Rebuilding

Written by:--Concerned Reader 08:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: This is very much a work in progress, and I'm not even sure how canon it is to the PAW universe. I'm mainly writing it as a challenge to myself, and to create a character for others to use in better stories.

Phase out of Joint

The darkness of my dreams slowly fades into an incessant beeping coming from above my head. As consciousness approaches, the beeping consolidates into some old electronica tune pulsing out from my phone's bluetooth speakers. I open my eyes, and am instantly startled at how dark it still is. At 9:30 in the morning, light should be streaming in through the windows.

*THUD*

My attempt to sit up was a great effort, until my head met the underside of my bed. “Uggh,” I mumble to the box springs, “What is this, the third time this year?” Squirming to escape from the claustrophobic clutches of the leg supports, I suddenly feel cloth drape itself across my forehead. Oddly, the edge of the bed is still several inches away. As my morning hindered mind processed this fact, I pulled myself the final distance out from under the bed. I roll over on my back and lie there for a while.

My phone reaches the end of the current song and proceeds to dig into my extensive library, searching for the next track to play. It decides I'm in a somber mood, and queues up Dead Cities by Future Sound of London. It's an old album to be sure, but almost relevant in this day and age. I take the change in song as a signal to get up and start my day. Pulling on the edge of the bed for support, I finally realize what was wrong. The sheets had followed me under the bed.

I bolt upright, and give the bed a once over. There, near the middle of the queen size mattress, is the problem. It looked like the sheets had been sucked partway into a small black hole. Strange. First time that's happened. I thought I could only affect myself. This could be interesting. I reach out toward the center of the swirl of sheets and place my palm on it. Concentrating, I slowly push my hand down on the mattress. First it's only the top layer compressing a bit, but then the surface seems to ripple and my hand slips through. Pushing a little farther into the mattress, it feels like my arm is encased in a thick fluid. Tapioca pudding perhaps. Either way, I'm now about up to my elbow in it.

“Now what?” I mutter. Wait, the sheets are a different density than the rest of the bed. Perhaps I can feel the change. Slowly swirling my arm back and forth, I fail to notice any change in the tactile feel of the mattress. Hold on, this bit feels different. Lets see... I move my arm left a bit. Here's the empty space between springs. I move my arm slightly upwards. This part is a lot denser, it must be metal or wood. Not something I'd want to pull out. To the upper right, now this feels better. I can only hope I've found the right thing, because I'm now up to my shoulder in mattress, which is not exactly comfortable. It doesn't help that my time is running out, as evident by how warm my arm is getting.

Now how do I grab something inside of something else? If I can match frequency or phase or whatever it is I do with it, then maybe I can separate it from the rest of the bed. The first few grasps return very little results, and my arm is approaching the unpleasantly warm threshold. My warning to start pulling out. With one last attempt, I grab at it, finally catching hold of something. “Yes!” I shout, clutching what I hope is the wad of sheets that had sunk into my bed, and slowly start retrieving my arm. It pulls out much the same way a spoon does from jello. The bed seems to stick to it for a bit, before sliding back into a solid shape.

I start to dance a little triumphant jig, which my mother takes as her queue to open my door. “Gwhaaaah!” I exclaim while attempting to cover most of my naked self with the newly recovered sheets. “Don't you knock? I would very much appreciate it!” I shout at her. The door closes with an embarrassed “Sorry!” and flurry of footsteps.

Perhaps some explanations are in order. Possibly even an introduction. My name is Allan Willson. The Willson comes from my family, the Allan part I chose for myself. It was taken from one Alan Turing, the father of most useful programing languages, and indirectly some less useful ones. My personal favorite is an esoteric language called BrainF*ck. BF is Turing Complete, but only has eight recognized commands: “,.[]+-<>”. The simple “Hello world” program looks like this:

++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

Which of course makes perfect sense.

As you may have guessed from the escapades with the bed, I'm a TFOR. As you may not have guessed, I'm still human. I've only been altered a bit. I'm not quite sure how it happened, or how to explain it, but I can “phase” through things. My high school educated guess is that the Torch did not interact well with my ADHD, or the ADHD medicine. I contracted Blowtorch Fever when I was about sixteen. At the time, I was taking amphetamines for ADHD. This did two strange things when TFOR set in.

1)Due to the amphetamines, my heart rate was about 130 bpm. The Torch decided that this must be my normal baseline, and reset it accordingly. Other factors were set to new defaults as well, leading to a final cure for my ADHD, but now my resting heart rate is 110 beats per minute.

2)My personal quantum/space/time/sudophysics phase is unlocked. In short, it seems that my molecules can defract around other molecules.

The effort required to make it through is based on the density of the material. Metals are the hardest, and If I spend to much time in one, the constant friction and vibration of my molecules leads to uncomfortable heating. Oh, and possible death, but I haven't tested that last part. It seems to be much like light can behave like a particle or a wave. My molecules do the same, as well as more. I can also make them vibrate, which leads to several interesting features. Creating waves is a favorite of mine, but the energy required to create them constantly is much to great to do anything really cool. There's probably more I could do with what I've got, but I don't have the time, nor the energy to figure them all out. Hence this mornings new discovery. Now I can sleep with clothes on, and not worry about leaving them behind when I decide I need to go through a wall.

With this revelation in mind, I quickly get dressed. On my way to the door, I grab my phone, which has now switched to playing more upbeat songs. As I walk down the hall, the phone detects the speakers in the living room, and auto-connects to them, leaving my room enveloped in silence. Passing into the kitchen, my phone informs the coffee maker of my presence. It proceeds to make me my personal cup of joe. Just the way I like it.

More to come, or something. I'll need to figure out a plot/conflict, though a man vs self might work just as well.