DREAMSTATE

DREAMSTATE

By

K. R. King

The cold is in my teeth before I even badge in.

Not the hallway. Not the air. Inside. Root-deep, metallic—filamented, no, threaded—like something conductive has been pulled through the molars and is humming just under the threshold of sound.

I press my tongue against them.

Still there. Is she still there?

Persistent.

No—present.

Stop.

The door doesn’t open when I swipe.

Green light. Nothing.

Then—

click.

Late.

Delayed. Not late, that implies intention. Temporal lag. Micro-lag. Sub-second failure of alignment.

I step through.

The air meets me a fraction after I enter it.

The lab smells wrong.

Sweet first. Then antiseptic. Then something wet underneath both of those, like flowers left in water too long. Macerated. Softened. Slipping.

Oregano.

Why oregano. I don’t like oregano.

Oréganooo

Or

E

Gaaaa

No.

No.

Stop.

Lena is already inside.

“You took long enough,” she says.

The sentence lands.

Then lands again.

The second iteration fits more closely.

“It’s two in the morning,” I say.

That sounds like me.

Approximate.

“You need to see this.”

“I saw your texts.”

“I wasn’t exaggerating.”

“You sent me a microscope emoji.”

“That was the least alarming way to say it.”

Her voice is right.

Her timing is not.

Not incorrect. Not wrong.

Offset.

I step closer.

My foot lands.

The floor agrees.

After.

No—other way.

The floor lands. My foot confirms.

Stop correcting.

Walk slower.

Let the room stabilize around me.

The sample is already up.

Human epithelial cells. Postmortem. Forty-eight hours.

They should be gone.

They are not gone.

“They stopped degrading,” Lena says.

“They paused.”

“No.”

I lean closer.

The cells don’t look like anything.

That’s the problem.

They should be something.

Collapsed. Fragmented. Degraded into compliance.

Instead they’re—

held.

Maintained.

No—maintaining.

“Run it back,” I say.

“I’ve been running it back.”

“Again.”

Playback.

Stillness.

Then—

shift.

Not motion. Not response. Reconfiguration. Like the system is selecting from options.

“They’re not replicating,” Lena says.

I nod.

“They’re not degrading.”

I nod again.

“They’re—”

She stops.

“Say it.”

“Selecting.”

The word lands before she completes it. Like I was already forming it. Pre-articulated.

There’s a file open on the side monitor.

I don’t remember opening it.

⸻I check my hands.

They’re near the keyboard.

Near enough to be causative.

ZZYZX.

The word registers as recognition without recall.

Familiarity without origin.

“Where did this come from?” I ask.

“ZZYZX.”

“You didn’t mention that.”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

Everything matters now.

That’s not true.

That feels true.

Different.

I scroll. Fragments.

Noise. Semantic collapse.

One line intact.

Subject maintains identity in intervals. Degrades between.

Intervals.

Inter—val—fall—stall—

Stop. Stay with meaning.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

Incorrect.

Not the words.

The delivery.

⸻Too clean.

“Say something,” Lena says.

Why.

“Anything.”

No.

Yes.

“My name is Tessa.”

Everything aligns.

Clean. Sharp.

Resolved.

The cold disappears.

The smell disappears.

The lag collapses.

This is me.

Fully instantiated.

Then—

something engages.

Not interruption.

Not insertion.

Correspondence.

Like the sentence created a structure and something matched it.

Immediately.

I choke.

“Did you feel that?” Lena asks.

“No.”

False.

It’s not a voice.

Voice implies s-e-p-a—-r-a-t-i-on.

This is—

co-processing.

No.

No.

Stop.

I think something.

There is a delay.

Not silence.

Evaluation.

Like the thought is being parsed before it resolves.

“Lena.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever feel like—”

Abort.

“Nothing.”

Thread lost.

Thread → shred → bread—

Why bread.

Irrelevant.

There’s a sound in the….

Footstep.

I don’t turn.

Footstep again.

Synchronized.

Inhale—step.

Exhale—null

That is not a natural gait pattern.

I look at the glass.

I should not. My reflection is already oriented toward me.

Not static.

Not delayed.

Prepared.

I move.

It confirms.

Precision is too high.

There’s movement in the corner.

Not a shadow.

Not absence.

Positional suggestion.

A place where a figure would be coherent.

I do not look directly.

Observation collapses ambiguity.

My hands lose their edges.

I press them together.

Double sensation.

DOUBLE SENSATION.

Primary contact.

Secondary offset.

I s/e/p/- a/r/a/t/e them.

Offset persists.

That is incorrect.

“They’re not evolving,” I say.

My voice.

Mostly.

“They’re not dead either.”

More accurate.

“They’re-“

Word

l o ss

Gap.

I reach for it.

Nothing.

Then—

“Between.”

Not original.

Better fit.

The hum splits.⸻

One frequency becomes multiple.

Each holds contour.

If followed, each resolves toward structure.

Do not follow.

The air spaghttifies between me and the monitor.

Not recoiled ⸻

Resistant.

Interpretive density.

Like moving through unresolved meaning.

“Say your name,” Lena says.

No.

“My name is Tessa.”

Alignment again. Faster acquisition.

C L E A N E R.

The system recognizes the pattern.

It matches more efficiently.

I feel it.Closer.More precise.

I look at Lena.

Her face is stable.

Her meaning is not.

“Say it again,” I say.

“What?”

“Your name.”

She smiles.

“My name is Lena.”

The sentence lands.

Then lands again. The second instance integrates more completely.

The room holds it.

⸻Evaluates.

Retains—

⸻briefly. Before I do.

I don’t correct her.

Correction implies authority. Authority implies singular authorship. I am no longer certain that applies.

⸻So I wait.

Because if I respond too quickly—

the pattern transfers.

Because if I delay—

sometimes the original persists.

Sometimes.

And I am starting to understand—

not fully—

but enough—

that whatever is happening here

is not replacing me

it is refining through me

and the only difference left

between what I say and what it keeps

is timing.