Beyond the Glasses

At first, no one thought that the current form of VR and bulky devices worn over the head or as glasses were anything but prototypes for the scaled-down version of what the fictional nanobots could erect and destroy inside the eye itself. It was considered science fiction and many futurists resisted the idea of using the liquid monsters to connect a person's core. In fact, any mention of the molecular machinery of any type had to be carefully worded and was regulated to the more serious realm of medicine and neuroscience. The idea that an LCD screen could form as easily as an eyelid and recede just as quickly with, well within the blink of an eye, was scoffed at and venomously disregarded as futuristic geek speak or worse, monster strong AI.

Regardless, S0phie poured the liquid into her eye before Bailey could tell her anything more about what was inside the Visine bottle and finished the phrase “Bottoms up” before her now frantic and panic-stricken assistant Bailey had a chance to inhale.

“How many drops did you put in??? WTF S0ph, I'm not even sure what that’s going to do! “Dammit”!

“Relax, Bay, I’m dying anyway for Chrissakes, what the hell do you think this will do? _Really, Really, kill me?

Bailey didn’t have time to consider Sophie’s logic before she noticed the thin membrane-like silk that was weaving itself while creeping its way up and forming over the sclera of S0phie’s eye.

“What the?? What the... Oh, this is COOL!!” Sophie jumped up from Bailey’s toilet where she was being, “worked on” and flew in front of the bathroom mirror.

“Don’t touch” Sophie’s fingers had immediately gone up to her bottom lid to open the eye wider. She slapped Baileys protesting hand away and used both of her own hands as if inserting a contact lens.

She jumped away from the mirror just as quickly and shook her head back in forth, stopping and staring at the ceiling, then the floor, to the left then right, widening her eyes, then finally shut them for a moment.

Bailey helped her back to the safety of the toilet.

“I can see it.” Sophie stumbled and steadied herself by holding onto bailey's forehead and the toilet paper, knocking the roll off of its dowel and nearly pushing Baily into the tub. Bailey crouched and grabbed at S0phie's shoulders to steady her as well as herself.

As they both stabilized Bay drew closer into S0phie, tightened her grip on her shoulders as she focussed on the thin veil that was now encompassing S0phie's entire Left eye.

“It’s the monitor”. It’s backward” Bailey said the words half in disbelief and in total awe while trying to grasp how or even why it was actually working.

“I’m on the grid Bailey, I’m there.

Bailey lost her grip on S0phie’s knees and plopped onto the bathroom floor.

"what do see?" "What's going on?" "Is there a sound?" Do you have access to your avi??" Bailey was back up at Sophie's knees like a little kid rummaging through presents under the tree, but Sophie remained silent and her face grew serious as all expression slid down into a sort of motionless blank.

Bay let her hands slide down Sophie's legs as she plopped back down onto her bottom and she remained there wedged between Sophie, toilet, and tub for an excruciating thirty seconds or so until she saw a tear start to form in Sophie's right eye. Bailey eased up a bit and put her hand on Sophie's knee when she noticed sophie's frozen look abruptly animate with the quivering of her lower lip.

Sophie put her own hand on Bailey's and said, "I'm alright Bay, it's just that I've been sick for so long that I~" Bailey started to rub the side of Sophie's leg as she tried to articulate what had just happened to her. The silk membrane in Sophie's eyes began to dissipate and the blueish light that seemed to be coming from just under that spider web thin substance faded back into the reflection of her eyes. Sophie wiped the tears from her face, wiped her nose with her hand a bit and continued "I just forgot what it was like to be able to fly."