"Ara, this is your new mother, her name is Hellen. Say hi." My father squeezed my shoulder and gently pushed me closer to the lady who smelled of thick rose perfume.
She had bright red lipstick and wore a skin tight black mini dress. She seemed out of place from our old house. Her perfume was giving me a headache but I put on my best smile.
"Hello." I muttered while I fiddled with my sweater sleeve.
"My! What a beautiful thing you are. How old are you?" She smiled while patting my head and squeezing my cheeks.
"15," I answered looking up and meeting her eyes. Her smile reminded me of my friend's newest Barbie dolls, which are creepy as hell in my opinion. They give me nightmares!
"Oh! Isn't your birthday next week? I heard from your father. This will be the first birthday I'll be able to spend with you," she said in a sing song voice while clapping her hands together
"No thank you," I reply without giving her a second longer to dwell on the idea. The last thing I wanted to celebrate on my mother's day of death was my birthday.
My dad's face flushes into an angry red violet and he pulls me back while muttering angry naggings but I just roll my eyes and nod. I hope our little meeting will end soon.
My dad is saying some things but he's talking too fast in a quiet voice I don't know what he's saying. I think this is the most words he had spoken to me all my life. He treated me like a ghost all these years and he expects me to act like a perfect princess when it's convenient for him? I wish he would wake up to reality.
The lady looks young enough to be my older sister. How am I suppose to take such a woman seriously? I can tell from her fake smile the last thing she wants to do is become my mother.
Hellen stood a distance away from my dad and I with an awkward smile like a fly on the wall.
Four weeks passed and the once silent house is now filled with giggles and much noise. It doesn't matter how much I abhor these two humans, life will go on. Nobody will feel sorry for me or spare me a second glance, that's life. There is no such thing in life defined as fair.
When life gives you lemons, there will always be others who is already selling lemonade.
It’s Monday morning, the sun is beaming while the birds are chirping as they flutter from one branch to another. I look out my window and throw rocks at the hateful birds who can fly and be free.
"Go somewhere else if you want to be happy," I tsk but they just hop onto a different branch and sing louder as if they were mocking me.
I can hear dad's voice from downstairs in the kitchen. I always thought he was a boring man who did nothing but read and work. I guess not. After all these years of ignoring me, he suddenly wants us to be a happy cozy family.
"Ara, come down and eat!" Hellen calls
"I'm not hungry!" I yelled through my headphones while I smash virtual game candy on my phone.
"If you don't want to be grounded, come down to eat!" I hear my dad yell. Since when did he ever care whether I ate or not? Why does he suddenly feel like he has to care?
I groan into my pillow and get up while kicking an innocent teddy bear across my room for no reason. It flies across to my desk tipping a cup of water onto my laptop.
"Fuck!" I yell while mentally blaming Hellen for all this while looking around for tissue.
"You never worked anyway! Fuck you too!" I roughly clean it off with my old socks and throw my laptop onto my bed to dry off and drag myself to the dining room.
I take a deep breath behind the dining room door before stepping in. I walk in without making a single noise and join them on the dining table. They stop laughing and give me a silent smile. I feel uncomfortable and begin stuffing my mouth with the loaf of bread in the center of the table to distract myself.
“Good Morning Ara,” Hellen smiles and gives me my breakfast.
The meat is slathered in something sweet and I feel nauseous from the fumes, but I stuff my mouth because I don’t want to talk or look at them. They continued on with their conversation about work while I concentrated on my plate of food.
It feels like my stomach is doing back flips. As soon as I finished stuffing the food down my throat I left for school on my bike. School is only a block away so I often commute on my own. A few moments later I swerve by a giant bush and vomit my breakfast.
I groaned and massaged my stomach. The headache is coming on again. I slapped my cheeks with my two hands and continued to school.
I feel so tired trying to keep up with Hellen and dad’s excitement. Time to time, I work up my courage and join them, but the mood will turn sour.
If I disappeared from the picture, the house would be absolutely perfect.
Later that night, I had trouble falling asleep so I snuck downstairs for a glass of warm milk. I was hungry and it was snowing outside making it hard to sleep.
"Honey, why can't we celebrate Ara's birthday?"
I paused hearing Hellen's voice.
My father sighed, "Her mother died giving birth to her. It's bad luck to celebrate on the day of your mother's death. In the first place, birthdays are when you give thanks to those who gave you life."
“But still, she’s your daughter!” Hellen contested.
“Hellen, I’m infertile. You know about this better than me. She's such a headache, if we baby her too much she will get worst. Just let her be and she'll get tired of this act on her own.”
I felt something heavy fall into the gut of my stomach, I don't feel so good. I fumbled backwards as I turned causing a table of books to fall over.
"Ara is that you?" I hear Hellen's annoying voice. I darted to my room and hid under my blanket.
Hellen and dad seems to be arguing about something outside but I don't have the courage to listen to what they are saying. I plugged my ears with headphones blasting my music. Tomorrow we will be going on a family trip to France. I was excited but I wonder if dad will be happier going alone with Hellen.
I'm so tired but I can't sleep. I hear dad's words drone in my head like a dizzying static.
While tossing around in bed trying to ignore my thoughts, morning arrived. I couldn't sleep a wink. I look outside to see birds fluttering around while pecking at the tiny red flowers blooming on the tree branches. The flowering quince tree was planted because my mother thought the flowers were beautiful. My mother wrote novels and she thought the winter flowers of the quince tree were romantic. But the tree has become a nuisance because the flower petals and leaves fall everywhere in our yard. Forget about the messy branches that has a mind of their own, nobody wants to take care of it because of its nasty thorns.
I turn away dragging myself to the bathroom. If I don't get ready, I'll need to talk with father and Hellen again. I decide to live my life quietly. I won't bother them, that way they won't bother me.
While I brush my teeth, I don't know why but tears keep falling. It's not like I ever thought my dad cared for me like other families... it's not like I ever cared for this stupid dad of mine who never spoke more than three sentences at a time to me.
I wipe my tears and take some deep breaths to calm myself down. I don't care! Really. I roughly rubbed my tears off with my hands. These stupid tears, why do they keep falling? It's hard to breathe.
After an hour passed, Hellen asks me to come down so we can leave for the airport. We decided to have breakfast at the airport since our flight is at 8 a.m.
I shuffle down the stairs with my suitcase and I see my dad. "Good morning dad," I mutter.
His phone rings.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
"Hello? What? You got to be kidding me!" He yells at the phone while passing me without even a nod.
I didn't want to talk to you anyway. Ugly bald head freak.
"Morning Ara," Hellen smiles and ruffles my hair.
I pass her without greeting her. Humph.
Dad bought us all bagels and some juice at the airport. The bread is bland but my hunger makes it taste very delicious. Suddenly, I feel my stomach lurch.
“I’m going to the bathroom. Be right back,” I say quickly and dart off without bothering to wait for their answer.
After I throw up my food, I return to find people lining up to get on the plane. I look around for my dad but there are too many amongst the jungle of people.
Someone grabs my hand and starts dragging me forward. I look up to see a lady in a purple sweater dragging me off to someplace. Does she know me?
I see my dad and Hellen calling for me far away. I have the chance to answer but I don’t.
They seem troubled over me and I feel slightly amused. I want to trouble them a little bit more but just then, the lady in the purple sweater muffles my mouth with a handkerchief that smells of strong chemicals. I feel my legs giving out. Before I fall flat on my face, a man lifts me into his arms.
“My daughter’s scared of airplanes. Such a troublesome child,” the man says while patting my back. The strange man bundles me in a huge blanket and carries me off to someplace. I can’t do anything because my body doesn’t listen to me.
I watch my dad and Hellen disappear from my line of vision before losing the ability to keep my eyes open.
❧❧❧❧❧
- 2 years later -
A young 17 year old girl wearing a thin mustard yellow gown was roughly pushed into a hospital room. The doctor who was reading data sheets grabbed his scanner and clicked it onto her arm without a word of greeting.
He roughly pulled her arm onto a table while slapping alcohol sanitizer. He robotically reached for a sterile needle and stuck it into her arm to draw her blood. The girl sat with her shoulders slouched and eyes glazed over. Her skin was translucent pale to the point you would wonder whether she was a concrete sculpture or a human.
Normally, half a pint of blood was drawn per person but several girls fainted and were recovering. Therefore, Ara was stuck with the job of ‘donating’ 4 pints of blood in one sitting.
He distressed over his documents scribbling down notes while looking over the blood bag about every other minute. Once he noticed the blood bag reach 4.4 pints he capped the blood bag and labeled it accordingly. He laid it into a cooler while sending a text for the new batch of blood to be picked up.
The girl trembled in the cold hospital room while fighting for her breath. Her eyes shook and soon like all the others, Ara fell to the stone white floor. The doctor yawned while pressing the call button.
“Is there a problem doctor?” a calm voice of a woman beeped through the speaker.
“I need clean up, we have another one who blacked out,” he stretched his arms while throwing over his coat and leaving the room.
“Yes sir,” she answered to the now empty room with a lifeless girl sprawled gasping for her breath.
After who knows how long, Ara’s consciousness returned. Her head was pounding and she could see nothing but a blur.
Ara blinked several times trying to focus her vision while swearing under her breath. It didn’t help that the room was incredibly dark. She flapped her arms around weakly trying to feel herself through the darkness. She was on a bed with no blanket and the room was freezing. She tried to get up but was prevented by a glass covering which encased her bed. She fumbled around for a latch or handle but the glass covering could only be opened from the outside. It felt like a giant freezer in here- hopefully it wasn’t. She didn't have any blankets and her pitiful bed only had a thin plastic cover. She shivered while looking around wondering what was happening.
The past 2 years, nobody talked to Ara or explained anything to her. They just continue to extract her blood and do random health exams. They give her food and force medicine down her throat. If she fought, she was beaten. Unless she wanted an early death the only choice was to comply.
Her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness and she could see many other people inside similar glass encasements like hers.
“How are the controlled group A and B doing?”
Ara heard a voice from a far distance.
Ara looked toward the growing crowd of people in the center of the room. They weren't dressed in the usual lab coats and scrubs. Women wore stunning professional outfits and were draped in shining jewels. These people had their hair in fancy curls and updos. At first glance, you would think they were going to an opera.
"Who are all these people?" a woman in a sleek red suit and black pumps asked.
"These are all patients who have less than a month to live. Either they have terminal illnesses or they’ve volunteered. Their bodies will be frozen for an infinite time period while the computer continues to stimulate their brain. In a sense, we’ve discovered a way to cheat death. They will wake up in Second Earth and serve as the NPCs- of course they will not understand it's virtual reality. The realism setting will be at 99.99 percent for these group of people who will serve as key characters for Second Earth." the doctor who drew my blood earlier had a very animated polite expression- one I've never seen before.
"What happens when they die in the game? To my understanding NPCs cannot revive." the same woman in red asked looking over some papers.
"Their memories will be wiped and they will be reborn as a new NPC. The memory wipe is necessary to prevent excessive mental breakdown. Although, we will freeze their bodies, it's impossible for us to maintain them indefinitely. We estimate the maximum time period is about 500 years until the human brain will overload and cease to function. Until then, their every action and breath will be archived for future reference. I predict by 50 years we won't need actual human subjects to produce NPCs. The computer will be able to emulate these test subjects at a press of a button." The doctor pressed a button and a huge screen was projected on the ceiling.
"I introduce you Second Earth!" the doctor's voice boomed as grand music played from an unknown source. "We already have a handful of people downloaded onto Second Earth as we speak."
A young girl was on the swings while her father pushed her under the summer sun. The sky was blue and birds were chirping while wild rabbits and deer hopped around.
"This young girl, Lucy, lived with Tetraplegia for the past 5 years. She was paralyzed neck down unable to do anything by herself. When she was hungry, she could not feed herself. When she needed to go to the bathroom, someone had to assist her. Her family had long abandoned Lucy, but look how happy she is. We’ve given her a second chance to live life for what it really is."
The lady in red had tears pooling in her eyes.
"Begin the countdown." the doctor announced.
The glass encasement Ara was trapped in began to frost as condensation escaped from her lips. A strange smell tickled her nose, she wanted to pound on the glass and ask to leave, but she felt so dizzy and sleepy.
'Ah.. am I going to die like this? I really don't want to dissolve into nothing but data for a computer.'
At the last moments of her life, she thought she would feel hatred and loathing for her father. At this moment, all she could remember was her father's worried face as he called out her name in the airport.
She thought he hated her, but at the last moment she saw his worried and desperate face.
'I want to face dad and talk to him one more time.' Ara thought while willing her fingers to move. Maybe talking to him will be worthless, but now that death was imminent the excuses she gave herself to avoid uncomfortable situations seemed regrettable.
She bit her lips until it began to bleed. The pain shocked her nerves jolting her dulling senses.
'I don't want to die'
Ara felt wires above her and clawed on them. Perhaps it was the power source and she would be able to stop the process. Her hands hurt like hell, but every second was precious. If she hesitated a mere second or two it could mean the difference between life and death, and so she used every last remaining strength she could gather not caring whether her fingers would rip off.
One wire, two wires, and three wires. She kept pulling at the wires above her. Just then, she felt her arms lose strength completely. She was paralyzed from head to toe. She used her last remaining strength to keep her eyes open, yet her vision was tunneling as if a great ocean of darkness was drowning her into its great depths.
Although I'm just a rotten apple of this world, it's funny how much I don't want to die.
❧❧❧❧❧
When I regained consciousness, I was free falling in an ocean of darkness of never ending void.
A voice rang in my head commanding me to do something but the words were jumbled and full of static.
[ Subject unable to connect to main system, attempting to reroute to Second Earth]
I felt my body swirl and rotate until I plopped down onto a fluffy piece of cloud.
"Hello, welcome to Second Earth. What is your name?" a middle aged man with a balding head and giant white angel wings said while opening his book.
I looked left and right and felt my own skin. It's hard to believe every part of this place is a massive collection of data feeding into our minds through electrical signals.
I closed my eyes and took in the gentle breeze kissing my cheeks. The nipping cold from before melted away from under the warm sun. I didn't expect this level of realism from a game. How long has it been since I've last stood under the sun like this?
The balding angel cleared his throat, "Hello, welcome to Second Earth. What is your name?" He said a bit louder while he spread a bigger smile showing off his glowing white teeth.
I'm not suppose to know... who I am, right? Didn't the doctor say that everyone's memories would be wiped? If I was the doctors, I'd do a hard reset without a second of hesitation.
Perhaps I managed to pull the right plug, hopefully they don't find out whatever I did.
"Do you know me?" I returned my answer with a question instead.
He quirked his head and fixed his glasses that was slipping down his nose.
"Ah, you're not a player. How did you get here?" He asked me while moving his fingers around in thin air. He looked like he was using a touch screen except there was nothing there.
"Where is this place?" I asked looking around.
He didn't bother answering my question either.
"Ah, Ms. Ara. I found you. That's funny, your profile is incomplete. Half of it is blank," he seems to be talking to himself more than trying to convey any messages to me.
"Please wait, let me contact the head manager." He slid his finger sideways, I don't know how I knew but my gut feeling was telling me he was trying to log out.
I took firm hold of his hand, "wait."
His eyes grew wide and opened his mouth to say something but closed it again without a word.
"Are you going to reset me? I'll... do anything so... can't you close your eyes just once?" I clapped his hand in mine while trying to mentally transfer my inner wish and hope into his brain.
I caught his eye twitch. Did I mess up?
He tried moving his hand but I held his hand tight to prevent him from moving.
"Stay out of the public eye as much as you can. If you're ever caught by anyone, I can't help you. The first thing they will do is a hard reset which will wipe all your memories." He said in a low voice.
"H-how come you're helping me?" I asked in an equally quiet voice while I looked around. Were we being watched?
He let out a bitter laugh, "You must know the true face of this place. Maybe this is my own way of rebelling."
I let go of his hand while taking in his words.
"Even if I say this, I don't know if I'm helping you. You were the one who wished for this."
He swiped his hand and I saw the scenery around me change into a dark forest. Something heavy pulled on my neck resulting in a sweet mudbath for my face.
I grasped at my neck to find a heavy iron collar.
"Get moving slave!"