“The complexity of teaching a new, completely artificial body to experience emotion proved to be too difficult, even with the technology at our disposal. We decided it would be more beneficial to both the AI and to us as researchers if we were to simulate a life for you. That way, you’d experience the full range of human emotion starting from birth,” Dr. Thorne’s expression turned sour, his voice fell, and he looked me dead in the eyes,
“What we didn’t expect, was that you would wake up this early. We did give you the option of free-will, but we never expected things to go like this. You were never supposed to commit suicide, you were never meant to become this obsessed with death. While things didn’t go as expected, we were still successful in our experiment. I apologize, I suppose learning your entire life was merely a simulation must be taxing on your mind. I will leave you to cope,” He stood up and walked towards the door. On his way out, he stopped, not turning around and said, “However, you must recover quickly. The Council cannot wait to meet you,” He continued his walk, opened the door, and left.
My mind was racing with questions, caught in a state of denial, and confusion. “A simulation? There’s no way, right? It was too real... all of it was too real,” I tried desperately to fabricate some kind of excuse for what he said, “No, he was talking about the AI that I took over when I came here, right?” That’s the only one I could think of. In the back of my mind, however, I knew differently. A question kept bringing me back to reality every time I would think of it: What is my name?
My name. I couldn’t remember my name. Everything about my name wasn’t just hazy, it was gone. Like it never existed in the first place. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Everything was moving so fast, my mind couldn’t keep up. I slowly started to break down, my mind eventually felt like it was melting. I grew dizzy, nauseous, hot. My vision began to blur, and I fainted.
I was once again in the white room. However, instead of blank walls, there were paintings hung on the walls. Each of these paintings depicted a memory from my previous life. A few paintings stood out. On one, a memory that would forever haunt me - the death of my parents. They died in an accident that I had very little recollection of, even though I was there for all of it. It was as if my mind was purposefully blocking out the haunting memory.
I saw my parent’s faces and tears started falling from my face, extreme pain filled my heart as I clutched my chest and fell to my knees. No sound escaped from my mouth, no matter how hard it tried to. I wouldn’t let it. I couldn’t let it escape, or I may never be able to contain it again. They didn’t die normally. They didn’t die at all. They disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving no trace of their existence. Memories faded quickly, faces even faster. Even now, I barely remember my time spent with them, as if my mind was trying to delete the memories.
I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to believe I had a life, a real childhood with real people around me. I cried until my eyes dried up. My cheeks warm from the tears, and my hands shaking constantly, I stood up. A wave of calm washed over me as a realization hit me. “That’s why I only cared about death. Deep down, in a part of my mind I couldn’t hope to unlock, I knew that it was all fake. Death was my only escape, and I knew it. I kept away from all of the people who cared about me on purpose, pursued a topic that everyone was curious about, but no one could fully understand without experiencing it on purpose. It was all to figure out why I was there. Why I seemed to be the only real person I knew. Everyone seemed incredibly fake with programmed responses. It was very realistic, but strange enough that my subconscious picked up on the discrepancies. My brain is a supercomputer after-all.”
“My experiences with people were fake. I understood that people weren’t fake, the world I was living in was fake. That’s why I never grew to want to understand other people. Now, I’m in the real world. With real people. Real emotions. Most importantly, they may know the answer to what happens after death. This technology is incredible, to the point of creating life. They must know how it ends.” Thoughts like this continued to run rampant in my mind, leaving me with an indescribable clarity. Thoughts of a new life, a relatively normal life, one that can teach me to love, to hate, and to empathize. Things that I never really knew in my previous life. A second chance.
The paintings on the wall faded away, leaving the blank, white walls to look down on me. My instincts told me to walk forward once again. I obeyed, sprinting forward as fast as I could.
“Anything to get me out of this unbearable emptiness,” I tore through the invisible barrier that held me back before, falling once again onto the wooden platform. This time however, there was no star above me. Just the vast expanse of space calling my name to come explore it.
I was lost. I didn’t know what to do from here, so I sat down on the platform and shut my eyes. I tried to ask the robotic voice what to do next, and the answer I received was, “Calculating time until the next celestial body is within range… traveling at 1 times superluminal speed… the next celestial body will be in range in one year exactly. Host module can increase speed by upgrading the platform. To do this, place your hands on the platform and imbue it with cosmic energy,”
‘Superluminal speed, so I’m traveling faster than the speed of light. Amazing. What the hell is cosmic energy, though? I know I basically absorbed a star last time, but that seemed more like a dream. Maybe that’s what it means? Use the energy from the star, cosmic energy, to increase the speed of the platform?’ I thought quickly, my mind doing its best to comprehend what was happening. Nothing made sense, yet I felt calm. Like by instinct, I knew what I was supposed to do.
I put my hands down onto the wooden platform. I felt the splinters from the fractured boards pierce my skin, causing me to wince in pain. I kept pressing down, despite the countless wooden needles entering my palms, and closed my eyes. I could feel the warmth in my stomach again, like I had seen it in the bedroom. I imagined the veins I saw in the mirror, visualising them vividly. I felt the warmth spread through all of those veins simultaneously, every part of my body being filled with power. I imagined the energy flowing through me traveling through my arms, pooling in my palms. Finally, I imagined the energy in my palms seeping out through the pores in my hands and into the platform.
I opened my eyes and a bright light greeted me, emanating from my hands like I had imagined. The splintered wood on the platform quickly became smooth. The gaps in the boards were replaced by new wooden boards. The boards were completely smooth, not a splinter or hole in sight.
I walked around on the platform after the light from my hands faded. It was almost like the platform was “healed”. Everything appeared brand new, straight from the sawmill.
“Platform upgraded from Level 0 - Handmade Wooden Platform to Level 1 - Factory Manufactured Wooden Platform. Speed increased from 1 times superluminal to 1.5 times superluminal. Time to targeted celestial body is now 9 months exactly. Energy consumed for upgrade - 40% of hydrogen, 15% of helium. Host module is advised to meditate in a hydrogen and helium rich environment in order to replenish True Fusion fuel,”
I began to feel dizzy after hearing the voice, I sat down on the platform before I fell over, and closed my eyes. The warmth I felt faded considerably, and my body felt weak. I closed my eyes and quickly went to sleep.
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