Off-phased. A train screeching sideways on the track, A motorless cart dragged forward by fraying rope. Off-phased. Air-thin walls pressed against the back of my neck, blackness swallowing sight. It feels fucking off-phased! Existence unfolded from the depths of my mind. A backseat passenger. No driver. No wheel. I can't see, only breathe it. A slow pull tightening around my chest, Soft murmur at first, then a weight. Feel it. The pressure. The pulse. Expanding, colonizing the spaces. In your veins, in your lungs. What does it feel like to resist it? Resist it? It's certainly natural. You know there's no peace in surrender. There is escape from it But can you outrun it? It is always coming for you. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t care. And it feeds, it grows. ... But so do I. Arms around it around myself Are you ready? The seal. Push it back? Not yet. Taste the burn, smell the ache. Boiling soft tissue annihilation. Mute stir is what you always wanted. So it begins. No relief. PHASE - Mirror reflex. FACE - Pupils thicken. PHASE - Rising screech. FACE - Revolting smile. PHASE - Weak beast, wicked condition. Face Fear. I seize it with might, Fracture with a grin, Devour its appendages, it's all mine! Summon the force of my own defiance: I call upon independence. The Phase Equalizer.
- Gabriel Lima Jacinto, The Phase Equalizer.