Jeff was impressed that not only did the program claim to allow him to customize his head essentially however he wished, but it also suggested that he could have more than one. He really liked the animal options especially. Playing with that option and exploring the menus some more, he eventually ended up with something that he thought looked really cool.
The preview picture on the screen now showed a human figure with a lion head, an eagle head, and a lizard head, with the lizard facing backwards. He loved it! It looked like some sort of ancient mythological creature. He clicked save and immediately blacked out.
Jeff returned to consciousness with a startling mishmash of conflicting and overlapping sensations. It was like being in the center of several supernovas all at once! Sights, sounds, colors, smells, tastes, every sense was flooding his mind with a psychedelic jumble of input. Thoughts and feelings raced along several tracks in parallel. He was in one place, but the world around him was like several worlds, and he couldn't really tell at first where exactly he was; screeches and roars and outside noises filled his ears from seemingly several different directions. Overwhelmed, he was about to black out again, until he noticed he could start to calm himself and focus his attention a little at a time. The world began to coalesce around him as he learned to coordinate his complicated and redundant thoughts and streams of input.
He was in his room. It was obvious now. But his room really shouldn't have looked or sounded or smelled like this! For one thing, he shouldn't be able to see to all four walls at the same time. He should be able to see his computer, but he shouldn't be seeing it through seemingly better vision and worse vision at once. He could hear its every internal mechanism working as clearly as he could hear the insects and rodents in the walls, which was surprisingly well. And he really shouldn't have been able to smell the plastic computer casing, the grimy keyboard, the nylon curtains, the cotton bedsheets, his own sweat, the water dripping from the faucet in the bathroom, the aforementioned insects and rodents (and so much more) all at the same time. One of his attentions stayed focused on those smells coming from everywhere while he focused a second attention on the computer screen and a third attention directed itself toward the sunlight beaming in though the window on the opposite side of the room. And that's another thing... how can anyone have three attentions?
(Those rodents smell tasty.) Wait, what IS that stuff on the computer screen, anyway? (It really is a nice day.) Oh, right, the Chronivac! Did that actually work?
Jeff realized that he had actually become the animal-headed being he'd designed on the screen. On his left side, his lion head was fuzzy with a thick mane. The nose was very sensitive, and he could feel his ears twitching to catch the sounds from throughout the room. On his right, his eagle had a sharp beak and crisp vision. In between them, facing backwards, his lizard head had a long snout and a wide field of view since the eyes were positioned far apart on its sides. He turned his right head left and SAW his lion head twitching its ears and sniffing the air--and he accidentally bumped its furry cheek with his hard eagle beak. (Ow, that kind of hurt!) All the while, he was still seeing behind himself through his lizard head. He stuck out its tongue and watched the long forked organ stretch out far behind him before retracting, bringing with it even more of the odors and scents that were blowing his mind.
He turned his right head back toward the right side of the room to look at the door, where his sharp eagle eyes noticed immediately that it was still locked. Good thing he had remembered! There was no way he wanted his mom or his sister to see him like this right now.
That's his many ears heard footsteps out in the hallway.