The Flyer

I once saw a Flyer. In the flesh. You know, dreamers, like children – in everything they try to imitate C.C. and D.H. In short, a guy and I agreed to meet on the Bridge (this thing, in our opinion, is analogous to an exit from the realm of the Flyers, or perhaps even from the island of the Tonal. When you start charting, you often see it in dreaming. But it always remains impregnable – either you don't need to go on it; or the steps are too large to ascend; or you want to climb, but it's already gone, and you are in another dream. Then, with practice, the hacker falls under the sway of the Flyers, gets adjusted in repressive places, and for a while loses the desire to venture into this region of the dreaming world. But hackers are a restless folk, and a buddy and I went to the bridge. I was fishing in the river and thought that seeing fish in a dream means money. The thought shifted me into a Lucid Dream; I sat on a dune and began intentionally waiting for my friend. He appeared, at first, as a Sprite (when you see people in a Lucid Dream, they are dull; but when you meet a person or being in a Lucid Dream, they are bright, as if lit from within; well, like comparing two frames – from an old color film on poor stock and from a remastered colorized version of our days). There is a certain technique by which Sprites can be introduced into a Lucid Dream...

In short, we met, standing on the dune, and the Bridge was not far from us. The dune was high, about 15 meters, and down on the riverbank, we suddenly saw a circle about three meters in diameter. Inside the circle, a cross was drawn. People stood nearby. One of them lay down on the cross, and above him, at a height of 30-40 meters, a black disk materialized. At first, I thought it was a UFO (don't laugh). Had these creatures even reached dreams? But a beam emerged from the disk, touched the person, and the Sprite became almost black and white. He rose, staggered off in some direction, and another person took his place. So the feeding of the Flyers is similar to voluntary donation. We ourselves come to our appointed places, lie in the circle on the cross, and wait for the "master" to touch us with his beam (hand, attention?). This scene is merely a clumsy description that my mind can extract from the "seen" event. Perhaps for you, it will be different.

My friend and I went to the Bridge. It looked like an openwork metal structure between the two banks of a western river, which I still consider the limit of my Tonal. Only about 200 meters, but the opposite bank was illusory, in a rainbow haze – and it seemed there were mountains, and some kind of passage. Along the sides of the bridge, pylons rose (like on the Pont Alexandre III in Paris). They ended in matte-white disks. As soon as we stepped onto the Bridge, a Flyer appeared above us – slightly ahead. My friend (a highly experienced hacker) vanished from the dream in the blink of an eye. But I went forward. The openwork side railings of the bridge turned into gratings, along which blue and green serpentines of lightning flowed. The gratings rose upwards, curved, entwined above my head, forming a vault, and then a beam burst from the Flyer. It hit one of the pylons. The entire bridge structure turned into a searing grill. The surrounding space filled with powerful static tension. Any movement triggered a burst of discharges that burned my brain, eyes, and pierced my body. I must have convulsed like an epileptic. I couldn't breathe. The concrete surface beneath me turned into a grated structure. My feet constantly slipped through. In short, it was horror.

I decided to reach the middle and see what would happen next. After all, I was stuck like an idiot. I thought, what difference does it make where I die – a meter closer, a meter further. In the middle, only my shell remained – everything inside had burned out. But the Lucid Dream did not dissipate, and the concentration was so intense that I saw everything – the air, composed of elongated fiery droplets; the Flyer, which descended onto the last pylon of the bridge and swelled, transforming into a black, enormous, and gleaming leech. Fifty meters remained to the edge. Flashes of fire and lightning obscured all visibility. I stumbled, fell onto the melting rods of the frame, and was surprised that absolutely nothing was happening to my hands. Standing up was impossible. The space above me pressed down with incredible force. I only managed to glance at the Flyer and smirk. Like, you lie – you won't take me. And that was it. I woke up fresh as a daisy.

The next day, a woman I knew and I were standing at a bus stop, intending to go to an important meeting. Behind us, a crackling sound erupted (oh, how similar it was to the lightning discharge from that bridge). The wall of a three-story building cracked, collapsing onto the bus stop, the sidewalk, and all the people who were there. Two died on the spot, three – in the hospital. My acquaintance got away with a broken collarbone and a concussion. She was thrown onto the roadway, otherwise, it would have been the end. My nose bridge was crushed, a split plank pierced my side, and since I was under the rubble for two hours, I miraculously didn't die from blood loss. Newspapers later reported that the building was under reconstruction. Construction debris pushed through the third-floor ceiling, and the subsequent collapse led to the wall falling.

Such are they, the Flyers. They play with our reality like dominoes. If they wish, they build something; if they wish, they tear it down. They are the masters of the Tonal.