For a moment in time, my mind stood dormant, a dream that never ended, an eternal sleep. My consciousness drifted molecule by molecule until I thought no more. I felt nothing, emptiness, peace, a vast abyss of horror. Yet even nothing is something. I was stuck in an endless dream, an endless desolate thought as time passed by. While I lay unknown to the world, time still played its ghoulish hand. It ravaged the people of a thousand words, bent steel, killed the old, the strong and the weak, vanquished morals and crumbled towers. Cities rose, magnificent spires touching the clouds, yet the higher they rose the more they shattered, their beauty cascading into madness and deceit. Blood was spilt and tears shed as heroes perished forgotten to those who they saved. Empires of death and light clashed in proportions that merited stories driven into books of old. Stars faded, bursting into an inferno of light as they consumed all in their omnipotent path.
Planets exploded causing the death of billions. New life was sought out and created. Civilization carried on, ever-changing, ever-developing all to finally fall to their knees at the throne of time, awaiting the hand of death which was foretold to them and their ancestors as a child. I remained in perpetual animation, and for a long time, I had peace.
Peace, tranquillity, perfect serenity, ignorance that fills the heart with joy. This all ended on a day like no other, the day my eyes opened.
The floor was unnaturally smooth, shiny, black, and plain without any dent or feature to mar its perfection. I could make out the dimensions of the room however it was completely empty. I looked down at my body, my clothes were the same. I heaved myself upward with ease, my limbs were not stiff, and my age or breath did not falter. In fact, I was unsure if I needed to breathe at all.
“Hello, there my friend," a lone figure stood above me. The space around me became impenetrable darkness, no light, no colour, nothing. Just me and a small old man his knobby wooden cane and grey suit were the only features of colour. His eyes were a cloudy grey and watchful, every glance causing the hairs on my neck to rise in fright.
“Come here,” he beckoned with a bony hand.
I threw my head back in extreme pain barely able to scrape three words together.
“Who am I?”
“Does it really matter who you are, Where you came from? Nothing matters here, just you and I having a little chat.”
My brain stung, the only memories I had were those written on these very pages, my tale scribed onto this yellowed parchment. My knowledge intact, my past destroyed, my mind was a burned book, every line charred and incessant. Smudges of ash clouding my thought, My mind a library of pages all radiating infinite knowledge yet not a single one was a memory. Not a single word mattered.
“Who are you?” I questioned nervously
“Who am I, you speak in riddles young man. Are you alright, I am time, knowledge, power. All that rules yet I have no power, no right, no life. I saw what you did in our laboratory you killed my friend”
“Killed, you mean that creature? Also what riddles?”
“Yes that creature, he was my friend, a colleague you may say?"
“A colleague... who am I?”
“Why your I.D? Have you not checked what you have?”
I tore open my coat and reached for my jacket pocket. Placing a determined grip on a leather wallet I pulled it out and read.
“John, Taylor 1933” I replied.
“ 1933, what a fine year that was”
“What do you mean what a fine year that was? It’s more than 30 days before the new year” I questioned.
“Why are you sir, are you currently 60 years older?” he replied laughing.
I ran my hand through my black hair, it was the same, my posture and stamina were no different, my pale face had no wrinkles, no crumbly beard flaking away in my hands.
“You have been asleep, Mr. Taylor… asleep for a very long time.” He stated.
“Where have you taken me…” I questioned.
I howled in rage. The old man stood silent awaiting my end as if I was simply a mad man raving words that were meaningless, awaiting his speculation. Then he began to speak.
“You have a purpose… A reason to live… have you ever wondered what your life was like Mr. Taylor? It was a boring, uneventful full desire to eat, sleep, move, kill, die. But for what? Life, Death, No for nothing. Until we found you, you were about to kill a man for no reason at all, were you not?”
“Kill, no well I don't even know how I got here why am…” I muttered.
Then the old man cleared his throat and began to speak.
""
“My time is not for you, in fact even as a recorded AI it is wasted on you. You, Mr. Taylor, are now the property of The Collective, we have set out through the galaxy, gathering all species, minerals, and existence to create a masterwork library, one where we study, have a purpose, and live for the greater good. You have joined that collective Mr. Taylor but now you are not a highly educated pupil or a researcher, you are a subject, a test subject and you will aid us.
'Have you ever pondered the reasons for existence, looked up into the stary night sky, seen the dark clouds cascaded against a crescent moon, the ray of light slowly drifting by your frostbitten cheek. Well, I have a tale to tell you, a horrific story, a nightmare, a story of the life of a people. One who had decided to seek revenge, who have a plan to plunge a blade into the depths of our pitiful existence and draw out a blood-soaked metal shrieking out in the glory of a new dawn, a new era, a new colossus. The game of life is one you can not win, it is one of lies, deceit, stupidity, fraud!
'No matter how hard you try, no matter how long you plead, cheat, slander, no matter how much you kill, burn, or cry. No matter how many tears sliver down your cheek or smiles dance upon your lips. No matter much blood spills from your wounds, it is a game of luck, a game with no point, no reason, a tragedy, a joke made by a cruel god who does nothing but taunt you with his own omnipotence and atrocity. A horror where your entire life, your entire destiny lies in the bowls of hate, in the cold cruel clutches of another.
'I will tell you the story of a people who were angry, a people who had played the hand dealt to them by a laughing God and wanted to wipe the putrid smirk off the almighty hand with a punch to the monsters scowling face. The game of life is one that can not be beaten, trillions have tried, all have failed, and found the warm clutches of death to comfort their arms. But what would happen if one of them didn’t only fail, what if one of them did not only spasm out into a chronicle of uncontrollable rage? What if they flipped the board.
'Why do you live to die? Why is your species stuck in this… trap? Reality is a strange thing Mr. Taylor, you are dead, every creature is dead from the moment they are brought into this world, dead before they were born, dead after they are born, dead while they walk. We are all ghosts, people who are endlessly fading slipping away from an unknown existence for unknown reasons, every person simply a spec on the radar in a meaningless puzzle that traps us every day. Binds us to pain, horror atrocity. So much pain, so much injustice for what? Why? Why?"
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He howled, spit flying from his mouth to blanket the floor.
'There is no good in this world, only evil, only horror, only those who deserve death and those who try not too. When we gaze into the stars, and look into the swirling heavens above what do we see? Ghosts, faded stars which have long since burned out? How is that no different than when we look among ourselves? When we gaze into the mirror? For centuries we have sought one thing.
'Immortality, you seek survival, I seek to rid myself of fear, the plaguing insatiable fear of the unknown which lurks past every door, hiding in every shadow, every streak of dark. When did our colossus start? When did it all begin?
'It many years ago, countless and beyond compare. Located in a universe millennia away filled with just as much beauty as hate, just as much death as life. During that time my people were desperate to survive, pitiful beings they killed, lived, and destroyed for what purpose. All to exist in withering pain until a death date prolonged by luck, ignorance, and simple brutality.
'One day after a catastrophic war of legends that brought out the horrific atrocities in all of us, we realized our mistakes. We clutched the cold corpses of our loved ones, shed tears among the countless graves and saw the pitiful lives we lived for nothing, We wept at the feet of our ignorance, envisioning the countless lives we took for no reason at all. Our plight for greed, our love for hate, our love for ourselves, for illusions for deceit for the lies that let us sleep. Forget our atrocities, our troubles."
"I don't understand where I come into this" I hissed.
He stared into my eyes sending shivers down my spine.
"As creatures of logic, we decided the most plausible action would be to band together the last remnants our once great society of conquest and ensure our species' immortality. Try to find a way to prevent death, create a lucid dream where all is equal, where the nations of the galaxy and uphold the law, order, civility, peace where good people triumph over evil and those in power do all they can to ensure the prosperity of their people, where love dominates hate and intelligence trumps over stupidity. Where people are valued for their minds and all are born equal, where the luck of life is eradicated, and where life has meaning. Your species is interesting Mr. Taylor, you fight, you die for what, no matter what you do, no matter how smart, how honourable, how good, how evil, it all boils down to one fact.
'No matter how much you succeed in life there is no point, your hopes, and your morals, your species, your lives, the lives of your children will always fail. Falter at the feet of time, of injustice, of the needless cruelty and pain that is our lives. No matter what you do, how much needless anguish you endure, how resilient, intelligent, strong, your line will one day be broken and the last grain of hope will slip through your blistered fingers.
'We saw the only way to ensure our survival of us was to unearth the secrets of the universe, unearth funny that word means much more than reaches the eye not to simply dig up dirt with a spade to see what secrets hide within. It means to remove the basic necessities our planets have thrown upon us and see, see everything in a manner not bound by law, see the wool that was placed over our eyes, the veil which has been cast upon the eyes of our parents, grandparents, and ancestors dating back to the beginning of time.
'See past the deceit, the blatant lies thrust upon us, the needless mystery. For twenty years we tried to find a way to improve ourselves and not soon after our atrocities commenced, a creature came, one which we had not seen before, one of the first other beings we had ever encountered.
'It laughed at our puny attempts at mastery, howled at our genetically modified superiors and our so-called machines that did not age, cackled at our intellectual giants that walked on stilts and screeched at our utopian civilization. It showed us how mortal we really were, it killed and crippled all of our greatest minds with a single blow.
'So naturally, we got angry and we killed resorting back to the monsters which dwelled inside. We were set on burning it in a public execution, letting it wither, let it die for it's sins. We would relish in its blood, show it we could succeed, we would triumph. Its spiteful words would ruin our movement and stain our golden morale with the blood of defeat, it had committed murder the worst sin of all.
'It came back the next day after we had spread its ashes in the open sea. In one of our own species' bodies. It preached that in order to create immortality one must strengthen the mind, not the shell which holds it, armor is no use without one to wield it. The alien proclaimed from the heavens that the body and soul are two different things and our creations had such weak minds he killed him with a single word, we did a brain scan, Mr. Taylor used one hundred percent of his mind.
'The next day when we called to arms and came to execute him, thrust him back into the dark from whence we came, we found nothing but dust, ancient dust scorched by centuries of time. You are the test, Mr. Taylor. If you succeed where others have fallen we can learn what you did and achieve immortality, shed death, our weak fragile shell and preserve all life, peace prosperity, hope, love. Humanity, our people, will have a chance of salvation, a chance to control their own destiny. If you fail, fall victim to your own cruelty the mind takes its own toll. It's funny the mind itself will kill to protect its own secret.
'What is the meaning of life? A question that has been pondered for far longer than the existence of you and I. Think about what we do John, the point of life is to survive, survive long enough to spawn offspring, yet is this really life? Is life meant to be nothing but the continued survival of a species, or is the continued survival of the species something more? Our main purpose in life is to do one thing, evolve, spend years on the backs of generations to reach a point where our species can thrive, and become one with the cosmos.
'Sure it would take thousands if not millions of years to achieve this yet what if we reached it. What if we finally made that final step towards enlightenment and all we had to do was make one final leap. Not build the staircase but put a foot down on an invisible platform. What if we spent so long slaving on the backs of our forefathers, that we didn’t realize we no longer needed to build the step, what if it is already there?
'I will answer one of your questions. Welcome to your mind, yes your mind. This is the part we do not use, limited to a simple thought, emotion and protocol we are. I did not build this place Mr. Taylor you did, your mind, you were born in this place, die in this place and dream in this place. This is where you and for your entire life are in, a dark room with an exit you can not open, walls you can not see and rules which will bind you for all of your life, hidden rules, yet all rules can be bent and broken, you are the master of your mind, a master which has forgotten his way, caught in a trap of his own devices, the monster which dwells hidden in his subconsciousness always watching always waiting for a day which never came, but this time, it thirsts for you no more, this time you are here.
'Normally this room would be full of memories and form a cherished chamber from your past, but you have none now you are limited to the foundations. A locked room in which you dwell but have never known to exist. I only did one thing for you Mr. Taylor I removed your senses, all of them, feeling, sight, hearing, movement it is now just you and your mind a beast of your own creation.
"Then again your entire mind is built around this palace, yet it has no purpose, so much of your energy goes into the maze, it is an incredible feat, such a sacrifice to build a monolithic area of which the benefit is scarcely seen or even noticed. Such a waste makes you wonder what really is at the end of the maze? Salvation? Death? The Truth? Or like I believe, evolution. Many have tried and feasted with gluttony upon the second option, I hope you may be the first to find another.”
“Can I leave, go back to my home, be free?” I questioned, startled by his speech.
“You are home and a binding contract with Earth means you are now the property of The Collective, according to the international charter you are herby revoked of your rights and declared private property for all eternity. If you win, master your mind, you will become our god, our saviour and then you will be free"
“My head hurts, why does it hurt so much?” I wailed.
“Because now, you know nothing yet you know everything, how to build a starship, how many stars in a galaxy, where to cut to sever an artery, how the universe was supposedly formed, how to use a plasma rifle with such accuracy a seasoned soldier would gawk at your feet, however, you do not know the past, therefore you will not be distracted, you have no thoughts tying you to the other reality. Your brain has been stitched, scratched and resown thousands of times, so naturally, it renders itself in pain, do not worry, it will soon pass.
With a wave of his bony hand, the old man finished his speech.
“When you are ready to walk through this door, it is the gateway to both hell and heaven, in order to go up you must first go down” he pointed in the distance.
He then got up and limped towards the pitch-black wall stepping forward; he tweaked a small metal device and phased outside vanishing in a sizzle of light.
Suddenly a wooden door appeared, one which resembled that of an ordinary gateway, it appeared to be made of a rough kind of oak with a steel door handle.
I moved forward and grasped the handle.