ADVERSITY: ????????

[expiationmods]

The sound is the first thing that one may notice.

Or rather the lack of it.

The normal hubbub of life in Aldrip ceases from one second to the next and even when someone opens their mouth to add an utterance on the wind, nothing emerges. The world is muted, but it is the first indication that something is happening.

Perhaps the hairs on the back of your neck stand. Perhaps there’s a pit of foreboding in your stomach. Perhaps you stiffen your spine or hunch your shoulders against the unknown sensation. Foreboding

The next indication is the native population. They stop. They may have been in mid-motion, mid-conversation, mid-head turn. They simply freeze in place, and perhaps some of them are stopped in a comical expression or posture yet there is very little to laugh about. Does the feeling of trepidation grow perhaps? Or does it come when the native population glitches and their pixels disintegrate before your eyes? Like they had never been there in the first place.

Within a few seconds of this, everyone else suddenly freezes in place. There is no running, no flailing, no calling out, no looking around. People still see, of course. They see it all.

It starts on the periphery of their vision: a fuzziness. At first, that’s where it lingers before it expands on the horizon like a tsunami wave building in the distance. The sky flickers like a light losing power. The fuzziness comes on, dissolving the sky, dissolving the horizon, and eating infrastructure like buildings, street lights and roads. It rolls through like a black out.

Then it touches you. A sense of finality washes over you.
You begin to dissolve like the natives and the streets. It is slower for you than it appeared for them. It starts at your fingers tips and your toes, picking you apart cell-by-cell. Does it hurt? Do you panic? Do you face your imminent sense of demise with bravery?

Your consciousness is the last presence before it too winks out. What is your last thought, Chosen? Well, beyond what you may think, there is one last question to be answered:

[Do you wish to restart?

Yes / No]