It takes about a couple of seconds for my brain to fully wake up after making a jump in time but because of the amount of time i spent in Amanda's body I needed a couple of minutes. My wake up time was based on how long I jumped
Whenever I returned was also based on the amount of time I spent outside my body divided by the number of hours in a day and the time it took my brain to recover was never static but the longer I stayed in the past the longer it took to recover.
I had only done two test runs apart from landing in Amanda's mind so I lacked the full scale of information I needed to calculate the precise returning and recovery time but with the two jumps I had enough to guestimate the fractions
*BLINK*
Ten minutes later I opened my eyes to a hazy and blurry surrounding and the inconsistent beam of light from the flickering lightbulbs dangling above my head also stung my pupils but as the time went on grad
I regained consciousness and jolted upwards changing into a sitting position with my legs stretched forward on the floor and my hands palms flat on the floor behind my back and supporting my weight*PANT*With lowered head which made my chin to press against my chest area I started to hyperventilate as my sight was once again hazy.*COUGH*"What... was... that?!" my voice had lost a considerable amount of quality*spin*Still in the same position and hyperventilating I turned my head to the left and looked at my matrix and everything I saw was spinning around accompanied with a ringing noise Lodged in the deepest part of my ears making me to go dizzy and seasick. I did the same thing looking at my set up by my right and got the same experienceThere were also power cells and the power cell boxes on the floor right beside the table with my set up on it. I
What they had just done was prepare themselves and their surrounding area especially the concrete circle they stood on and the same coloured platform in the middle of it which was a milk brown colour for what was about to happen while everything was in the dark parts of the forest and surrounded by large towering trees.Without saying a word two of the cloaked cult members stepped out from their gathered position and went in the west direction with one walking over to the platform and taking the rope with him before joining with his partner who had turned around to wait for him*step* *crack*They both walked slowly stepping on some branches on the ground with their bare legs and cultivating some cuts on them but with not a single sound coming off of their well covered bodies as their covered cloaks mixed with the darkness of the entire forest concealed every ounce of their skin.They both walked side by side until
*GULP*With eyes agape and the rock in my hand trembling almost falling off I stood in shock as everything I feared had come into reality, there was someone in the back of the vanIt was a little kid, a girl not older than Amanda dressed in a white gown which had now caught on some dirt and all chained up to the floor of the van with bruises around her hands and feet gotten from pulling too hard on the chains in trying to free herself"What the f*CK is this?!" I exclaimed almost going out of breath in the processThe girl had her mouth muzzled so she wasn't able to speak out her words and the sight of myself suddenly and forcefully opening the door with a rock in hand and concealed identity had filled her with more terror than she was already experiencing as she pushed herself back defensively while crying but the chain wasn't long enough so she got pulled down before getting another bruise from the impact wit
For a second the image of the people in front of me doubled and overlapped each other "What... was that?"*RUB*I felt behind my neck and made contact with a foreign object, a tranquilizer dart "What the—" and everything started getting woozy and dark until I couldn't stand anymore and made my drop to the groundFrom the ground I saw another cloaked shadow walk up to me and then everything went completely black but I hadn't lost consciousnessI would momentarily get visuals of what was happening around me then go back to black again and in those short lived images I would see more and more cloaked individuals surround me then carry me as I felt my body being raised and taken somewhere*crack* *crack*Everything was dark but lit to an extent by the light from the moon when I was by the van but after being raised and taken through an unknown path the light from the moon got obst
"Does that also mean that every single one of you has also—?" his smile gave the answer I needed to know and stopped me from proceeding with my question*TCH* "What about the girl?""Well, as long as others are concerned, she no longer exists" He kept his smile plantedI looked at the unconscious girl tied on the platform for a quick minute then alternated to looking at the red cloaked leader through the side of my eye "...Who are you people? Taking out your Log Chip isn't as easy or a straight up process as it sounds"'Apart from myself only people of a certain privilege could manage to do what I did'*step*He took another step closer and was standing directly below me "For that we will have to thank you Mr Akin Samuels" he gave me a malicious stareThe utterance of my name made my heart to skip a beat *BADUM*"You know me?"
I regained consciousness and jolted upwards changing to a sitting position with my legs stretched forward on the floor and my hands palms flat on the floor behind my back and supporting my weightWith lowered head which made my chin to press against my chest I started to hyperventilate as my sight was once again hazy."What... was... that?!" my voice had lost a considerable amount of quality*spin*Still in the same position and hyperventilating I turned my head to the left and looked at my matrix and everything I saw was spinning around accompanied with a ringing noise Lodged in the deepest part my ears making me to go dizzy and seasick. I did the same thing looking at my set up by my right and got the same experience*gruggle*From the bottom of my stomach I could feel it rising up to my chest then to my throat, I could feel the vomit coming"Hmm
Nothing else struck my attention until reached the major road and the time was already over 11pm about some minutes to 12pm and finding a cab at that time was really difficult but I had anticipated that scenerio and called for a cab on my phone and ten minutes after I got to the major road my driver pulled to a stop in front of me.Since I made the call in the restricted zone I routed the call to being made from somewhere close to the major road so as not to set up alarms as even call locations and everything else was being monitoredI got in then we headed home and the entire ride home I rested my head on the left passenger's seat window looking out and sometimes falling asleep and waking up on a different street but we kept moving.I lived in district V in Jade city which was one of the few remaining cities in Haven without a restricted zone and the restricted zone I was just in, the one with my bunker was that of the
On the map the restricted zones due to being under quarantine where highlighted red while the accessible areas where of normal colouring and even though there were less restricted zones compared to what I had known the fact that they were different from what I remembered was a discomforting sightApart from the restricted zones in red and the accessible zones in normal satellite view colours on the map there were also a third segmentation in black or rather a darker and almost shadowy colour on the map which was labeled Decimated/Renewal zones."What the— What does this mean?" I had my forehead scrunched up as I peered into my screenI pinched the screen to zoom out and get a better view as I was previously looking at a fraction of all the states in the United States and mostly at the states around HavenHowever there was the same thing happening all around the US."What the?" I held my head in conf