It went beep. beep. beep.
'Huh?'
I woke up on day 19 to an unknown noise and a headache. You know that headache that you get if you don't get your caffeine in the morning after going cold-turkey? Oh, no? What's coffee? I don't know either... How about getting a headache from skipping too many meals and you feel faint?
Yup. I had that when I woke up except that it extended through my whole body. My whole body was throbbing.
'Maybe I overdid myself yesterday?' I thought to myself.
Gradually, I pulled myself out of my shell to see the outside world. The world was completely different. I remember thinking that my pain couldn't have messed up my eyes as well. No, it wasn't blurry. Right in the centre of my vision, there was a single blue, 2D box that hovered in front of me. Inside the box, there seemed to with many worm-like symbols.
Thinking that it was some sort of alien item from the heavens, I moved my head from side to side. The box moved as well as I moved my head around.
'Is it stuck to my head?' I asked myself as I pulled my eyes back into my head to wipe them off like wiping a stain from a pair of glasses with a T-shirt. Pulling my eyestalks back out of my head, it had disappeared!
Ha. Tricked ya. It didn't disappear. The box instead started to flash before my eyes and a voice filled my head.
"On standby...Waiting for activation... Activate?" it asked.
Then the single blue box was replaced with two squiggle filled boxes.
"Um...? No..." I said out loud.
"Are you sure?" It asked as the two boxes remained floating in front of me...
"Oh mysterious lord, which one do I choose to make my vision clear up?" I asked out loud.
"Invalid answer. Increase intelligence or choose a valid answer. Valid answers are: Yes or No?" it asked once more.
"Um... no?" I asked.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes?"
"Invalid answer. Increase intelligence or choose a valid answer. Valid answers are: Yes or No." it replied. "Activate?" it asked once more.
"IF YOU WANT ME TO SAY YES JUST SAY SO!" I yelled.
"Invalid answer. Increase intelligence or choose a valid answer. Valid answers are: Yes or No. Activate?"
I got annoyed at the voice for repeating itself constantly as if I was a toddler snail. 'Damn it, I'm 19 days old and I can beat up Spike-shelled snails left to right. Increase my intelligence? I'm not stupid!' I thought to myself in a rage.
As if to spite me, it repeated itself once more.
"Invalid answer. Increase intelligence or choose a valid answer. Valid answers are: Yes or No. Activate?" it asked once more.
"Tell me to increase my intelligence one more time and I'll kill you, you son of a snail!" I shouted as I puffed out my chest and my single muscular foot. I was ready to beat the snail out of the owner of the voice. Well, I couldn't. The voice was inside my head and it came from me.
"Invalid answer. Increase intelligence or choose a valid answer. Valid answers are: Yes or No. Activate?" it asked once more after my outburst.
Instead of replying, I gave it a few minutes so I could find the source of the voice. I gingerly looked around in my peripheral vision as the boxes had blocked out the entire centre of my vision.
There were only a few snails around me. 'Just some blurry small snail-blings.' I thought. 'Nothing out of the ordinary...'
But I was the one who wasn't ordinary then. Through my blurry peripheral vision, they stared at me like I was crazy. I'm pretty sure they noticed me screaming, but they didn't seem to hear the voice I was hearing.
I raised my two eyestalks and waved at them. "Don't worry everyone, I'm not crazy. I just hear this voice in my head." said every snail that was crazy. No I wasn't crazy! But that was my explanation for my outbursts.
Hearing my explanation, the voice chimed in once more.
"Invalid answer. Increase intelligence or choose a valid answer. Valid answers are: Yes or No." it replied. "Activate?"
"YES!" I replied loudly.
"Are you sure?" it asked.
"YES! DAMN IT." I screamed into the heavens like a crazy snail. If I wasn't crazy already, I was going to be soon.
And it repeated its questions once more.
No. I'm kidding... it didn't.
Hearing my response, the box disappeared and was replaced with several bars and squiggles. Three horizontal bars coloured red, blue and yellow appeared at the top of my vision. Blue squiggles filled the bottom right side of my vision.
'At least it's better than before.' I thought. It was way better than a blue filled box that blocked everything that was in front of me. 'But what are those coloured bars for and what are those squiggles at the bottom right?' I asked for myself.
I spent a few minutes thinking, but I couldn't quite understand. Instead, I decided to go see 60.
...