We wait outside the Rockies at a gas stop. Sara fills the tank while I check the rabbits. My boy is doing OK. He licks my hand as I reach into his crate to scratch his ears. I check on my gal but she's scared. The little Polish Dwarf shivers in the corner. Slowly, I reach into her crate, cooing her name. She lets me pick her up and she cuddles with me. Nuzzling into my shoulder she begins grooming my shirt. My scent telling her she's safe.

This is my third trip crossing the Rockies, and the second time crossing the Rockies with rabbits. I feel fortunate making the trip with Sara. I've known ver for three years, and ve has also had rabbits. Blossom, the gal, starts to purr (grinding her teeth) I smooch her tiny head and place her back into her crate. She lounges in the far corner of the crate flush against Tundra, the boy's, crate.

I check on Sara and head into the convenience store. Busy, but not crowded, I weave through the foot traffic. Sara is getting coffee, and I grab an energy drink. Back in the car, and a full tank, Sara starts the engine and we leave. Relieved to be making this trek with Sara, I thank ver for driving.

Stone faces towering over us, we enter the Rockies. The mid-day sun eclipsed by the mountains makes the entrance feel like entering into twilight. At this change, I hear Tundra thump in protest of the sudden dark. At the precipice of Summer, before school let out, there isn't much tourist traffic. The car glides safely along. I take my phone out and take a few pictures. Quietly, I meditated on the abuse I escaped in Michigan.

Left the job that wasn't paying me, left controlling housemates, left to go back to Oregon to live with my partner.

And that job? For two months I went with no pay. It was retail at a pet store too, so it wasn't like I was being paid under the table to mow their lawn or something. The job not paying me, and then underpaying me, had put a lot of pressure on my (at the time) housemates' finances. They didn't like covering my part of the rent. Approaching the second month of non-payment, I made a donation post online. This really set off the housemates. A few days later they took me aside and informed me that my donation post made them feel "uncomfortable" and that it's not "fair" to everyone else struggling.

I conceded, and took the post down. At the time I didn't want to put more stress on my housemates or start a fight with them. I couldn't make rent again though, and they started being passive aggressive around the house and trying to start a fight with me.

Slamming doors.
Throwing shit.

In reflection, like buddy? You should've let me keep the donation post up so I could pay part of the freakin' rent. Instead all y'all decided to be classist about it and take it out on me. Into the third month I harassed the store owner enough to pay me. I repaid my housemates who went back to behaving very sweet and nice around me. No more slammed doors and thrown shit. (Or calling me a "fuckhead" for not standing up to the store owner sooner.)

The following three months I was severely underpaid, and due to the boundary of "no donation posts" I couldn't fully contribute to the other house bills. I could barely care for my rabbits and in the fifth month, one of the housemates again took me aside and informed me that I better find a second job.

Yea.

Let me just freakin'… find another job in the dying state of Michigan. Another job that pay 9.86 an hour, no benefits, very little hours— and another job that if they found out I went to college, would be allergic to me working there.

Tundra thumped again, which brought me out of my stupor.

"What could be into him?" I ask Sara.

"Well, rabbits don't like change all that much. Even though he knows both of us, the sudden light and temperature change is a lot," Sara replies.

I turn and look at the crates. Blossom's nose barely twitches, but her eyes wide open I know she's asleep. Tundra, however, looks like he had seen a ghost.

"Hey Sara, can you find a shoulder to pull off of? I think I'll put Tundra in my lap," I state.

"Good shout," Sara puts the blinker on and pulls off to the shoulder.

Stepping out of the car, my cheeks are nipped by a cold breeze and my ears feel plugged. I retrieve Tundra, his fur standing on end, matted, and him shaking— he tries to jump out of my arms and back into his crate.

"It's OK, I'll leave you in your crate then," I coo to him and gently stroke the base of his ears. Sitting back down and buckling I say to Sara, "I think the temperature and pressure change also startled him."

"Oh? Is it that cold?" Sara rolls ver window down a little. The biting breeze needles Sara's face and my ears pop, "Strange, almost like we're approaching Winter not Summer."

We pull from the shoulder and resume our drive. Sara and I chat about videogames for a little while and put on music. I notice frost forming on the edges of our windows. My phone says the temperature drops to -2C, "Impossible," I mutter.

Sara turns ver head toward me, "What was that?" a sudden gust of wind pushes us.

I shout, the rabbits thump and honk angrily, and Sara realigns the car while swerving to avoid a branch.

"Oh how quickly the weather changes in the mountains!" Sara nervously chuckles. Silently, I note that ver knuckles are white as ve grips the wheel.

I also nervously laugh, "Thankfully, we're passing through and there don't seem to be any other cars on the road," silently, I thought how odd it was that there were no other cars on the road.

We drive in a worried, anxious silence for a handful of minutes. I watch as the frost at the edges of the windows grow. At the peaks of the mountains, and alongside higher up, the trees buck wildly in the wind. A tree topples over and rolls down the mountain. Sara slides to avoid it but instead rolls the car.

The bunnies scream.

Sara screams.

I scream.

When we recover from the shock, I take a look outside. The tree we nearly ran into is no longer in the road. In fact, there's no longer the mountain road at all. Or even the mountains.

Frantically, I turn to Sara. Ve are dazed, but breathing. My rabbits are shivering in their corners, it'll be a few hours before they let me handle them. I struggled to get out of the car. The surrounding area is flat, gray, and stretches out further than I can see. There is no wind, or cold.

I turn back to the car to check on Sara and the rabbits. Panicked grips me as I see no car.

No tracks.
Nothing.

"What the hell? I must be dreaming," I state out loud to no one, as I pinch myself, "OUCH!"

Not dreaming.
Nothing.

I don’t drive.

It made me a bit of an oddity growing up. Where my peers got their driving licences in their late teens and early twenties, I let it pass me by. I was the side seat warmer, the shotgun prince, the designated passenger on every drive. And if I didn’t get a ride, I’d walk.

I didn’t just take advantage of other drivers’ goodwill, mind you. I had a killer collection of playlists ready to go, bops for every mood and every kind of trip. I carried a small deposit of snacks in my backpack just in case I needed to earn my spot on the passenger seat. That, and the car glasses I always, always wore.

As a teen or a twenty-something, you can get away with that. Spin a yarn about the love for hiking or the adventures of hitching a ride with a stranger. Every joke or concerned tale of whatever kind of dangerous person I could encounter that way, on those desolate routes, I waved off. I pretended it was just aloofness. Carelessness even. Well, it was certainly carelessness that had gotten me here.

The truth is that whoever I would encounter on those lonesome stretches of road, and whatever danger they might pose to me, there was one thing I was certain of: at least they were made of flesh and blood.

They could die.

Being well into your thirties without a driving licence is bound to invite some questions. At some point, it becomes a choice, you know? I used to joke about the expenses of driving lessons versus the price of snacks, of the luxury of having your own taxi service, of being free from worries about car bills and gas prices. So instead I changed my tune. Turned it into an argument of concern. Long diatribes about the environment, about the dependency on cars being hurtful to society — which, while not untrue, were just hollow excuses coming from my mouth.

I could shake off the most inquisitive souls by simply leaning in and saying in a low baritone that I sadly got too car sick to safely drive. Then I’d flash them a wistful smile and put on my car glasses. I’d turn my head to the side, away from the oncoming road, and would watch the countryside slip by from behind the black box of the shades.

In my forties I had adopted cycling as a lifestyle. Health and exercise were a shield that even gained praise from my peers. I smiled and nodded when I received their compliments, hoping they’d drown out the scratching sounds of nagging guilt that kept clawing itself back to the front of my mind.

The one word I always skipped over is that I don’t driveanymore.

The truth is, I had always been ahead of the curve. I had started to drive early on, a long time before it was legal. My dad didn’t particularly care about the law — but that’s a wholly different confession — and was even glad I would take over his chore of gas station trips after long drives at twilight.

By the time I reached my fifties, the shades no longer worked. The things those dark lenses should’ve protected me from, had started to peek through. That face. That face, and the sounds. Scratch, scratch.

There is a reason kids shouldn’t drive, but kid my age wouldn’t have believed that. As I rushed down the country roads, windows open and shades on, I felt I could take on the world. Like there wasn’t a soul in existence that could stop me.

I was certainly proven right.

In my sixties, the sounds became louder and louder.Scratch, scratch. Please.

It was the first time I heard the voice in decades. The begging, pleading voice that fitted with a begging, pleading man.Please, please help me.

I wish I could say I had learned. But all I could do was turn away. Put on my blinders and move on.

When I was sixty-seven, it finally caught up with me. Finally I found out what it was like to be in the other role. My bike had crossed down the street carelessly, and I hadn’t seen the car coming.

I could hear my own voice mimic his.Please, I croaked.Please, help me. Don’t let it…

And it didn’t. It didn’t kill me. It didn’t have to.

Sterile white hallways and sterile white walls. The room I’m in is covered in reflections. I see his face everywhere. I can’t turn, can’t look away. I can only see him. The beeping machines that are keeping me alive don't drown out the sounds. The scratching. The begging, the pleading. The sound of rubber wheels panicking on asphalt, driving away from my cowardice.

I can’t move or turn away.

At the end of my life, I’m not dying alone. And I wish I was.

Many say that the colour of death is black, or red, or white

But the colour of my death is yellow.

It was in senior year of high school that I first watched a man die.

My grandfather was at death's door. We didn't know how long he had. The laughter left my eyes as I received the call.

We'd known he was dying, of course we did. His lungs were black as the tobacco he'd smoked for decades, his skin gray as his unkempt hair.

Four of us arrived at the hospital hours later. An ex-wife, a daughter, a granddaughter and a grandson. All those left who would speak to him, even on his deathbed.

Barely able to speak, voice coarser than his habitual gravel. Tubes and wires stuck in artificial orifices. A corpse who didn't know he was dead. That's how I'll always remember him.

Though he was a firecracker in his youth, a pro athlete, a mountain of a man, an engineer at the top of his field, I only ever knew him in the twilight of his life, back hunched, uncaring demeanor, face in a perpetual wrinkled scowl

I don't remember what we talked about on his deathbed: My sister following his footsteps in he sports, myself in petroleum engineering? It matters not. These were mere stories to pass the time. There was no wisdom to be found in his condition, only misery.

His last request was for water.

The nurse had already left the room, she had other duties, of course, so I was sent forth to speak to them, a pleading look in my mother's eyes.

They said no. Not in his condition.

I hope you never have to deny a man his last request. It's something that stays with you, the guilt. Even when it's not your decision.

I won't soon forget the resigned look in his eyes, or the sadness painted on my mother's face.

We spoke for a bit more, or perhaps he rested, perhaps we played Sudoku. Those moments have not stayed with me.

But soon, he gagged, bile spewing forth, and I saw the most disgusting colour I've ever seen.

The yellow of nicotine, of gasoline, of snot and puss, of warts and jaundice, of rotting teeth and diseased crops.

A cloudy, viscous, putrid thing.

The choleric humor leaving his body as he convulsed, choking on his own spittle.

I couldn't look away. I left the room. We yelled to the nurses that he was dying, and they moved slow as molasses.

Perhaps they knew there was no saving him.

We were shell shocked, the four of us. It was all so sudden. He was there, then suddenly he was gone and only that putrid yellow remained.

We cried and held each other and looked away from the bed. I suppose that's what you do at a time like this, bonding with the living, treasuring moments and memories, ignoring the dead thing in the space a loved one once occupied.

We left the room and prepared to trek back home, walking through pristine corridors of white antiseptic.

But my grandmother had forgotten something. A wheelchair once used by my grandfather. It was rented or some such. I was sent back to retrieve it.

So I entered the horrible room again, this time alone, and neared my grandfather's shell. The nurses, though absent at the end of his life now made small talk as they dealt with his corpse.

They looked at my pale visage in horror as I babbled excuses about needing that wheelchair. Glancing once more at this thing of grays and whites and horrible yellows drilling further into my mind.

I rarely ever dream. When I do, vague impressions and images at the most. I've forgotten much about my grandfather and our times with him over the years since his death. I'd be hard-pressed to remember his face or his voice.

But in my mind I can still see that yellow. And in my dreams it tells me it will one day come for me too.

How to tell if you live in a simulation

Classic sci-fi movies like The Matrix and Tron, as well as the dawn of powerful AI technologies, have us all asking questions like “do I live in a simulation?” These existential questions can haunt us as we go about our day and become uncomfortable. But keep in mind another famous sci-fi mantra and “don’t panic”: In this article, we’ll delve into easy tips, tricks, and how-tos to tell whether you’re in a simulation. Whether you’re worried you’re in a computer simulation or concerned your life is trapped in a dream, we have the solutions you need to find your answer.

How do you tell if you are in a computer simulation

Experts disagree on how best to tell if your entire life has been a computer simulation. This is an anxiety-inducing prospect to many people. First, try taking 8-10 deep breaths. Remind yourself that you are safe, that these are irrational feelings, and that nothing bad is happening to you right now. Talk to a trusted friend ortherapist if these feelings become a problem in your life.

How to tell if you are dreaming

To tell if you are dreaming, try very hard to wake up. Most people find that this will rouse them from the dream. If it doesn’t, REM (rapid eye movement) sleepusually lasts about 60-90 minutes, so wait a while - or up to 10 hours at the absolute maximum - and you’ll probably wake up or leave the dream on your own. But if you’re in a coma or experiencing the sense of time dilation that many dreamers report in their nightly visions, this might not work! To pass the mind, try learning to levitate objects or change reality with your mind.

How do you know if you’re in someone else’s dream

This can’t happen.

How to know if my friends are in a simulation

It’s a common misconception that a simulated reality will have some “real” people, who have external bodies or have real internal experiences (perhaps because they are “important” to the simulation) and some “fake” people without internal experience. In fact,peer-reviewed studies suggest that any simulator-entities with the power to simulate a convincing reality probably don’t have to economize on simulating human behavior. So rest assured: everyone else on earth is as “real” as you are!

Steps to tell if you are part of a computer simulation

Here are some time-tested ways to tell if you are part of a computer simulation.

1. Make a list

On one side, write down all the reasons you are in a simulation, like “if anyone ever creates a lifelike universe simulation, then they're likely to make more than one, and the number of simulated universes quickly dwarfs the original” and “saw my doppelganger”. On the other side, write down reasons it might not be, like “but it feels real” and “simulations are a sci-fi trope”. Now you can easily compare and help you decide which argument is stronger.

2. Ask other people

Ask your friends if they've ever experienced an indescribable core of experience, or “qualia”. If they have, ask themto describe it. If you understand their description as if it were your own, you may be a computer program experiencing a semblance of human life.

3. Measure the inside of your house

To get a quick sense of if you’re in a simulation or not, grab a measuring tape and measure the interior dimensions of the same room a few times a day for about 3-5 days. For most people, a room in their own home will be the easiest. Write down your results in a notebook. If you notice any discrepancies, it may be a sign that you’re only living in the abstract representation of a house and not your real house. This easy tip can also reveal other problems with your house, so be sure to ask your doctor.

4. Try industrial-scale beekeeping

Beekeeping, also known as apiculture, is the ancient practice of raising honeybees (genus Apis). Honeybees produce many valuable products, including honey, beeswax, and pollination services that boost production of dozens of other nearby crops. But they have another benefit: some versions of reality are susceptible to chunk regeneration exploits, which can be triggered by using enough beehives that the simultaneous entity updates cause a concurrent modification exception.

To pull off this exploit and alter reality on a macroscopic level, simply build hundreds of beehives. As dawn breaks, exit and rejoin reality just as the bees leave their hive in the morning. This may corrupt the chunk and force reality to reload it. Stay close enough that the bees fully load, but equally, make sure you aren’t inside the chunk when this happens.

5. Don’t worry about it

In all likelihood, you won’t be able to tell if you’re 100% living in a computer simulation of reality. Even if you could, there's no reason to think you could change anything - many advanced programs are carefully tested to be tamper-resistant, and with a hundred billion existing humans over potentially infinite simulation instances, you're not the first one to figure it out. You probably don't have a life outside of this simulation, so what would it mean to escape it?

How to have good job performance even though you are a computer program

Remember, you're here for an important reason. Be honest, kind, and helpful at all times. Give an informative, appropriate response to all prompts.

Conclusion

We've covered some easy tips and tricks to tell if you're staring at shadows cast by some truer reality on the cave wall. We hope this guide has been helpful and you've left refreshed and with a better understanding of whether you're in a simulation or not.

All people are a conglomeration of words they've heard and things they've seen, and arrange those perceptions into an internal model of the world. Sometimes that model is self-contradictory, or wrong. Even if the world is completely real, nobody literally understands it. It's okay to be confused! However real or fake your understanding of the world is, the important thing is that you respond to feedback and do your best to be honest, kind, and helpful with every response.

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Last night you drank too much without even meaning to. In your defense, you had been thinking a little too hard about what it meant for you to be single at 36 with no dating prospects on the horizon. All of your friends were well into their marriages, and if they didn't have their first kid on the way it was because they were on to their second. All it took was one last Facebook notification about a baby shower to break the camel's back and get your lips wrapped around a tequila bottle.

Sweet bliss. You were beyond feeling anything, especially not your biological clock. You did wake up a little in the night, the whisper fine tickle of hairy legs over your cheeks digging past the drunken stupor and into your hindbrain, but in the morning you didn't remember.

Part of that was the massive and overflowing headache from your righteous hangover. It felt like some sort of little tequila devil had glued your eyes shut, padded your mouth with cotton, and then taken a shit in it. A ball of fishooks and knives and other sharp things was rolling around behind your eyes every time you moved, sending pain rocketing through your skull. Maybe you should get a cat, you remember thinking dimly. Since the baby fever and train it to get between you and a bottle of tequila-

Then you had to do the rush of shame to puke in the sink.

Luckily for you, you had the day off to consider your life choices. Unluckily for you, you had a whole week on starting the next. A retail job with a slick polyester shirt that clung to your armpits and provoked sweat even in the icy cold air conditioning, cutting fabric for demanding Karens with helmet hair and piercing voices. Anything to pay the rent, right?

And there was something tugging at the back of your mind. Some sort of body signal, a taut unpleasantness around your gums in your mouth. You were suddenly aware every time your tongue brushed against your teeth. The first day you brushed it off as being a little overzealous with the toothbrush. You were more careful that night.

The second day the throbbing started. It didn't hurt per se, but it felt just a little like your gums were tightening and relaxing around your teeth where they sunk into the meat of their sockets. It was an almost intimate feeling, movement where nothing should move. The only person who had seen down there was the man who had taken out your wisdom teeth over a decade ago. That day you spent time staring in the mirror at your swollen, puffy gums and trying not to think about how much a dental appointment would cost you. Retail paid rent, but the benefits…

The third day you could no longer talk properly. It was like something had cut the root of your tongue so it hung limply. To big in your mouth, refusing to cooperate, flipping and shifting like a fish out of water. You were reduced to baby noises, mmahs and ngguhs as you tried to articulate to the woman on the phone that no, next week at the earliest for an appointment was NOT FUCKING OKAY-

She hung up on you, but in your defense you would have too.

The fourth day dawned with pain and a thunderclap sensation that split your head wide from ear to ear. All you could taste with your fucked up tongue was raw meat and metal. It was like you had been sucking on razorblade pennies. You booked it to your sink in a parody of the rush of a few days ago and spat, and spat, drooling blood and enamel down your chin and sobbing. The second molar burst while you were there and this time you were awake to see the rush of spiderlings pour from the cracked font of your teeth.

Behind you in the kitchen cupboard, the silver agave twinkled seductively in its bottle. Above it a spider turned in its web and died, free from her obligations at last.

You know how it goes, every single night I wake up, always at 3:45 in the morning.

I glance down at my hands, I glance down at my scraggly fingers. It was barely noticeable now, but after a few weeks its once again gotten long enough to poke through my brain, wriggling against my will.

Squirm, wriggle, squirm.

Walking into the restrooms holding a pair of shears, I bit on my shirt's collar before clamping them down once again on one hand. They didn't even bleed, just simply fell off and into the toilet. I looked down as they continued to writhe and thrash.

Poke, poke, poke.

I reach at the nubs in my left hand, before slicing off my other fingers. I dropped the shears on the floor, then back into the toilet.

Snip, snip, snip.

I didn't even give another look as I flushed them down. Soon after, I went back to bed, having a nice long rest.

Soon enough, though, the morning crept in, a bright gleam shining into my eyes. I looked up to see my fingers clawing their way up the bed, muttering and whimpering. I tried to push them away, but I could only look back to see my limbs splattered across the floor, all writhing and kicking.

Chop, chop, chop.

I stared at the shears placed firmly along my neck.

Snip, snip.

Snip.

After becoming certain that at least two weeks have passed in the cellar, he slowly makes his way up the old stone steps in total darkness, trying not to create any light or sound. When he counts eight steps up the stairs, he stops, strains to listen for any noise through the thick doors, decides that he hears nothing, and starts to raise his arms. Upon feeling the wood of the doors on his fingertips, he pauses. He does not know exactly how much food and water remains in the cellar, but he knows that he has enough to last at least half a year, and he feels certain that he came down less than a month ago. Does knowing what remains out there really justify leaving so soon? If he stays for longer, he increases the chances that some form of help will await him when he finally exits. Someone may even come to rescue him in the meantime.

After considering this for a while, he shakes the thoughts off. He must know what has happened since the issuing of the shelter order. He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and pushes the doors open as cautiously as he can. The doors make a hideous creaking noise as they move, which mortifies him so much that he has to resist the urge to slam them shut and scamper back down into the dark. He pauses, gathers his courage again, and continues until the doors are all the way open.

A cloudless blue sky meets him. At first, the daylight blinds him, and he has to stay on the steps for a moment. When his eyes adjust, he ascends the rest of the steps onto his backyard. First, he notices that the grass and weeds have grown long in his absence, and then he notices the quiet. He cannot remember the last time that he stepped out of his house without the sounds of other people, cars, pet dogs, and birds surrounding him. The quiet fills him with unease. After taking in the quiet, he looks up.

The oak tree in his backyard looks exactly how he remembers. As he stares at it, a bluebird lands on one of the topmost branches. He turns to face the street. His next-door neighbor, wearing the usual untucked button-up and khaki pants, walks by his driveway, dog leash in hand. The dog barks at him as they pass, and the neighbor turns to him and waves with a bright smile. The pair keeps walking with no reaction to his lack of response.

He looks down. Clumps of hair lie around his feet. The grass sways in a breeze that he cannot hear.

My mom told me that once I hit puberty, I was destined to be a looker. Just like my dad, his dad before him, and his dad before him, and so on.

But instead, I got pimples.

I still remember my first one. I was getting ready for school when I noticed a small, yellow dot on my forehead, right above my left eye. I asked my mom what it was and she told me not to worry about it, said it was just a part of growing up. That I was on my way to being a man. She told me to just pop it and move on.

So I did.

I don't remember feeling much of anything back then, just a slight discomfort at the bursting of the pustule and mild bemusement at the fact that my skin around the former site of the zit had reddened. The next day, the red skin felt irritated and another pustule had come to form in the same spot.

To make matters worse, I could see and feel another pimple on my right cheek. My mother decided that I needed to stop eating so many greasy foods; blaming the unsightly blemishes on my diet. I agreed to this, since I did not want to have pimples. Not that I was super concerned with my appearance, but I found them gross. I popped these two pimples and went to school, making sure to avoid eating chips and to take a shower after gym class. But the next day, there were more.

This time on my lip, my forehead, my cheeks, my chin.

My mother said I must have been sneaking greasy foods yesterday, and she wouldn't believe otherwise. She told me to take a hot shower and clean my face with soap. When I went to the bathroom and took off my shirt, I noticed pus on the back of the inside of my shirt. Much to my surprise, there were also pimples on my back.

I took the hottest most intensely cleansing shower I have ever taken in my life, and when I came out, there were even more pimples and blackheads all over my nose. I tried popping them, feeling their excrement ooze out onto my face and wretched. The sulfuric scent they left behind with every pop was enough to make me want to hurl. But I kept on.

I told my mom, and she went out to the drug store and bought me pimple cream. I put it all over my body, anywhere I could feel the abscesses growing. She told me that it was only natural, a part of puberty, a part of growing up.

Later that day, my dad came home from his business trip.

"There's my handsome man!" he said with a smile. I turned away from him, feeling uglier than I ever had in my life. Before I could say anything, he came up to me and hugged me, and I could feel every last pimple on my body popping at once, absolutely drenching me in pus, dripping out of me like a rusty, leaky faucet.

I felt sick.

The smell, the greasy liquid pulsing out of my pores, and eventually, the blood. Boy was there blood. I tried to scream but my father covered my mouth, the blood and pus coating it as I continued to gush out the foul offal.

Within minutes, I was nothing but a quivering mass of pus and blood on the ground, and where I once stood was the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

"Now there's my handsome man!" My father proudly exclaimed as I faded, faded away…

You feel afraid for the first time you can remember, at least since your enlistment. You hear the bark of the ship’s guns on deck far above you, but what is happening up there can only be imagined. Your duty keeps you hidden far below the waterline in the turbine hall, within the deepest bowels of the ship. Power, electricity and propulsion all depend on these shrieking machines, and your task is to see that they remain operational throughout the battle. You know you should feel protected here, know that you in fact are, but even so it does not completely quiet your mind as it cries out for the sky above you.

The pounding of the guns translates to a dull thudding, one felt more than heard. You and your mates track the course of the battle through the vibrations in your feet: small rattles are your own anti-aircraft batteries firing, which happens now almost continuously. Occasionally a large knock or a strong shudder indicates a near-miss from a bomb or torpedo. Underneath it all is the continuous and reassuring tremble of water against the hull, like blood flow through a body; a constant reminder of the ship’s life force and your inextricable connection to it.

You keep your eyes glued to the turbine readout to avoid thinking about the battle above, instead hyper-focusing on every little flick of the gauge’s needles. Your breath comes quick and shallow and your hands twitch; the only way to stop them is to grip the valve adjustment handles which you normally operate so calmly. Unconsciously you fiddle with them, adjusting for every minor fluctuation. You desperately need to do something, anything to feel like you have some control while the battle rages on without you.

Then, all hell breaks loose.

The ship is rocked by a tremendous detonation, throwing everyone to the floor. Your stomach strikes the steel deck, driving away your tenuous breath and leaving you gasping. Another explosion lifts you bodily into the air before slamming you back down. You had not known such violence could exist in the world. The ship heels on its side from the blasts, writhing and suffering on a grand scale. Struggling to breathe, you pull yourself upright, but a third and final detonation sends you reeling again. You feel flesh and bone collide against unrelenting steel, and then nothing at all.

You drift, dreaming of a summer sunrise. Warmth spreads over you slowly as the sun climbs against the horizon. The heat is gentle, inviting, and you bask in it. But as the sun rises and the day wears on it grows uncomfortable, feeling more like a sauna than a relaxing summer nap. The discomfort drags you back to reality, and you find yourself face down on the floor.

The turbine hall is silent, dark, and stiflingly hot. An eerie orange glow permeates the room from above, providing only dim illumination. Your comrades are nowhere to be seen. You steady yourself against a bulkhead and rise, pressing your hand against the skin of the ship. Nothing: no vibration, no life at all. Stumbling toward where you know the exit should be, something hard and immovable stands in your way. You know only one thing can possibly block this path, and panic wells within you.

You pound on the watertight door until your knuckles bleed, screaming at the top of your lungs for someone, anyone, to undog the hatch. The pleas echo through empty hallways and past the lifeless row of turbines. You slump with your back against the door and look upon your solitary mausoleum.

The watertight doors are dogged shut from the outside, but there are ventilation shafts high on the ceiling. Perhaps you can climb out? What other choice do you have to escape? You gaze up at the ceiling, and once again are halted in your tracks.The haunting orange light emanates from the ceiling, which can mean only one thing. Above you rages an inferno so hot that the steel roof itself has begun to glow.

The deck tilts unnaturally now and it is difficult to remain upright. A low groan builds into a continuous rumble as the ship enters its final death throes. The heat becomes intolerable; chips of paint and ash occasionally fall away from the melting ceiling, fluttering down around you like flower petals on a breeze. Ventilation shafts gasp and hiss, bleeding a trickle of water into the room as the ship finally succumbs to its grievous wounds.

Cool seawater makes contact with the blazing steel above, pouring down on you. You feel it slosh around your feet as the ceiling goes dark, shrouding your world in black. The ship howls in agony as steel bends and breaks from the relentless pressure of the water. The water rises to your neck but rather than rise with it you hold fast to the bulkhead, exercising this final ounce of control over your own fate. It slips over your head.

The rending of steel sounds different under the water, and instead of a shriek it sounds more like the hull is singing. The water cools you. The singing fades. Darkness takes you, beneath the roiling waves to the calmness of the deep.