. This is not what I risked all those sleepless nights for.
I touched the screen, hoping a firm tap would magically make it work somehow.
Bad move, really.
The display suddenly fractured—visually not physically. It looked like a pane of glass had cracked from the inside. The fracture glowed softly, bleeding an eerie hue. Neither blue nor white. Something in-between, like the color you see behind your eyelids when staring at the sun.
The entire room then warped. One panelist seemed to have screamed, but their voice became garbled, as if everyone's underwater. My vision tunneled. I reached out instinctively, but the podium felt miles away. A loud pulse erupted from the screen. Then came a strong pull gravitating towards it.
I felt my body dissolve. Literally. My lungs forgot how to breathe.
There was a flash of sound, something fragmented and sharp. An old phone was ringing through my eardrums, perhaps a telephone. High heels clicking on wet pavement, heavy yet sharp steps. The sound of a typewriter clacks, one after another, in frantic succession.
Then came deafening silence.
Did I fall or maybe floated? It was hard to say.
A strange coldness seeped through what I could barely call my skin. Well, I'm not quite sure if I still had one. There weren't any texture or smell. I couldn't even sense where my limbs began or ended. My thoughts echoed loudly in the vast nothingness. I wanted to scream, blink, or even barely twitch. However, there was no mouth to scream with, no eyes to blink, no muscles left to obey. Only me, the formless idea of me, suspended in something too dark to describe, and too bright to escape.
All of a sudden, I could hear things that I shouldn't be able to hear. The ticking of a watch when I didn't wear one, the groaning of rusted iron doors being pulled open somewhere impossibly far, and beneath that, a heartbeat that stuttered and slowed...
Mine or someone else's?
Something brushed past me. It felt like a whisper of movement that dragged thoughts out of my mind like pins from a cushion. My memories stuttered. My name, my life, the hours I spent cramming for this defense. All of it began to unspool like tape eaten by an old cassette player.
Then, random images flashed like broken reels of a vintage film, similar to the filters when you post images on social media. First, a skyline flickering between day and night. Then, a fountain pen leaking ink on a mahogany desk. Then, a man in a trench coat standing at an alley. Lights blinking in rhythmic code. Morse? Binary? I couldn't tell. It all came too fast, and none of it came with context.
My thoughts flickered in and out like dying lightbulbs. One second I remembered my name or maybe it was some other person's... and the next, it slipped from memory like it had never existed.
Dear God, am I dead?
Is this how it feels to die? Maybe I'm just dramatic, but I really do think I'm gone now.
The darkness then twisted. It didn't vanish. It curved like a tunnel, a spiral pulling something toward its center, towards me.
Suddenly, I was falling. Down and around. It felt like I was flushed through some invisible drain. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine, unlike feedback from an old speaker. I did all I could trying to brace for a ground I couldn't see.
And then came light. Bursting, blinding, pulsing in beats that matched my heart or forced it into rhythm. It crept back in a sickly fog, not illuminating anything, just revealing vague shapes. There was a smear of color here. A glint of brass there. My hands reformed slowly, phasing into presence like a poorly rendered model in a broken simulation.
I tried to scream even when I knew I couldn't.
Then, everything went pitch black.