I think the most shocking thing about the change was that it wasn’t painful. Strange, certainly. A shift in perspective. Not painful. No, what I felt was something more like wonder—like an ant crawling across a circuit board, briefly comprehending all of computer history. For a few seconds, I knew everything. Maybe that’s why it was no longer painful to shuck away skin and bone, to feel the gradual peeling away of what I had been.
I think someone screamed, while I still had ears. But that meant little.
Like the ant on the circuit board, they would learn.
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