ZING.
There was no sound of an explosion. The world suddenly went completely silent. The sound of dripping water vanished. The sound of my own breathing vanished.
Then, the pain arrived.
Not a warm current like before. It was a tsunami.
AAAARGHHH!!!
The scream didn't leave my mouth. My vocal cords were locked stiff. It was the silent scream of burning nerves.
It felt as though molten lead was being force-pumped through the pores of my hand, tearing through my veins, crawling up my arm, shoulder, neck, and slamming directly into my brainstem.
My heart stopped for a fraction of a second. Reset.
Then it beat again.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
Too fast. Two hundred beats per minute.
My body convulsed violently, thrown backward until my spine hit the cold cave floor. But my hand... my hand wouldn't detach. The crystal stuck to me like an industrial magnet, continuously vomiting its energy payload into this fragile vessel of flesh.
Heat. My blood was boiling.
Error. System Overload.
Hardware incompatible.
Forcing update...
I could feel my bones vibrating. The calcium within them was being forcibly compacted. My bone marrow churned, producing an unnatural amount of new red blood cells to transport the dwindling oxygen. My muscle fibers snapped, then reconnected. Thicker. Denser. More efficient.
This wasn't healing. It was forced reengineering.
My body was being overclocked. Forced to run past factory specifications.
My eyes widened, staring at the dark cave ceiling. The blood vessels in my eyeballs ruptured, turning my entire vision red. In the midst of that brutal seizure, my consciousness fractured.
The dream came again.
A boundless desert. Eternal night.
I stood on a wet asphalt highway. Silent.
I ran. Kept running. Chasing a horizon that never drew closer. The wind howled in my ears, but I couldn't feel its touch.
The world shifted.
A dining room. A lavish, long table filled with food.
There was only one chair.
I sat down. Ate. Alone.
The clinking of the fork against the plate sounded overwhelmingly loud in this empty room. Tasteless; my tongue felt nothing.
"Hah!"
I woke with a violent jolt, as if I had just been pulled from underwater.