My mind, heavy and foggy, fell into an unpleasant confusion. I swore, I cursed the incessant din around me. The noises of the neighbours, these familiar yet unbearable, resounded in my head, preventing me from finding even the slightest respite. After two sleepless nights, I had resigned myself to give up all hope of sleep, despite overwhelming fatigue. Then, all of a sudden, the air and the tumult stopped. Only a soft, soothing voice remained in silence.
It was definitely my lucky day, I thought, as I let myself be bewitched by this voice that seemed to rock me in a calm and insidious abyss.
Gradually, a metallic smell invaded my nostrils, an iron smell, heavy and persistent. Too exhausted to care, I let my thoughts escape in the darkness of sleep.
A few minutes passed, but a strange sensation grew in me. Why does this iron smell, heavy and persistent, persist, making its way into my senses, encrusted with an insistence that irritated me? Why did this voice, monotonous and yet strangely soothing, seem so close, when I should not have been surrounded by my loneliness? A shiver ran through me. But the fatigue, unavoidably, pushed me once more into unconsciousness.
Then, a light of unbearable intensity plucked me from my sleep. My eyes opened, and at once a flurry of pain passed through me. In an instant, a cold terror came to replace the pain and fatigue. A supernatural cold crept into my veins, paralyzing me. My thoughts collided with each other in a chaotic whirlwind. Had I seen a silhouette, a movement? Why did the voice seem so close, as if it were touching me, when I should not have been surrounded by my loneliness? Was it a dream turned nightmare?
Panic suffocated me. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my throat. I had to open my eyes again. Understand. Everything would become clear if I did this simple gesture.
My anxious nature faded. Frozen, unable to move, my mind was drowned under an avalanche of hypotheses, thoughts that collided and dispersed without logic. I could not hear the voice. It had been silent, absorbed in the unknown. I knew that it was enough to open my eyes, just a second. A fraction of a second, and all would be revealed.
But everything was gone. The light. The voice. The silence. All was gone, leaving only this iron smell, omnipresent, heavy, and always persistent.
Time dilated. The minutes stretched, seeming to merge with eternity. And then, an obsessive thought invaded my mind: I had to open my eyes, there was no more escape.
I took a trembling breath, gathering all the courage I had left. Then, with a determined movement, I opened my eyes.
A shock. What I saw froze my blood. It was not a figure, but a multitude. Hundreds of entities, floating in an abyss of darkness. Their presence, infinitely foreign, paralyzed me. But my gaze stopped on one of them.
It wasn't a man. It wasn't a woman. It was one thing. An entity humanoid, without traits, without sex. A form devoid of all humanity. It seemed to defy the laws of reality. An immeasurable presence, both angelic and demoniac, supernatural, unchanging. I knew without a shadow of doubt that it was from her that the voice came, calm, destabilizing. It floated in the air, raised above all, like a creature of another world, of another time. There was no heaven here. No light. Just an infinite void, an endless abyss, where these forms were floating, lost in the darkness. And he, the higher being, stood at the top of this scene, as a shadow of absolute power.
The stench of iron again overwhelmed me. My gaze descended, drawn by this unrelenting smell. What I saw seemed unreal. Human pieces, shredded, dispersed without order. My body froze. Disgust invaded me. I could only stare at these scattered pieces, frozen in a deaf terror. The horror embraced me. I wanted to scream, yell, but no sound came out of my mouth. I was no more than a silhouette trembling, paralyzed by fear, disgust, the absurdity of the scene. My bowels twisted, the nausea overwhelmed me. I vomited.
Just at that moment, a figure appeared beside me, like an invisible threat: 0:03, 0:02, 0:01...
Before I could think about what was going on, a flash of bright light blinded me. A voice, strong and authoritative, resounded in my mind, echoing in my soul:
[Beginning of the tutorial: "Selection of Elected Officials"]