You were laughing on the patio deck with friends when the tone rang out from the sky. It sounded odd so you looked around and saw nothing. It was sharp, but with long decay. If felt like it was coming both inside you and in the sky. Your friends question you and you pass it off. None of them seem to notice when the tonal melody rings out again. You look up to see a series of four bright stars in diamond pattern in the sky. You ask them if they see it too.
They don't.
You're starting to feel woozy as the melodic tones speed up and alter slightly. They ask you to sit town. You try to turn around and stumble as you try to do so. Your hand shoots out to grab the railing, but a tattered, worn-looking paw grabs it instead. Slippery. You fail to do even that and grip the floor boards of the ship, dry heaving. The tone still rings out. Your orangish fur flows in the breeze and your shipmates laugh at you, trying to hoist you up.
You point to the mocking stars while they speed up and hum... They ignore you and try to drag you off. Grumbling, you shift your weight to lean on one of them, and meet metal on car door. You fall from the hovering car a short distance and your chassis slams into the ground. You cough, and heft yourself up without too much effort. The lights from the tall city building gleam against your metal, but the light from the stars is even brighter. Blinking melodically as you drag your chassis further.
Your friend catches you, and you can remember his name. It comforts you for a moment and you see the deck below you. The roaring is still louder now, and the world is spinning. the shifts happen in shorter intervals and time melds into space. Objects become concepts and concepts become distant memory flashing in the miniseconds of time between shifts. The house, the ship, the building and the forest and things you can barely make out. Spinning swirling. beating. thumping.
The stars are a constant now, swirling into a bright diamond above you as objects and memories swirl in front of you like a tornado. beautiful chaos flashing in the color of your eyes. It all forms a gigantic tree of swirling thought, loud and chaotic. You aren't screaming anymore, but you just stare, amazed. It slows faster than it started. Thoughts become easier to grasp and shifts calm and the tornado fades into objects that become clearer again. focused. You breath. Gasping, but you breath
"Do you need help, Mx. Tul-viska? Shall I call someone?" The driverless hovercab calls to you. You shake your head, and query your internals. When you're satisfied that everything is fine, you file the incident away to examine later. Tul-Viska.. that was your name, right? of course. You still have memories of other things but.. creative ideas? No time to examine now. Chassis clanks on sidewalk and you climb the stairs to the building for your meeting.
@Oneironott That was beautiful, hon. :-)
Your internals remind you that you don't need to dry heave, but you curse them and do so anyway. Your fabric-wrapped claw digs into the dirt and you hear your members of your tribe's scouting part whispering. You remember their names. You remember everything and nothing. You remember remembering things before but not now. Your head spins and the humming is growing louder. Maybe you are screaming, but you do not know. Your wings beat waves of dust in dirt, and you manage to stand with a stumble.