The year is 2040. Five years since she last fell asleep.

In the weeks following, she keeps coming back to that fateful night her father had said this. She cannot escape the thought of what she has missed. There are no friends to miss but a comfort of being at home in one’s own time, a way of life in the familiar. Her father had placed her in a new invention that could slow a sickness, slow death. Since then, the world had grown into something quite unrecognizable, something she cannot wrap her head around. In five years, why has she not aged a day? Before her slumber, Cain’s laboratory was filled with workers. Where are all the people now?

Of course, there are Cain’s few “friends,” but they are not like normal people. They hardly ever talk, except when needed, and their speech is an irregular jumble of pauses and monotone phrases, which are slightly off. Worse than this, they are around every corner, always watching with wrinkled, expressionless faces. At any given day or time, she can feel them at her back, staring deeper and deeper inside of her at the one thing such monsters will never have: a soul. From the sable shroud of hallways and dark corners, they stalk like a beast waiting for any sign of weakness in its prey. Though there are only two of them, avoiding the animalistic men is no small feat. They have a swift and rigid pattern to their rounds and Nora is never quite fast enough to avoid them.

As the days pass, a routine forms. She eats breakfast with her father and dog, then explores and experiments with machines as Cain rushes away to do his “work.” Next, they eat lunch, then dinner, and after each meal, the man suddenly hurries off again. It is like an old wind-up watch. Every meal, every day–it is all the same. Constantly rewinding, twenty-four identical hours going by in a perpetual loop.

The outside is not like this, there are birds and trees, inventions beyond her wildest imaginings. And people. Every time she asks about the sickness, about whether she can go outside, the answer is the same.

“The world is a dark and dangerous place. You have no need to consider such things. Besides, the sickness may be more idle and painless now, but it can strengthen and grow at any moment.”

The idea puts a knot in her stomach, and she suppresses it, as with all her solemn thoughts.

As days become weeks, internal questions grow. What is this new voice in her head? What is her father’s work? What happened that day she saw her mother? And the most resonating: Mom, where are you?

But such mysteries will never leave the mind. How could she speak of voices in her head without sounding mad? How could she ask her father why her mother left? How could she ask any of it?

As the internal voice of doubt reminds her, never question, never challenge, and you’ll never fear.

…

The timid little girl gave an attempt at running as she tried desperately to reach her mother. The night was dark, stormy, and cold, yet she shivered not at this, but at the thought of the storm outside, the storm that was always outside. If it were not wind, hail, and lightning, it would be the sun, the people, the places.

A thunderous bolt lit up the heavens with a mighty strike. Her mechanical protector, Puck, gave his best bark in return, determined to ward off the vicious sky dog.

She opened the pine door to her mother’s room. Her mom lay in the king-sized bed, sobbing, alone.

“If only I had more time,” she whispered.

“Mommy, mommy!” Nora cried as she crawled on the empty side of the bed.

Sniffling, her mother quickly wiped her tears.

“I’m awake, sweetie.”

She sat up and looked at her daughter with the beautiful olive diamonds, which were her eyes. Except now they were not so colorful or bright. A deep shadow clouded her wrinkled expression and lines could be seen where tears had trailed down her face. Despite this, she still managed to force a smile for her daughter.

“What is it, Teacup?” She said.

“Mommy, I’m scared,” Nora explained. “Make the storm go away. Make it stop.”

Her mother blinked, staring sympathetically. “Sweetie, I can’t.”

Nora frowned, and Clara held a hand to her chin.

“But I don’t need to. And you want to know why?” Her daughter nodded. “You’re passionate, caring, and you’re a brave young lady, though you may not know it yet. My little Teacup, you’re a fighter, the one this world needs, and I don’t deserve you. You can take that spunk, that fire inside of you, and keep fighting. You can face the storms of life, and you can beat them.”

That was the last time she ever saw her mother. That is, until recent days. Until the remnant.

You’re brave and you are a fighter. You will need to be for what’s coming.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A blinding pale gleam tears through the night. Puck growls and barks shrilly. Something is not right. Alertness strikes Nora and she awakens. Her eyes open, and with the Wardens’ aid, she jumps to her feet, her unprepared mind filled with hazy confusion. She is in her bedroom, and the noises of sparking and fizzing resound. As the Wardens push her weak legs to the window, her eyes meet with a most unexpected sight. The world outside is a mix of broken realities. One is a joyous, utopian society gently touched by the whisper of rain, and the other is a dreadful vision. Spanning as far as the eye can see, disheveled buildings reach to a grey and stormy sky, blotched by a downpour of inky blue rain that glows unnaturally. Surrounding bright advertisements, broken cars, and the scraps of automatons, there is a gaping lack of something. Noise, commotion, life. Humanity. Where the two contrasting worlds meet, there are patches of reds, greens, yellows, and streaks of white, all staining the world outside the window, like the glitching screen of a TV. But which is the real and which is the illusion?

The bedroom door opens and directing a prodding gaze toward her, there is her mother. Her condition is as destitute as Nora last saw, yet now a slight wink of determination flickers in her eye. The girl runs to her, Puck following close behind. Progressing from one hallway to the next, her mother glides and stops, glides and stops, like a hummingbird flying above a stream. Nora can almost reach her, almost see her face again. She had nearly forgotten that face. The whistling winds and echoing cries of the storm rage on as the storm inside Nora only grows.

The voice in her head tells her to stop, to leave, to turn back, but she cannot, she will not.

“Stop!” she cries. “Please! I need to see you, to hear you, if only one more time. I need to know that you love me, that you care about me! I need to know why my mother left!”

They reach an elevator. The doors had already closed, Clara had already left, and the screen above the sliding doors reads a rapidly dropping number. One hundred, eighty, forty-two, eleven, then finally, one.

When the girl blinks, the doors are open, and the elevator waits dauntingly.

The sickness will kill you if you venture outside! You can’t leave. You have to stay! These thoughts in her head are screaming, raging, desperately reaching for control over her, but they are not her thoughts.

She thinks of her mother, of that last day with her.

“You want me to face the storms of life. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” The howling wind is all that replies.

She hears distant footsteps swiftly approaching and is overcome by a sensation, as though she is being watched, hunted. Instantly, she knows they are coming, those friends of his.

She turns to Puck.

“Listen, boy, I need you to do what you do best. Run, jump, fly, slam into walls, but don’t get caught. Distract those hunters for men, as long as you can. You hear me, Puck?”

The dog’s tail wags excitedly and he gives a light bark in response. He then disappears into the shadow of a corridor.

Nora enters the elevator, thinks floor one, and the elevator complies.

“I don’t know if that thing I keep seeing is really you, and I don’t know if you're really there, but mom, I’m coming for you.”

...

Much can happen in six seconds: an odd mix of noises can grow louder, the world’s fastest elevator can reach its destination, and a young teen can come face to face with the truth.

The sounds of shredding metal and rushing streams are louder as the doors open. However, when Nora enters the empty dismal waste that was once a lobby, she sees no flooding water, no tearing metal. Instead, there is a vacant world filled with lights and advertisements, flying cars, robots, and it is all destroyed. Every hint of a time of joy, the time before, is gone. The only movement comes from the artificially glowing rain and the buildings that sway, that undulate, that almost seem to breathe. The smallest of these crumble, seemingly by nothing. She spots white cubes perched on different structures, projecting images and light on the building she inhabits. The projectors made the perfect world, the fiction she saw, and a broken projection began its undoing.

Nora steps closer to the broken windows, taking it all in. Her father had fed her a lie of a world where all was right. He had kept her here, a prisoner by the shackles of the mind. What else had he lied to her about?

Then there are all the advancements, feats, and discoveries. They are pointless. They had led only to ruin, and she knows it had all been because of him. What had he done here? Who had he hurt?

Her mind strangles the voice inside until it utters one word: massacre.

Her perfect father, the man she had believed in, the man she trusted, is not so perfect anymore. She tries to repress a thought, but cannot. This is your fault.

The echoes of grinding metal and a flowing stream grow quieter as a new sound steals her attention. Something between a person and machine is screaming out in torment.

She runs out of the building, under the carapace of an outside roof.

The Wardens constrict around her legs, locking her in place.

She sees it. A translucent sallow form is crawling toward her. Though its features look human, they are slowly melting away. Its shining eyes are the only expression visible on the mass of its twitching face. It was once a person, and now it is a dying remnant filled with nothing but hate.

Nora tries to walk, to crawl, to escape the Wardens’ iron grip, but to no avail. All it does in return is grow tighter and repeat “boundaries surpassed. Emergency protocol initiated.”

The creature is much closer now. It rises to its feet and points to her with the remaining shards of its hand.

“C̷̱̈ĥ̴̺i̸̯̅l̵̺̔d̸̥̑ ̷̹͘ô̸͈f̵̜͝ ̷̥̈́d̴̡̍ę̷͗a̴̪͐t̸͉͠ḫ̸̂,,̷̻̑ ̷̜̃g̵̼͛o̷͎͑ ̵͎͝b̵͚̅a̶͕̔c̷͎̚k̷͚̽ ̶̫͠t̴̮̋ó̷̞ ̷͙̋ț̵́ḣ̴̗ȩ̸̍ ̶̗̍g̵̲̔r̵̻͒ạ̵͝v̸̛͔e̷̟̎.”

It lunges toward her. The beast pummels and scratches. The cuffs that are Wardens fly in all directions. A quick struggle prevails, then everything begins to fade and she remembers only flashes.

A silhouette lifts her on its shoulders. A wrinkled form with greying hairs, yet strong stature looks back at her, then approaches that monster, that remnant. Last, as sight slips away, she hears the cry of an animal.