Noah gasped.

The cool metal on his chest had warmed. Inside his optical nerve lights independent of his thought sprang forward assigning variables. Catalogues of composition, size, mass were made, distances measured. Information streamed from the environment, no longer mere data, but an intrinsic substance of Noah’s perceptions.

He looked at Kebe and saw the bones under his cheeks, the storm of neurons within his brain. The heart was a juddering thing in his ribcage, the ventricles fluttering and flapping in their lifelong labor. Noah could count the red blood cells, and any other cellular organisms, for that matter at any given moment.

“Oh. Oh!” Noah gasped, tearing the medallion from his neck.
“You understand?” asked Kebe. “Do you know what it means?”
“I-I think I do. I saw the thing in your head.” It was a parasite of pure energy.
“Get it out.”
“Oh Jesus how?”
“Just try.” Kebe pointed at the medallion.
“What if I kill you?”
“I want the voices to leave me. Death would be a boon.”
So Noah tried.