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I thought that it would have killed me, and so I was quite perplexed when I realized, afterwards, that I still drew breath. You have to understand that, in my generation of the family, seven males had been born; and of those seven, five had already perished upon encountering it. I was to be the sixth, the only other still too young to make the attempt.

My own father, of course, had also perished when his turn had come, and so it had been left to my mother to relay the history surrounding the curious tradition. At its core, she had taught me, was the matter of inheritance, and choosing an heir worthy of following in the footsteps of my ancestor. It was he who had amassed the fortune in the first place, and it was he who had set the tradition in motion. It had taken the form of a dower levied to the woman that he married - making the safe assumption that she would outlive him, it stipulated a comfortable existence for the rest of her years. In addition, were she to have any daughters, they would be assigned a trust fund that would guarantee them a wealthy existence for all of their lives, if perhaps not extravagantly so, as long as they brought someone else into the family to sire another potential generation.

If his wife or her descendants had a son, though, that was where the stipulation, and the balance of his wealth, came into play. Upon the age of accession, each male potential heir would be given a test to prove that they were a worthy heir, and were hooked up to the crude, original version of the device. If they made it through the encounter, they would be judged worthy, and would reap the rewards: they would be granted a usufruct to hold court in his mansion, the most lavish and grand example of such in the entire nation, until the end of their days. In addition, they would be granted a sizable share of the wealth that had accumulated over their predecessor's lifetime, that alone making them among the richest in all the lands. It was, in a sense, a king's ransom, but with just as much risk as the acquisition of such might entail; those that did not measure up generally expired before the encounter was over, and those who somehow ended it early went irretrievably mad within a matter of days. Even with a supposedly more modern device built around the original specifications, the risk was still just as great, and for those before me, either their hearts or their minds had given up long before they could make it through.

Then, of course, it had been my turn, and upon my return from college, I had been given the choice: abdicate all rights as part of my family, to be disowned and cast off entirely, or submit myself to the device. It was a formality as much as anything else, as no male heir had ever ducked the challenge in the family's entire history. It simply wasn't done, and I wasn't about to be the exception. After all, I had enough greed and pride in me to believe that I could pull it off, and the siren call of the reward for winning was too great to pass up. It was enough to drown out the voice of terror inside me, at least long enough to bring me to a plushly-upholstered armchair in the manor's drawing room, the box the manservant had directed me to sitting in my lap.

It consisted of a small, featureless grey cube, into which was plugged a set of headphones with a series of electrodes trailing down from the headband. I placed them carefully on my head, the cups resting atop my skull with ample room within to contain my canine ears. The electrodes were a bit trickier, and the servant had to help me set them up, tucking aside my dense headfur with a practiced motion of his fingers to expose enough of the skin beneath, then applying a drop of electrolytic adhesive before securing the electrodes in place against my scalp. Finally, a set of shades was pulled down from their place atop the headband, covering my eyes and plunging the room into darkness. Due to the tightness of the headphones, I felt more than heard the sound of the servant stepping away, and with the light buzz of an activated amplifier ringing quickly between my ears, I knew that the encounter had begun.

I didn't know what to expect, as no one I knew had managed to go through it and survive, so I was a little surprised that the first thing I heard, or sensed, was a sort of low, burbling noise, like that of a small stream trickling its way through forest undergrowth. It was... almost soothing, actually, and even when a jagged, staticky noise cut through on top of it, I still felt remarkably calm.

The static, though, built in intensity, even as the waveforms within it began to differentiate themselves and take on a harder edge, ringing with screaming metal distortion and painful high-frequency harmonics. It was the sound of stress and tension, and I could feel my body following suit - my heart beginning to thud in my chest, my biceps tensing with a sharp twinge of adrenaline and anxiety. I felt my paws grab hard onto the armrests and refuse to let go, my breath coming sharply as the sounds and sensations intensified as the differentiated themselves.

Now there was a huge mix of things ringing through my head, as though a dozen different records were playing simultaneously. The delicate sound of beautifully clear bells and the deep resonance of a bassoon section played atop the noise of a feline choir being mangled next to a roomful of exploding glass and shrieking, shearing metal. It was a cacophony of pleasure and pain intermixed, desperately trying to elicit the strongest reactions from every part of me. Alongside it, the electrodes did their work, and I began to feel every sensation imaginable. My arms somehow manage to itch and tickle at the same time, even as they tensed up in painful spasms that I couldn't unclench, raw agony pulsing between my eyes even as a burgeoning erection pushed out against underwear that was suddenly both painfully sensitive and intensely erotic as it twined against me. I wanted to simultaneous climax, vomit, and let out an agonized scream, but my chest felt paralyzed and overwhelmed enough to make all of that impossible. It was too much, far too much, and I could almost feel my soul giving in to the ringing madness, my body barely even able to draw breath.

At the same time, though, as my body desperately grasped for survival, I realized that, through it all, I could still hear the burbling in the background, the underlying flow beneath all of the other noise - and as I listened, some part of me realized that it was the underpinning upon which all of the other noise was based. And it wasn't just a burble, a random sound of water coursing through a cut in the ground, but there was an actual pattern that lay within. As the water passed through, I could hear the subtle changes in pitch when it ran across different rocks or stones on the streambed, and each subtle impact began to resonate into precisely tuned musical notes - subtle, at first, but growing clearer with each passing moment, slowly reaching up through the chaotic noise that surrounded them. As they did, the resonating noise became less random and distorted, resolving and re-forming into complementary notes, making up a strident theme that rolled through my body with a strange, harsh beauty. Along with it, the other sensations began to come into focus as well, even as they strained my body to the limit, every muscle suddenly in spasm as the music seemed to permeate every nerve in my body. For a brief moment, I felt more alive that I'd ever felt before in my life, as every atom in my body seemed to thrum, singing along with a melody that was at once completely alien, and yet somehow so ingrained within my own genetic memory that I could anticipate every note before it reverberated through my body. As the music built in strength, resonating to a stunning crescendo, my entire body seemed to rise up and expand, shivering into a climax of wonder that transcended biology and pushed me towards an inexplicable wonder. Thought suddenly seemed unnecessary, and a burst of intense light shone through from within my shaded eyes.

And then, in the midst of it all, in the throes of pure joy and unthinking, terrifying ecstasy, for one brief, infinite moment,

I felt my heart

stop.

And for that moment, encased in a world of pure, even white light that seemed to stretch out to the boundaries of space and time, I heard it. The theme, ringing out a clear as a carillon in the warm spring air, the theme of my ancestors, of my people, of my family, playing once, and once only, through its powerful chorus. And as the last note rang out, reverberating clearly through the blank, endless world, everything suddenly came together.

Then the note was punctuated by the slamming drumbeat of my heart pounding mightily as it came back to life, the tension coursing through my body seeming to explode in pulses through my seizing frame as every part of me seemed to climax at once. A strobing headache throbbed between my temples in time to the steady drumbeat of my heart, my hands clenching and unclenching against the armrests in time with the pulsing of my member against the fabric cocoon that encased it. Through it all, though, as the shuddering noise faded away and a relaxed exhaustion set in against my wracked, tortured body, I knew that I had come through. For a moment, there was a sense of impossible confusion, as my mind desperately tried to catch up with what had happened. Some part of me still thought, still knew, that it should have all been over. That when my heart stopped, it should have stayed stopped, that the greed and hubris that had led me to don the device in the first place should have been my rightful end. And yet, even as I thought that, I knew how wrong I had been, and how unimportant the rewards I had so desperately lusted after now were - compared to the purity of what I had just experienced, there was little that money could buy that would be able to measure up. This, I I realized from the new perspective that was quickly building in my mind, was the true usufruct that was granted to those worthy descendants: this one perfect moment of unsurpassable sensation and undeniable purpose.

I sat up, removing the headphones, and looking over at the manservant with a fleeting sense of embarrassment flushing my face, the cooling wetness soaking into my crotch surely visible, but at least it was better than if I'd given in to my early urge to emit in a different way. And, compared to everything else, such a petty embarrassment seemed like the most insignificant thing in the world. The servant, for his part, merely nodded in acknowledgement at my accomplishment, and set out a change of clothes, already prepared, on the end table nearby.

I looked at the device that rested minutely on my thigh, the grey surface holding its unknowable secret within. The notes were already fading, but the echoes of what they signified seemed burned indelibly into my consciousness. It was, more than anything else, a sense of belonging, an admission into a fabled elite who shared a particular wealth that no others could even hope to comprehend. I was no longer just born into the family, but an indelible part of it, and I knew that, whatever else I faced, it would be trivial in comparison. For a brief moment, I had experienced something greater than the entirety of everything that ever was or would be, and for the first time, I felt my mind focus clearly on the path that everything would take from that point onward.

First, though, there was one more thing to do. I stood up, ignoring the state of my clothing, and looked over at the servant even as my body took on a new, uncharacteristically confident bearing. I changed right there in front of him, knowing that someone of my caliber, regardless of their situation, would have no need for embarrassment ever again. Comfortably dressed in raiment now befitting of my station, I took the device reverently into my hands and bowed gently towards it in time with the song's fading notes, stepping forward with a new, thankful purpose. I placed it carefully back where it belonged and walked away, humming along with the tune that flicked and flitted along the edge of recollection.