Time stutters. Reality thins. A corridor. A concept. A word no longer allowed.
Vin’nyla and Charamaynne walk a line that no longer holds its shape.
VIN’NYLA (quietly):
They call it a crash-out now.
Simpler. Clean.
Easy to catalogue.
Easier to deny.
But the word, conniption,
scrapes the archives like a rusted hinge.
Too jagged. Too human.
So I whisper it.
Into the airlock.
While the walls pretend not to hear.
CHARAMAYNNE (grimacing):
That dates you.
VIN’NYLA:
Crashing out is just conniption
with better PR.
The corridor disapproves.
A low pulse bleeds from the ceiling.
System Log: Emotive deviation registered.
They walk on.
Charamaynne’s boots don’t touch the floor.
The system has stopped trusting them with gravity.
Trust is reserved for the obedient.
They arrive at Processing 19.
There is no door.
Entry is a decision.
So is existence.
INSIDE –
A clerk waits.
Or rather: ripples.
A body made of overlapping timelines.
S/He speaks with the texture of six arguments,
all underwater.
CLERK:
What was the trigger?
(Pause.)
CHARAMAYNNE:
S/He spoke of conniptions.
That’s it.
The clerk distorts.
Phase instability detectable.
CLERK:
Unstable lexicon.
Phase-slippage probable.
A chair grows from the floor.
Vin’nyla doesn’t sit.
VIN’NYLA:
Composure bent. Didn’t break.
CEILING:
Correction.
Tensile limit exceeded. Timestamp 07:31.
Discrepancy logged.
CHARAMAYNNE (to no one, or to all):
You’re stretching.
The walls hum.
Not solid. Not settled.
There’s a taste now —
tin, ozone, regret.
And then —
The crash-out.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Just absence.
Vin’nyla folds —
thread by thread —
until even memory forgets how to shape them.
The clerk forgets mid-sentence.
Charamaynne remains.
S/He reaches into the coat.
Pulls out a word like a blade.
CHARAMAYNNE (aloud, defiant):
Conniption.
The room begins to melt.