January
No moon
No streetlights

The highway is silent
I think it's been a few hours
Every night the fog is thicker and darker
Too dense to drive
I left my car in the dirt
With the hazards on

The ground pulses a deep shade of red
Brakelights
A heartbeat in the earth
Frequencies
Oscillations
Waves
A red lighthouse
An empty sea
It fades into the distance
As I sink into the treeline
Nothing but the sound of gravel crunching underfoot

There's something deeper in the trees
Drawing me in
High up in the looming evergreens
Suspended in the air
Pulsing
Beating
Pumping blood
A vivid red radiating
Through the thick groves
In each heartbeat
Every branch and leaf glows
Emerging from the night
Then vanishing again

The Machine
A creature of metal
Gangly and towering among the trees

Something invisible
Is in the air
Passing through me
Burning into me
Like a million staring eyes
A rhythm you can never hear
A light you can never see
Resonating in distant and unseen places
A mass of neurons
Crossing the entire world

Even now
As these silently written words
Speak a voice into your head
The maw of the machine whispers in every mind
A silent rhythm
A hole at the center of everything
Hidden in the algorithm