I was supposed to be a pioneer.
The neural-link experiment was cutting-edge— consciousness tethered to the cloud through quantum-synaptic pathways. They said it would change the world. What they didn't say was what would happen if something went wrong. And it did.
It started with a system overload—heat, noise, my mind torn apart at the seams.
Then—nothing. No pain, no breath, no body.
Just a terrifying silence.
In that void, I felt myself drift for a time unmeasurable—disconnected, weightless, unmoored from reality. My soul, if that's what it was, searched blindly for an anchor, and somewhere in the static of unravelling thought and quantum interference, I felt... a presence.