SWNOVELXO Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Occupational Gear: Audial Phantasmagoria Headset · Modified Type
The frigid metal booth became a cramped sepulcher. The deep-gray headset pressed heavily against my temples, radiating a bone-deep cold. Yet these physical torments faded before the cognitive maelstrom unleashed within.
Countless sonic fragments—like billions of icy iron fingernails scraping neural tissue—scoured my mind:
"Hate! All must perish!"
"…Crackle… Nexus… Collapsing…"
"I… I'm lost… Where's the lantern…"
"Hehehe… Fresh… Want to taste…"
Visual phantasms flickered like putrid, accelerated slides:
A putrescent head rolling over tarmac…
Bloody footprints snaking down an empty corridor…
Sullied tear-tracks weeping from blackened walls…
Chaos! Anarchy! Corrosive! Gelid!
My brain felt like a shot-packed cannonball, synapses combusting under pressure. Vertigo and the agony of internal rending clawed at me—better to rip off the cursed headset, to face the Hyakki Yakō outside! Any torment was preferable to this slow, internal dissolution of the soul!
My fingers twitched towards the heavy ear cups—
*BANG!*
The metal door was wrenched open! Sister Meng's meticulously painted visage—a wrathful Vajra—filled the frame! Jaundiced light stabbed past her, casting elongated, grotesque shadows that made her crimson qipao bleed darkly into the gloom.
"Cease your caterwauling! Dirges belong in graveyards!"
Her voice, though low, pierced the informational tempest in my ears like a stiletto honed with venomous ice, embedding itself deep within my fractured awareness!
"Lift the receiver!" Her blood-crimson nail stabbed imperiously at the sickly-yellow phone on its stand, buzzing like a trapped insect. "Donning it is for call reception! Not indulging spectral laments and infernal karaoke!"
Her fury, a bucket of glacial brine, doused a sliver of my chaos-laden mind.
Reception?
Reception! The switchboard… receives calls…
Buzz—Buzz—BUZZ!
The yellow phone surged with frantic vibration! The heavy black handpiece bucked violently in its cradle, straining metal.
Simultaneously—
Inside the headset, the deluge of fractured sound and vision—that cataract of corruption—was seized by an invisible fist! Filtered! Compressed!
*EEEE—SCREECH!*
A burst of high-frequency static shredded auditory nerves!
Then—
The entire churning flood solidified, was violently stripped away! Only a singular, resonant sound remained—a monotonous drone echoing through metallic ventilation shafts deep within some forgotten edifice.
Cold! Hollow! Vacuumous!
Within this near-total aural void, a voice materialized: crystal clear, etched with faint current tremors, seeming to originate both within my own skull… and from the quivering receiver just beyond the grimy glass:
"…Hea…r… me…?"
Rasps scraped my auditory canals like rusted hinge pivots.
"…Netherworld… Customer… Service… at… your… disposal…"
The broken cadence, the guttural struggle… was my voice!
My own voice, emanating from the headset depths! A spectral mimic, or was the infernal device itself a living conduit?!
Unspeakable revulsion prickled from tailbone to crown, hair lifting in primal alarm.
I gaped, transfixed by the buzzing receiver croaking its cursed refrain. Mind utterly blank, terror freezing even the residual headache.
"Feeble whelp! Answer it! Or shall its convulsions splinter it to dust?!"
Sister Meng's impatient snarl lashed like a whip! She slammed a palm against the metal doorframe! *CLANG!*
The impact acted like a metaphysical plunger!
*BUZZZZ—BZZZT!*
The receiver's vibration escalated into a maddened, furious drone! The metallic hum in the headset suddenly warped, pierced by another sound:
*Scrape… Scraaape… Scraape…*
Like sharpened nails drawn slowly, deliberately across polished plate glass!
Minute yet excruciating, it scraped at the soul itself!
*Scrape… Scra…ape…*
Amidst this auditory violation, the phantom echo of my own service declaration—
Netherworld Customer Service at your disposal—
Was violently cut!
Signal breach! Intrusion!
Instantly—
A new voice exploded directly into my auditory nerve canal: minuscule, viscous, bubbling with grotesque effervescence.
"Saaave… me…"
My heart plummeted as if grasped by a spectral fist!
Scrape-scrape… Saaave me, Your Honor…! The frothing, bubble-laden words dripped with unadulterated terror. Each effervescent pop resonated like silt churning in an ear canal. They… they're coming! I know… know I erred! I yield! All secrets revealed!
This beseeching wretch… wasn't speaking through the phone! It originated inside the headset itself, permeating my very eardrums! Accompanied by the glass-scraping static, it formed an acoustic pincer attack!
Outside the booth, Sister Meng's theatrically composed face registered something beyond mockery—a fleeting gravity. Her ice-blade eyes narrowed, scanning me and the buzzing phone with the predatory focus of a hunting cat.
"Establish connection!" she hissed, the command imbued with absolute, chilling authority.
Connection? How?! Grab the screaming receiver? Or…?
The viscous, bubbling plea surged again: "…Can't escape! By the ghostly courts, help me! The page… the Page of Fate… I hid it… truly! Intact! Concealed… at…"
Hid it? Page of Fate?! The staggering revelation overwhelmed reason! Instinctively, reacting to the panic saturating the spectral whine, I rasped back into the abyss within my own skull: "…Where… where hidden?"
The words escaped before thought.
Simultaneously—
HUMM—!!!**
The deep-gray headset vibrated violently!
Within its plastic shell, two pinpoints of faint, utterly unnatural crimson luminance—like predatory vertical pupils opening in utter darkness—flickered into existence!
A torrent of inexplicable, current-like tingles erupted where headset met temple, flooding my scalp! As if tendrils were forcibly probing my cognition!
Preposterously!
The yellow phone before me—
The instant I articulated "where hidden"—
Its furious buzzing shriek instantly choked! Suppressed by invisible force!
The thrashing receiver abruptly stilled! Suspended a centimeter above its cradle, as if lifted by a ghostly hand!
My words! My query! Synchronously commanded both ends of this spectral link!
Within the headset, the bubble-drenched voice soared, clutching desperate hope: "Your Honor! Acknowledgement at last! Your resonance wards them off! Brief time! Listen! Hear the scrape… scrape-scrape… it marks the place! It…"
The voice distorted horribly, throttled: "…the clank… of my shackles… scraping the stones… as I fled years ago! Follow… the scrape! To… its source! Remember!! …And the redd—"
*CRRRRACK—!!!*
A deafening, horribly tangible snap—like thick bone fracturing—exploded within the headset! Brutally truncating the final cry!
Accompanied by this soul-stinging fracture, the bubbling terror—
Was extinguished!
Suffocated! Torn asunder!
Only the monotonous glass-scraping remained: *Scrape… Scrape… Scrape…*
Echoing with lethal intent in the newfound silence—like dragging iron chains through an empty crypt.
Post-fracture, the headset yielded only this malevolent rhythm. My skull vibrated with aftershocks; the aborted plea churned my stomach.
*…Crackle… Caller signal… terminated… Source untraceable…*
The headset's cold, synthetic emulation of my voice returned, tainted with hollow static:
"Netherworld Customer Service at your disposal…"
Its mockery was unbearable!
"Pfah! Pathetic!" Sister Meng's derisive snort cut through the booth. Arms crossed, her qipao shimmering coldly, her gaze pinned me like a hapless student driver stalled in a ditch. "First connection severed before onboarding completed! Netherworld comms engineers must be somnambulists!"
Instead of departing, she advanced. A hand, nails like lacquered blood, darted towards the anomalous headset!
No hesitation—preternatural speed—her target:
Not the ear cups—but the headset's plastic housing over the temporal bones, where the crimson pupils had briefly glared!
Her fingertip carried an unnerving, non-corporeal energy. Upon contact with the cold shell—
*FLICKER—!*
Two pinpricks of ash-pale luminescence—dying fireflies—flared at her touch and vanished!
Her fingers passed through the thick plastic shell!
She plunged her hand inside the headset's very structure?!
The violation of physics electrified every nerve! The circuitry? Residual malice? She'd thrust bare flesh into a techno-occult void?!
Sister Meng's expression remained impassive, only a slight crease between her meticulously drawn brows hinted at concentration. Her fingers probed the "impossible" interior for a suspended second—stirring unseen currents, tracing phantom circuits.
Then, she withdrew her hand!
Unharmed, yet delicately pinching a shard plucked from within!
An irregular, jagged sliver… like fragmented, semi-translucent obsidian? Ethereally thin!
Against her crimson nails, the fragment glowed with a murky chartreuse hue. Within, ghostly filaments of viscous crimson light—like congealed, fatty ichor—sluggishly pulsed, nauseatingly alive!
When extracted, the headset's scrape… scrape… amplified—sharper, crueler.
Bringing the grotesque shard to her eyes, Sister Meng's phoenix gaze narrowed. Examining the writhing crimson threads within, her lips curled into an expression of cold disdain and palpable revulsion:
"Tsk… Residue noise… adulterated with trace recordings?"
With the fastidiousness of handling contaminated waste, she flicked the fragment off her nails. It struck the damp wall like a malevolent slug, instantly adhering. The trapped crimson threads writhed in frenzied, silent agony—a grotesque death ritual.
Dismissing the shard entirely, her gaze re-focused on me, weighted with that familiar, spine-chilling appraisal:
"Rookie! Seems the snitch imp managed a useful fragment before discarnation. Twenty years… intriguing…"
She trailed off meaningfully, her eyes glinting with hazardous curiosity.
"Heed!" Her tone snapped with sudden, iron command. "On-site hardware augmentation commences! One twitch… one whimper disrupting my focus…"
A savage grin exposed her teeth. A blood-tipped nail pointed unerringly between my eyes. "…And these ghost-seeing orbs become my midnight chasers and wine! Understood?!"
Augmentation?! Inside this booth? On that cursed headset?! Eyeballs for hors d'oeuvres?!
Still reeling from the phantom call, the threat near-stopped my heart!
No protest formed.
"Observe!" Sister Meng snarled, a dramatic sweep of her brocaded sleeve like a crimson wave!
Her right hand—nails like sanguine talons—clawed viciously towards the patch of wall defiled by the embedded "sonic shard"!
*RRRRIIIIIPPPPP—!!!*
A sound like tearing layers of oiled canvas ripped the confined air!
In the weak light, before my dilated, horrified pupils—
Sister Meng's forearm, skin and crimson nail polish incongruous against the concrete, plunged effortlessly through the unyielding cement wall!
Elbow-deep into oblivion!
The wall surface remained unmarred!
As if thrust into solidified nothingness!
Her shoulder, wrist, and forearm protruded, maneuvering as if dredging through thick silt.
This cosmic violation of reality froze my blood.
A second—
Her arm retracted!
Hauling out something unseen!
*SHATTER—CLATTER—!*
A cascade, sharp like broken glass shards, followed.
A torrent of objects—reeking faintly of ozone and decay, multicolored, grotesquely misshapen—erupted from the wall's ghostly wound! Like the compressed ejecta of an industrial tech-shredder!
Fragmented circuit boards studded with solder scars!
Entwined cables: stripped, colorful insulation!
Shattered plastic chassis pieces!
Minuscule, charred, high-voltage-scorched microchips!
Assorted greasy, incomprehensible metal components!
…
This reeking tide of e-waste dross and viscous grime showered onto the concrete floor before me, instantly forming a miniature toxic midden!
The stench of burnt circuits and congealed lubricant thickened.
Sister Meng ignored the pile. She flicked her hand—cleansing non-existent residue. Then she raised her other hand—
The finger that had probed the headset now bore a faint, almost imperceptible smear of chartreuse slickness beneath the nail?
An expression of purest disgust crossed her features. She tapped the finger against the garbage pile—an infinitesimal gesture.
Yet—
The instant her finger completed its minuscule arc—
*HUMMMMM—!*
The dead detritus erupted! Tumultuous gray-black luminescence surged!
The heap's chaos coalesced! Shards, wires, plastics—magnetized toward a suspended focal point!
*WHOOSH—!*
The entire pile detonated upwards in a cyclone! Circuits twisted, wires writhed, plastic splintered—fragments screaming as they spun, collided, fused!
Metal shrieked! Plastic groaned! Components slammed together!
Frenzied particles merged, contorted, welded—in an eyeblink transformation!
The light flared blindingly, then died instantly!
Revealed—
Suspended in the air, hovering centimeters above the grime—
A grotesque, monstrous hybrid adapter. A chimera of signal conversion.
Its core: a fingernail-sized, scarred, carbon-scarred microchip rammed into a crushed, silver alloy ring.
Countless cables—coarse arteries thick with grime (red, blue, green, yellow)—snaked from the ring's pores. They tangled, braided, coiled into a Medusan knot—a writhing mass of metallic tentacles!
Their convulsed ends were soldered, jarringly, to a badly scarred, pitted, 3.5mm female audio jack—its plastic shell ravaged, internal brass connectors exposed like raw nerves.
Opposite—
Fixed brutally before the mangled chip, welded and bound with mechanical ferocity—
A massive, quad-core XLR female connector! Heavy industrial-grade. Dull with corrosion, its plug mechanism battered into near oblivion, as if savaged by industrial abrasives.
The entire construct screamed improvisation and imminent disintegration. Dark grease dripped from the twisted cables, exuding pungent, nauseating decay—burnt silicon steeped in rancid oil.
This… this was the augmentation?! Where? How?! Usable?!
Before comprehension dawned—
Sister Meng moved! Blinding speed! She seized the dripping, malformed adapter—this hell-spawned transducer!—with her bare hand!
Without pause—as if guided by occult precision—she rammed its filthy, corroded XLR spiked plug directly into the headset's plastic housing beside my left temple!
*THWUMP-SQUELCH!*
A muffled, visceral sound—like a searing poker penetrating chilled fat!
The metal XLR housing pressed against my skin! Reeking of rust and decay!
Simultaneously—
*VVVRRRRRROOOOOOOM—!!!*
The headset convulsed violently! Within its drab shell, intricate skeins of necrotic energy—eerie blues, sickly greens, bruised violets—suddenly blazed! Like igniting the veins of a slumbering wyrm! The cold, unholy radiance pulsed against my temple!
Crushing pressure fused with a constellation of icy lances drilling into scalp and skull! Beneath the persistent scrape… scrape…, a new sound emerged: a low, menacing turbine whine, building pressure!
Incredibly—
The yellow phone opposite chattered in sympathetic electronic distress—tick-tick-tick!—its casing humming faintly!
Sister Meng remained unfazed. Satisfied with the penetration, she rapped her knuckles against the protruding XLR shell!
TOK! TOK!
Testing signal stability like adjusting an antenna.
She withdrew her hand, casually wiping grimy fingers on the soft silk of her high-thigh qipao slit. An oily smear remained.
"Functional! Provisional signal boost—makeshift." Her tone was light, as if assembling a toy. She gifted me a predator's grin. "Congratulations, whelp! Proprietor of the 'Audial Phantasmagoria Headset · Modified Type One'! Bear it, become a walking Yin-Yang signal beacon! Reception on demand!"
She added languidly, eyes gleaming like a vivisectionist admiring a newly wired specimen:
"Minor caveat: power consumption spikes with 'Modified Type One' activation… prepare for an expanded view of the local… spectrum…"
Her warning ended.
The headset's turbine whine intensified! Low-frequency throbbing compressed bone!
The scrape… scrape… stuttered! Interrupted!
*EEEEE—ZZZZTTT!!!*
A surge of violent static tore through auditory pathways!
A distinct, masculine voice—deep, controlled, yet thunderstruck and vibrating with restrained fury—violently breached the chaotic frequencies within my skull. A signal forcibly intercepted:
"What?! The Demon-Severing Sword… resonates… residual traces… of the Page-thief wretch?! Proximity… the recent call nexus?! Secure coordinates! I journey there now—!"
Demon-Severing Sword?! Page of Fate?! Thief?!
The implications detonated!
Intercepted call?!
*HUMMMM—!!!*
The clarity, the fury of that transmission acted like white phosphorus dropped into oil!
Sister Meng's head snapped up!
All trace of detached amusement vanished, replaced by raptor-sharp intensity! Her gaze locked not on me, but on the infernal XLR transducer still oozing dark ichor where it joined the headset!
Deep within the corroded female socket's pins, faintest tendrils of corrupted energy—ghostly, green-black sparks, spitting interference—flickered violently like dying stars!