I'm trapped in a cube

Buzz buzz buzz...

The intense tinnitus came again, and the leader fell backwards uncontrollably.

The only memory he had before he fell was the empty sky and the numbness of his whole body.

...

The film was still rolling, and the leader's story was not over.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

A thin layer of clouds covered the blue sky, the breeze blew the green leaves, and the strong smell of rust in the air had disappeared for some reason.

"What happened?"

The leader felt his thoughts were in a mess and his whole body was numb. He lay on the ground for a long time, and the previous things came to mind one by one.

He sat up from the ground, and the blurry double images were no longer in front of him.

"Where are they?"

The leader struggled to stand up from the ground and looked in the direction he came from. He found that all the team members had disappeared. The forest was empty, with only shaking trees.

He suddenly found that he was very calm. Even though he guessed that the team members might have met with an accident, he did not feel any anxiety.

The leader stood there, stiff for a long time.

"No suffocation, no hunger..." He calmly realized that something was wrong.

"I am not normal now, both physically and mentally."

The leader slowly put his hand on his heart.

He still remembered that his heart was beating very violently just now due to insufficient oxygen supply, but now it was unusually calm.

It was like it had stopped.

He put his palm on his chest for a long time, but he did not feel the familiar heartbeat.

"Huh? No heartbeat?"

He hurriedly felt it carefully again.

Finally, a weak beating came gradually.

Dong... Dong... Dong...

"There it is again... Was it an illusion just now?"

He looked at his palm, which was still a little numb at this time. Maybe this was the reason why he made a wrong judgment.

"And where did the rust smell go?"

The leader found that there was also a problem with his sense of smell, and he subconsciously touched his nose.

Wait! Why can I touch my nose?

"Where's my gas mask?"

He looked down quickly and found that the gas mask had fallen to the ground when he fell. At this time, he was not wearing a gas mask.

However, he did not feel any suffocation now. The choking air seemed to be purified suddenly, without any smell.

My breathing...

He found that his breathing had become extremely weak. In this oxygen-deficient environment, his breathing should have become rapid. How could it be so weak?

Everything became very strange.

The leader knew very well that either the environment had changed drastically or there was a big problem with his body.

Not only that, he realized that his heart was too calm, even calm.

The disappearance of his teammates and the changes in his body should have made him anxious, but at this time he was extremely calm, as if nothing could cheer him up.

He should have continued to escape after surviving the disaster, but he did not feel any sense of crisis at this time.

"What's wrong with me?"

He looked at his hands, then at the gas mask on the ground, and bent down to pick it up.

At this moment, the notebook given to him by the researcher fell to the ground from his pocket.

This notebook seemed to be more yellow than before, and the handwriting on it became a little blurred.

The team leader picked it up.

Because the situation was critical, he did not carefully read the contents at the back.

He used his numb fingertips to hook the pages, and the contents that he had not yet read appeared in front of him.

The researcher's handwriting was very regular. In addition to the reasons for accelerated oxidation, some conjectures were recorded in the back:

"Accelerated metabolism, energy failure, insufficient oxygen supply..."

The team leader's eyes swept over these fragmented words, and finally saw a word - enhanced consciousness.

"Enhanced consciousness? What does this mean?"

The team leader didn't quite understand.

Fortunately, there were brief explanations next to these words:

"Consciousness comes from electrical signals between neurons, and increased electronic activity will lead to enhanced consciousness..."

Seeing this sentence, the team leader immediately understood what it meant.

Consciousness is essentially a reaction of neurons in the brain to external stimuli.

When stimulated, neurons emit electrical signals, which reverberate between neural networks and become consciousness.

The more stimulation, the more intense the reverberation, and the stronger the consciousness.

Newborns are less stimulated, the reverberation of electrical signals is weak, and consciousness is not perfect. As the stimulation increases, the reverberation becomes stronger, and consciousness becomes clearer and clearer, and finally a balance is reached.

Adults are prone to mental illness when they are strongly stimulated, because the balance is broken and the consciousness is impacted.

Mental illness is just an adjustment mechanism, and the reverberating electrical signals need some time to reach a new balance.

But even if the new balance is adjusted, the consciousness is different from that of normal people.

In short, consciousness comes from the reverberation of electrical signals.

"However, on this empty island, the electronic activity will increase..."

This results in a small stimulus that can produce a violent electrical signal reverberation, and the balance of consciousness will be instantly broken, leaping to a higher level.

"Doesn't this mean that everyone will become mentally ill as long as they stay on this empty island?"

The team leader is not a professional researcher, nor does he understand those professional biological knowledge. He can only draw such a conclusion based on the existing knowledge.

However, he always feels that the researcher's meaning is not just this, but now the researcher's life and death are uncertain, and he can't get to the bottom of it.

"I don't feel that my consciousness has been enhanced..."

Those active electrons should have filled his body long ago, but except for feeling that he was unusually calm, his thoughts did not change at all.

"What does it mean?"

Suddenly, the team leader thought of a possibility:

"Could it be that my consciousness has been enhanced?"

Associated with the changes in his body, he suddenly had a terrible guess.

He hurriedly found a branch on the ground, broke it hard, pulled out a wooden thorn, and poked it towards his numb fingertips.

"Sure enough, there is no bleeding."

Even if the wooden thorn was pulled out, there was still no blood flowing, and he didn't feel any pain.

The team leader looked at the fingertips and frowned.

He put his hand in front of his nose again, feeling the weak breath.

Then, he held his breath.

One minute, two minutes, ten minutes... His hand was always placed in front of his nose.

He counted silently in his heart, and as time went on, the terrible guess was slowly confirmed.

"I didn't feel suffocated. In fact, I didn't need to breathe. It was only because I thought I needed to breathe that my lungs started to move."

Then, what about the heartbeat?

He put his hand on his chest again, and this time he didn't need to count down for a long time.

He just had to silently say "I don't need a heartbeat" in his heart, and then count down for three seconds...

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

Just like that, the heartbeat stopped.