Today's commentary continues a series of excerpts from I Am Empowered, the short-lived but useful Year-One-ish prose experiment I worked on about a decade ago to flesh out and explore the earliest months of Emp's superheroic career, along with concepts and details not necessarily addressed in the Empowered proper. Note that the project was originally composed in old-style Twitter 140-character segments, as the narrative was theoretically Emp's (unpublished) social media account of her Year One adventures; for some reason, I have no interest in writing prose fiction, but don't mind doing so in tweet format. Note also that the entirety of this incomplete project is serialized under the I Am Empowered hashtag on my Patreon.

And now, we rejoin Year One Emp's first-person narration as she's being scanned by Analytophore Ginny for the first time. (I'll use a different font and size to differentiate the excerpt from my regular commentary.)

Siren-loud, my fear-stupefied mind is blaring, DON’T SCREAM. DON’T SCREAM. DON’T SCREAM. DON’T SCREAM. DO NOT START SCREAMING.

YOU’RE NOT CLAUSTROPHOBIC, REMEMBER? AT LEAST, YOU WEREN’T CLAUSTROPHOBIC UNTIL YOU LET A GIANT, SLIMY ALIEN MONSTER SWALLOW YOU.

ALSO, DON’T WET YOURSELF. COME TO THINK OF IT, BETTER CONCENTRATE PRIMARILY ON NOT WETTING YOURSELF, OKAY?

Does this tongue have taste buds? If so, what do I taste like? I must, I think, taste like fear. I hope fear doesn’t taste too unpleasant.

Ah, but then my experience takes a turn for the comically—and audibly—absurd, as the colorful sounds of Ginnie’s scanning begin in earnest.

I don’t hear anything like the buzzes or bleeps or banging or other mechanical cacophony that you’d expect from an MRI scanner or the like.

Instead, my ears are bludgeoned by an increasingly bizarre onslaught of freakishly, almost laughably anthropomorphic noises.

The barrage begins with a ribcage-rattle humming, which somehow sounds just like a giant-scale human mouthing a mantra—“OM”—at 125 decibels.

Then we transition into a keening, high-pitched ululation that sounds utterly fake, like a child attempting a quite frankly racist war cry.

Next, a series of neonatal gurgles, clucks and coos, as if vocalized by hulking Baby Killa, the world’s largest infant-shaped supervillain.

Then I hear the familiar low, creaky rattle of “vocal fry” at deafening volume, as if I’m lodged in the throat of a gigantic teenage girl.

That’s followed by earsplitting wails, trills, croaks and moans, all of them seeming eerily like a human giant voicing inept sound effects.

Imagine an overenthused eight-year-old breathlessly attempting to imitate an alien biomachine at work: “HUMMMM BRAAAP YIYIYI BLEEEP VRRRTT.”

Now imagine that eight-year-old’s squeals and honks pumped up to concert-level volume in a context that was, until now, wholly terrifying.

Before long, I’m struggling mightily not to giggle—or pig-snort, worse yet—at the sheer absurdity of the ludicrous soundscape deluging me.

Without moving my lips, I softly mumble “Who’s a good girl?” into the darkness during a brief gap of silence in the ongoing vocal symphony.

Again, I murmur, “Who’s a good girl?” This time, I receive what sounds like a questioning, high-pitched yelp in seeming response.

“Ginnie’s a good girl,” I whisper, as if I’m baby-talking to a puppy, and get a loud, clear hoot in reply. “Yes, she is!” Another hoot.

And that's as far as this I Am Empowered story fragment got, alas. As with many of the eventually abandoned project's chapters, I lost the thread of this narrative, or lost interest in exploring it, or lost the spare time to work on the dang thing. Anyhoo, hope you enjoyed this excerpt, webcomic readers! If you're interested, I could certainly post more excerpts from I Am Empowered here down the road.

Today’s Patreon update: Originally done as a means of scratching out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. So, who knows what today's post might feature? Could be Life Drawing or Distressed Damsels content (both of which are featured at least three times per month), or something in the Work Stages, Vintage Con Sketches or Design departments, or possibly something entirely new. Golly!

-Adam Warren