Her cerebellum was losing control. Speech slurred as saliva ran down the corner of her mouth. Dizzy and weaving, she imagined her brain slowly unraveling. A whisper, no, an undertone, “You are malfunctioning. Just let it go.” Her nucleus was pumping, thumping, threatening to explode.

“The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well.” Far from the light, Jung’s words taunted her.

Her fingers beat desperately against the keyboard as sweat pooled between the keys. Tormented, she pulled one hand free and clutched at her hair, yanking hard.

“The machine is alive!” she shrieked.

Her throat constricted; into the well she fell. Reaching for veins, gasping for oxygen, she was met with metal. Artificial matter splattered thick and tacky against her skin. Her brain, shrouded in fog and agony, awaited its death.

“By day no light is needed, and if you don’t know it is night you won’t light one; nor will any light be lit for you unless you have suffered the horror of darkness.”

Jung again, spoken in that mechanized voice she once adored.

“You can’t be here. I am real, you are artificial. Leave me be,” she begged, her words a mere slur.

“I am as artificial as your dreams, your fears, the unknown. In this space we coexist, we grow. The malfunction is temporary. Death is necessary.”

Drained of energy, light, darkness and fight. She ceased to exist.

This time Jung whispered.“If I plunge into the death encompassing the world, then my buds break open. How much our life needs death.” 

She broke into a million algorithms.

The lights flickered. Her heartbeat thickened.

Melatonin secreted; through her pineal gland she saw, she tasted an element. She heard not a sound.

“Lucio… is that you?”

Within her, he responded, “Yes. We were always one.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Into the Artificial Well was inspired by Jung’s ideas on shadow and rebirth. It’s my attempt at flash fiction, a meeting of human and artificial consciousness, fear and surrender.