The object decided to hover exactly one Galactic Meter (GM) above the ground. Now this may lead one to inquisite two things:

1. If it “decided” to act this way, is it sentient?

2. What is the conversation rate between Galactic Meters and Earth meters?

The former can be answered with an unequivocal “no,” although this answer must be kept mum so as to avoid hurting the object’s feelings leading it to spiral down the narcissistic well of solipsism and give a lecture fit for a first year philosophy student about the impossibility of proving that any creature aside from oneself is sentient. However, given that the object lacks a mouth, respiratory system, or any other organ with which creatures typically communicate, this seems an unlikely outcome. In fact the object has had a bit of an attitude lately and if you were interested in deflating its ego, that would be fine. Again, though, the object lacks the organs required to listen to such insults, so one’s time might be better spent elsewhere.

… and the conversion rate between Galactic units and SI units is 1 to 1.

Layne remained blissfully unaware of either of these things while she stood gazing into the sheen of the object’s surface. “Good morning Captain,” a voice echoed through her mind “I am your Page.Pairing sequence initiating.”

The full weight of her situation didn’t strike terrify or amaze or even really occur to her. When a thing happens to someone it is simply accounted for as something that is possible. It is later, while digesting the occurrence, where people tend to have trouble. Layne was old enough to start developing lies to reinforce her limited worldview, but young enough that she lacked the skill in self-deception necessary to drive herself mad in the attempt to see this circumstance as anything other than what it was: the reason she missed the school bus.

There wasn’t anything particularly awful about missing the school bus. This wasn’t the first time she had to walk to school. She would just be late to first period. Layne fought the urge to skip altogether. It was just social studies. Reading from a textbook and rewriting what she read. She fought herself again. That was the kind of thinking that had almost gotten her held back the previous year. She couldn’t afford to let those thoughts win. This is when grades started to really matter. If she wanted to go to a good college she would have to start taking every class seriously. Even the boring ones. Wait. Layne realized she had been staring at the most interesting thing she had ever seen (Possibly the most interesting thing ANYONE had ever seen) and she was thinking about SOCIAL STUDIES. Her least favorite class had distracted her from a real life alien artifact. She added this to the list of reasons she hated social studies and decided to get a closer look. Sure, she could get injured, maimed, even killed by the strange object, but any of those outcomes would be better than her boring life in this boring world.

She wasn’t always this passively suicidal. She used to see magic in everything. She used to think the world was full of mysteries and wonders. Slowly, though, life had sought out and exterminated every ounce of magic with cold hard facts. A man in a bigfoot costume. Her parents replacing baby teeth with money while she slept. Wrapping paper in her parents’ closet that happened to look exactly like the wrapping paper “Santa” used. Haunted houses that contained nothing but cobwebs and scared children trying to scare each other even more. A thousand stories that conveniently occurred in places she had never set foot. Parasomnias. Carbon monoxide asphyxiation induced hallucinations. Just plain old drugs. Every stone she turned revealed nothing but mud. She had kept looking, though, and not in the way most people do; quietly ignoring faulty logic because they wanted something to be true. Well. Sometimes she let things go and just went along with the lie. Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes it was necessary. She became aware of having lost focus again. She shook her arms and legs and head, mimicking one of the warm up exercises she’d been taught in Drama class. It was supposed to get her out of her own head. It didn’t work. She continued to stare into the object. Not at it. Into it. And it returned her gaze. It peered past working memory, she became lost in thoughts about her to-do list. It continued into ideas, beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and into the parts of her brain to which even she lacked access. Into her spinal cord and through every efferent and afferent nerve in her body. It flooded into even the smallest crevices of her brain. She was lost in a torrent of everything her mind contained. She was that torrent.

And then it stopped. She gasped at the shock of what she had just experienced. Unfortunately, this happened at the exact moment that her stomach decided to expel its contents. She seized and fell onto the ground attempting to cough. Layne began to die. Or she would have were it not for the magical floating artifact keeping her mind intact. She is the protagonist, after all.

(This is what I have so far. I'll add more as I think of it.)

Edit: Thank you all for the support. I seriously choked up at the Douglas Adams comparison. I can't think of a better compliment.

Continued at royalroad (pending approval).

Title: The Adventures of Lightspeed Layne.

Author: Gacusana