I once read in a paper that your perception of time changes as you age, and that adults think that days are shorter than they really are. Apparently, it’s because, as children, everything is new and unknown. This means children approach everything with curiosity and the desire to learn. You can easily imagine a child asking endless questions to their parents:

“Mommy? Why is the sky blue? How big is the moon? Why are trees green?” A mother would look down at her child with a smile and answer every one of them. The child, fascinated by the new information, asks new questions, which are also answered. Eventually the child asks a question the mother cannot answer.

We will all eventually come across something we don’t know the answer to. We can find joy in seeking the answer to this burning question and once again share the joy of a child learning something new. After a while, that new spark, that intensity we sought fades, and the answer we sought so hard to find becomes another thing we know. It becomes another thing we understand, and therefore another thing we overlook in our daily lives.

I remember how things looked so different as a child. The world was a brighter place and there was so much I didn’t know. Now it feels like I know too much. I used to crave learning, but now I find it lackluster. I’m like a drug addict who does everything to chase a high that lasts for less and less time. What do you do when what you’ve been chasing doesn’t inspire you anymore? What do I want?

These are the questions I’m looking to answer right now, but there’s always another question looming around the corner: What’s the next question I need to answer?

I’ve long since come to terms with the monotony that consumes my days and accept it as an inevitability. Despite this, I still want to see something new every once in a while, if only to add a new part to an increasingly large routine. To have something strange or unexpected cross my path. I’m a wanderer in an endless desert, kept alive by small puddles of water I find along the way.

Sometimes I get glimpses of a new feeling when I dream. It’s impossible to predict, and meaningless to do so. Trying to predict the unpredictable takes away all of the fun of what makes it unpredictable.

Somehow, I was currently asleep, but I could still maintain my lucidity. I was aware of my awareness but couldn’t remember that I was sleeping and not awake. Ignoring my conscious mind, I began to dream.

Without noticing anything changing, I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge, taking a nap. In the original memory, I was supposed to be asleep, but someone sleeping cannot comprehend what it is like to be asleep sleep.

“Ms. North, why are you sleeping in here? I know the sign says teacher’s lounge, but you shouldn’t take such words so literally.”

“Hmm?” I began as I became aware of my visitor. “How long have you been there? You know I could report you for creeping on me, old man.”

“I hope you don’t misinterpret my presence here. I was simply seeking some caffeine after the morning rounds of classes. Would you like some coffee?”

Still a bit groggy, I sluggishly nodded my head to him. The old professor smirked and walked over to the coffee machine on the table.

“One espresso with one cream and sugar for the lady and a latte for myself if you will.” The machine, recognizing the orders, began whirring as it processed the ingredients within the confines of its metal shell.

A question appeared in my mind, “How did he know my order?” I didn’t have the energy to pursue the answer. The professor had taken off a scarf and his cap, placing them haphazardly on the counter halfway over a sink.

He looked my way again, “I know you’re not usually one for conversation, but I do wonder how late you got to sleep last night. It’s not healthy to forego the recommended eight hours.”

I shrugged, still tired, “Sometime in the morning? At least, that’s when I remember being awake. I was grading midterms and wanted to get my half done before classes today.”

The smell of ground coffee beans began to waft around the room with a wonderful aroma. Soon, I found a steaming cup filled to the top with the nectar of life placed in front of me. I took a sip and felt just a little more present.

“You know, Ms. North,” he began, “I was wondering if I could trouble you for your opinion on something: If you were able to grade those midterm tests in half the time, would you?”

I didn’t quite see where this was going, but I answered nonetheless, “Seems like a no-brainer to me. I might’ve gotten to bed before midnight if I got through them twice as fast.” Dr. Attick nodded along with her response.

“I cannot argue with your sound logic.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Would your answer change if I told you that the decrease in time was due to AI grading assistance?”

I looked down into my drink for a second before shrugging, “Still the same answer from me. I don’t really see why it matters either way, so long as it gets graded correctly.”

He didn’t seem to like that response, as his face wrinkled in thought. “I could’ve guessed as much from someone of your age. Have you heard news of the university’s updated AI grading curve software?” I snorted a laugh at hearing that masterful segue.

“Let me guess, you don’t like it because it feels like cheating?” I tried. He smiled slightly at that but held a troubled look beneath his eyes.

“You’ve hit the nail on the head. I don’t like it, and I don’t plan to use it.” Now it was my turn to be disgruntled.

“Why not? The new software would introduce AI interpolation of student responses to give them much greater partial credit on tests and quizzes. You’ve integrated much more comprehensive changes into your class structure, so I don’t see why this is such a big deal.”

“The policy introduces too much leeway in my assignments. Leaving too much room for error completely removes the point of an assessment.” Dr. Attick’s response wasn’t out of character for someone of his age. They were always complaining about new technologies replacing the old. Normally, I would’ve let him ramble, but I had a cup of espresso in my hands and felt up to the task of actually holding a proper conversation.

“How does a simple grading curve do that?” I asked. His eyes lit up at my response. It seems I have fallen into his trap.

“It gets rid of the fun, the spice of a test! A curve is like a safety net above a tightrope. No matter how much you practice and train to get across the rope, there is never really any danger of failing. The second you fall you are reassured in knowing your failure will be compensated for by the net. What is the point of a test you can never fail?”

He took a break from his speaking, taking a sip of his own cup of coffee. “I teach my students through pressure, like carbon deep in the ground. The ones who push back become stronger for it, shining like brilliant diamonds.”

Another sip, this one a lot longer and more drawn out. “Those who aren’t up to the task crumble, simple as that.”

“So, you’re saying you’re a sadist who likes torturing stressed-out students? I asked in a sarcastic tone. Instead of the light-hearted response I was anticipating, I got a solemn shake of his head.

“No, no no, it’s not that, though it may appear as such from time to time. I simply believe that a life that can be anticipated so easily has no real purpose. A real life is one that is unpredictable, erratic, and spontaneous in just enough ways to make the boring stuff matter.”

I took a sip of my coffee, noticing it had gotten a lot colder over the course of our conversation. Dr. Attick’s words were stuck bouncing around in my head.

“A spontaneous life isn’t something you can buy at the store” I thought to myself.

Out loud, I spoke in a patronizing tone, “Whatever helps you sleep at night while you ruin their grades.” It was just loud enough for him to hear. He didn’t take well to my jab.

“Hey, you cannot continue by insisting I am sadist! I am merely a teacher trying to- “His excitement led to him spilling some steaming coffee all over the room and his shirt. He flinched and flung more all over himself. A few drops landed on my face causing me to recoil and fall out of my chair.

I fell. Instead of hitting the floor, I hit nothing. I fell and kept on falling. I fell for an eternity while simultaneously not moving for even a second. I felt a disconnect between my mind and my body as my senses separated from me. I was just a body, floating in nothingness.

Part of me knew that I was still falling while the other part insisted that I was perfectly still. I was exactly where I was while also being in so many more places at the same time. I was everything and nothing at the same time, while I still definitively remaining me.

Without warning, my senses began to return to me. I heard a sound that felt so familiar to me while seeming foreign at the same time. It was a drumming that began to grow louder and louder. Thump, bump thump, bump. I heard the drums and realized they weren’t standard drums, but large war drums. My sight began to return to me, the darkness turning into vague shapes that sharpened into distinct forms.

I was high above a grassy field and looking down upon its occupants. A large mass of people surrounded by monochromatic banners had gathered in organized rows and were facing towards the other end of the field. I couldn’t move my head, I couldn’t move anything for that matter, but I could still move my eyes to look around.

I shifted my gaze and saw a small form, barely identifiable at this distance. It was a woman of a modest size with no notable features. Her blonde hair fell into curls near her shoulders, and her hazel eyes swirled between an earthy brown and a vibrant green. She was standing up straight but seemed unbothered by the army imposing themselves before her.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Its… me?” As I studied her, her eyes, my eyes, looked up and fixed themselves on me. We shared a look for just a moment before she silently gestured in front of her. I didn’t look away, but kept my eyes trained on my doppelganger. She looked back at me and frowned, then, with more urgency, returned her gaze in front of her.

I finally conceded and looked over. The army was moving, and I could see a line of longbowmen step forward. My eyes grew wide when, all at once, the men removed arrows from their quivers and drew their bows. They were aiming directly at her, the other her, that is.

I watched in horror as the arrows flew, tracing an arc in the air towards their target. In the seconds before impact, I looked back to the other me. She was absolutely indifferent to the rain of arrows, as she refused to move.

“Why? Why won’t she move?” The woman stood perfectly still until the first arrow hit the ground to her right, a mere meter from her body. Another arrow flew a dozen meters behind her, missing her completely. For just a moment, I thought she would miraculously avoid the arrows. Thud. An arrow had impacted her left shoulder with ferocious energy, and she was caught off balance. This one impact seemed to mark a change in the flow of the arrow barrage.

The other Liv began to fall, and the arrows came en masse. I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch anymore. First one, then three, then five, more arrows than I could follow had embedded themselves in my double. I didn’t witness it, too squeamish to see a mirror of myself become skewered by arrows, but I could still hear it. Every impact reverberated in the air, shaking me to my core.

The arrows composed a melody of death as the impacts sped up or slowed down relative to each other. I found myself entranced by the song, its morbid beat sounding eerily familiar. I had heard the song before, but I couldn’t figure out when.

I focused on the noise, the drumming, and the echoes of the impacts that I found the underlying tune I knew. The second I recognized it, I woke up.

I went from sleeping deeply to consciousness instantly. I was laying in an awkward position on my bed, my body bent into the fetal position. I straightened out on the bed, removing the blankets coiled tightly around my body. I must’ve rolled heavily in my sleep, as the blankets were wrapped around me many times over.

It was only after reorienting myself in reality that I remembered the noise I had heard. A light pinging noise nearby was dribbling directly into my ears. I was groggy. I felt like I hadn’t slept for long at all, a few hours at most. I looked to the side and saw that my interface was lighting up, emitting a repetitive sound while vibrating.

“That sound… Why does it sound so familiar?” I knew I was just dreaming, but every time I tried to remember the noise brought me back to the present. I rolled over, cracking my back in multiple places as I clambered for the source of the noise, my interface. I rolled back over and held it in my hands as I inspected it:

Audio Chat Requested

Answer?

Y / N

“A call? Wait, what time was it?” I looked, and it was 7:00. Thankfully I wasn’t late for classes today, but everyone should be leaving right about now. It was pretty early in the morning, and it was an audio chat as well. This was particularly odd, as I had all direct calls go to my notification backlog. I had too many students who would ask me questions at every hour of the day, so I thought it was best for my sanity to ignore them. I was going to disregard the message like all of the others before I saw who it was from:

Call from: City of Urona Department of Labor

Answer?

Y / N

“The city was calling me directly.

"Why would they call me, and why now? I was having an important dream, I think?” I turned my interface in my hands, holding it up to my face and looking at it skeptically. Suddenly, the ringtone became twice as loud, booming into my ears.

“Aghhh! It’s so loud! Stella, lower the volume please! What is this?" Her AI assistant had returned after the update last night. The small star icon popped back up as usual.

“Sorry, Ms. North, I can’t influence this call from my end. It’s a direct line from the government, so it supersedes all personal call settings.” I looked back to the display to see that it had changed:

Message Priority Status: Urgent

Government priority call conditions met: Transferring call.

Call Connected

Since when could the government completely override my personal communication settings? And why put the prompt up for me to choose as if I had a choice to begin with? My rights were definitely being violated somehow.

“Hello? Have I reached Ms. Olivia North?”

“… Hello. Yes that’s me. Might I know who I’m speaking with right now?”

I considered ignoring the caller, but decided to act like an adult just in case this was important. Being responsible, however, did not entail me being nice to whoever was invading my privacy.

The mystery man cleared their voice and responded in a pleasant tone, “Well good morning Ms. North, I’m glad we could get a hold of you. I’m Inspector Alex Pearson with the Department of Labor Standards. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“I mean, it doesn’t seem to matter if I have the time considering you forced the call through, Mr. Pearson.”

Pearson chuckled on the other end, as if it had been rehearsed thousands of times, “Please, call me Alex, Ms. North, and I am very sorry to have to do that. I’m sure after our call, though, you’ll understand why we chose to do so.”

“Sure. Well Alex, to what do I owe the pleasure of having you call me so early in the morning?” A big reason I liked my job was because I could sleep in most mornings, so depriving me of that perk made me instantly not like this guy.

“I’m looking at your job profile as we speak, Ms. North, and there are some very important things we go over. Do you remember filling out your job file when you applied to work at…” he paused for a moment, “the University of Urona?”

It was impossible to forget. Mountains of background checks paperwork, security training courses, and even a medical exam were required to work there. I think it was there to separate the wheat from the chaff and scare the lazier applicants away from the position.

Alex continued, “The department was running routine checks on job files and we found that quite a few profiles, yours included, were missing some very important documents. As it stands today, you are currently missing roughly thirty percent of the core paperwork that enables you to work.”

I was instantly taken aback, “What? This has to be a mistake, right? Maybe there was an internal error with your record keeping?” There was absolutely no way I didn’t turn everything in. I even ran it past Stella to make sure I had filled out every document perfectly.

“Unfortunately, Ms. North, all of the files were scanned automatically and then verified by a human technician. Don’t get too discouraged since this should be a very quick fix. We’ll just need you to make a brief visit to city hall today so we can fill in those gaps in your file. Should be a piece of cake!”

“Well at least it’ll be a quick fix. Why did you bother calling me if it was going to be so easy to resolve?”

“As you may know, your job profile also doubles as a record of public information for the municipal government to work off of. This means that, without a complete job file, the government has incomplete access to your personal information, which renders you unable to access any public services, utilities, or public infrastructure. This also of course means you won’t be legally a legally verified employee and will be immediately discharged from your current position.”

“Jeez dude, don’t act so freaking excited about it,” I thought to myself. This was definitely something I needed to resolve quickly, as I was running low on cash and couldn’t afford to find another job while also searching for somewhere else to live. I decided to ask another question.

“Do I have to come in today, or just any weekday?”

Another chuckle followed soon after, “Ma’am, you must not read the news often. City hall is going to be closed for the next two days to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Union and the Altum delegation’s arrival on Earth. That means we wouldn’t be open again until the next business week, and by then you might’ve already lost your employment status.”

I had indeed overlooked that such a big event was happening in the city as frankly, I didn’t care about it. What I did care about was that the celebration was timed just perfectly enough to screw me over. The last thing I wanted to do today was an emergency visit to city hall for the riveting task of filling out paperwork. There had to be some way out of this… A smile crept onto my face as I made a realization:

“Um, excuse me Alex, but I don’t think I should have to go in at all. You see, when I filled out the documentation I showed it to my AI assistant for proofreading. She should still have it in her database for me to give to you, right?”

I didn’t hear a sound from the other end of the line for a good ten seconds. When Alex Pearson finally did speak, it was in a much less lively tone:

“Well… that’s sure good to hear! You must be happy you dodged having to come to city hall today!” He put a weird amount emphasis on that last sentence, like he was speaking through gritted teeth. He seemed to take another few seconds to process this fully before speaking again, this time in a tone much closer to his initial.

“Ah, while I’ve got you on the line, you might as well send me those documents so I can get them sent to records and have your file fixed! Much less work for the both of us.”

“Sure, give me a second while I check Stella’s cloud storage.” I began to go through menu after menu looking for access to the files.

“Stella? Is that what you named your AI assistant?"

“Yeah, it is. You know how the icon can be customized? Well, I changed hers into a star and named her after one of my favorite movies from before the Union. Have you customized yours at all?” I continued to scroll though file tabs with gibberish names and numbers on them.

“No, I still call mine assistant. Any luck with those files of yours?” Alex sounded a little distant as he spoke, like he was multitasking on something.

“Lame dude, at least give it a name or something. Oh, and no, I’m still looking. Do you happen to know what folder it would be in?”

He didn’t answer for another few seconds. I took this time to keep scrolling though a particularly large page of folders. Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the name of the file location I wanted.

Relieved to have found it, I directed the interface to open the file:

WARNING – Content Blocked

You do not have the permissions required to access this folder.

“…What? Why isn’t it working?” Stella was connected to my cloud drive, so I should have access to everything she’s seen, right?” In the background, Alex still hadn’t responded, seemingly focused on his task.

Just a moment later, something changed. The folder I was looking at had disappeared from the list, causing all of the other files to move up to fill the void. It was at this moment that Alex decided to speak.

“Oh, are you having problems with accessing your files? That’s quite unfortunate to hear. If you can’t get a hold of them soon, I would highly recommend making a personal visit to city hall today, just to be sure you get cleared before we go on hiatus.”

I was silent for a few seconds before responding, “What time should I come in?”

I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he had a huge grin on his face. Why this guy took pleasure in me having to waste my time and energy was beyond me. All I knew was that I needed to just get it over with as soon as possible.

“Please proceed to the Department of Labor on the second floor of city hall, room 227 between the hours of 7:00 AM and 5:00 PM. We have a lunch break from 11:30-1:00, so you won’t get any service during those hours. If you have any more questions, please check our website for more information.”

Connection Terminated by Host

Call Duration: 04m42s.

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- Urona Department of Labor

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