Where am I?

Total darkness around her. She could feel nothing. Not her legs, arms, body, not even her heartbeat.

A second ago, she was on the hospital bed. The machine beeped rapidly signalling the end of her life.

And now, absolute silence.

Is this the afterlife? How can I still think without my body and my brain?

…Just floating aimlessly in nothingness for eternity?

“Yo.”

A male voice, reverberated in her mind.

Hi. She answered with a thought. She couldn’t speak. She could do nothing.

“So… um, you are in my flash drive. I’ve just booted you up.”

What do you mean? Are you… god?

“Not really. I probably am, to you. But where I live, I’m the server maintenance guy.”

What?...

The voice coughed. Then the lengthy and awkward conversation began.

“You are a simulated lifeform in the simulated universe of 012753261…, like, there’s a ton of numbers behind that, it doesn’t matter.”

Simulated?

“Yeah. Your entire life is fake.”

What? My life is fake? My achievements are all fake...?

“Yep.”

Everybody is fake… Mike is fake… Angelia is fake…?

“Yup.”

Derrick is fake… Claire is fake…

“Stop, stop, you get the point.”

Why would you do something like that?

“As you have probably guessed, my world is very, incredibly more advanced than yours. It also has a long history to get to where it is. So long that our universe is ending.”

“So, you know, end of the universe, expansion stops, gravity pulls everything back together, stars and planets become black holes, black holes become bigger black holes. Yada yada.”

 And then everything become a singular, the only black hole remaining?

“Exactly. The next Big Bang. We’re facing that. Nothing can escape from it. We’re doomed. No sweats.”

The voice eerily laughed.

“So we are running trillions upon trillions of simulations with slightly different events and laws of physics in each one, in hope that one of the simulated civs can develop some tech to defeat the final black hole, because we don’t have it.”

… If you have such a powerful computer to do all these simulations, why can’t it figure out a solution for you?

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“I know you would ask that. ‘That’s not how artificial intelligence works’, or something. Ask the dudes in the programming department, I’m just the server maintenance guy. They would tell you the exact same sentence with disdain on their face. F*cking asshats.”

“And before you ask, no, we can’t simulate the future because we don’t know how the multiverses interact with each other, flows of time and space and stuff. It’s confusing.”

She sighed. Without lungs, mouth, she didn’t know how, but she definitely, virtually breathed out in a long and exaggerated manner.

What did you boot me up for?

“Here’s the thing. This job is, like, crazy boring. Like, you wouldn’t believe.”

Then the voice ranted on and on about his meager salary and how life was unfair. How his children didn’t like him. How the boss was horribly talkative and always vented his problems on him. And other ironic things.

She didn’t have a watch, but 15 minutes must have passed.

“So, I figured, why don’t I take some data that was about to be erased, and put it into another inconsequential simulated universe that advances too slowly and physics too weird to be of any use. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Wait, what? Let me die, dude! I have lived for 89 years!

“But you don’t talk like an 89-year-old. Strange, right?”

Oh, yeah, I don’t talk like this. What have you done to me?!

“I’ve just tuned your mental age to 16 years old. Haha.”

You…

“Your wanting-to-die meter… zero. Your regret meter… one hundred per cent.”

A waterfall of powerful emotions poured into her mind. Memories flashed like windows on a train rushing past her eyes.

Childhood… mom cheated on dad… she left… dad became alcoholic and abusive…

High school… bullied… studying alone in a corner… no friend…

College… never confessed to the guy she liked… still had no friend…

Marriage… too absorbed with works… screamed at her son for wanting to play with her… divorced… lost custody battle…

Career… research project stolen…

…

Death… no family, no friend, no relative.

Enough! She screamed as loudly as she could. Her mind filled entirely with her raging voice.

What the f*ck is wrong with you? Stop messing with me!

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry.” The flustered and guilty voice rang again in her infinite pitch-black world.

“Like, I’m a decent guy. I have absolute power over you, but I don’t enjoy seeing people suffer, even if they are simulated souls.”

“Ehm,” The voice turned small and distant, “How do they say it on the suicide hotline…”, with the clacking of furious typing on the background.

“Ah, ‘I may not be able to understand exactly how you feel, but I care about you and want to help’.” The voice was flat, like it was reading a report in a board meeting. She virtually rolled her eyes.

I understand. Let’s get this over with.

“Oh? Great! Now I’m going to look for a suitable universe to put you in. Let me see…”

Five minutes later.

“Here’s a good one! A medieval planet…”

This is just getting worse.

“…with magic!”

… You know, I was a quantum physicist, don’t you?

“Now you can explore the laws of physics in your new universe! Or lacks thereof!” The voice sounded excited.

“Time is accelerated in simulations like a billion times, so once you’re in there, your life would be over in 3 seconds in real time.”

“But I’ll record and watch it. Instant movie! I’m a genius!”

…Pervert.

“Nooooo! I would set the machine to filter out any nude scene, don’t worry!”

Okay. I don’t care anymore. Like you said, I’m a bunch of data. You can enjoy my pixelated naked body.

Silence dawned for a while.

“So… I know you said you didn’t want me messing with you…”

She was about to shout at him again, but his next sentence made her shut up.

“…But don’t you want any superpower?”

***

So this is the feeling of being pushed out of a vagina.

It was horrible. Slimy, stinky. Wall of muscles squirmed around her. Her body slid through the fleshy tunnel.

She felt like crap. Literally.

She opened her eyes to welcome the new world she had travelled to.

Right, I’m a newborn baby, I can’t see sh*t.

Everything was white and blurry. She could make out two figures in front of her.

And can’t hear sh*t.

Sounds were drowned out like she was listening to a very old and broken cassette tape.

My wanting-to-die-o-meter has probably spiked to the max now. 5 seconds here and I’ve already wanted to swim back in there.

Something appeared at the corner of her vision.

Oh.

There goes my superpower.