The man’s eyes dart back and forth in a panicked motion. He tries to move his body, but his paper clad skeleton can not even twitch a single bony finger. Unable to escape, he now attempts to scream for help.... But to no avail. The several tubes lodged in his throat prevent any sound other than a slight groan that escapes his cracked lips.
Where am I?! His mind screams. A minute ago I was… A king? Yes a king! A powerful king. With loyal subjects, wealth and a harem of beautiful women… And I was in a battle… And then, I laughed, a lot… Then… Nothing...
Where am I now? I think… I think I know this place. I remember this feeling of lying inside a box, and having these awful tubes being shoved down my throat… So weirdly nostalgic…
Ugh, asking myself questions isn’t going to get me anywhere. First things first, I’ve got to get up. But how? This body is so weak I can barely even feel it, and I can’t even lift my head, like a baby… Oh God! Have I reincarnated? I don’t remember dying… Nah, I doubt I did, this body feels too big for a baby. It’s more like the body of an old man who decided long ago that moving is too much of a distraction from doing nothing.
The man’s hastily formed thoughts has brought him into a form of minor meditation, the kind that is very good at ignoring external sounds, unfortunately for him, this means that he is unable to currently hear the slow, heavy footsteps approaching him.
*THUD, THUD*
This is ridiculous! I want my bubble bath with my cuties..!
*THUD, THUD*
I can’t use any magic… There’s no magic in the air, it’s empty… God dammit! How am I gonna shoot fireballs out of my hands now?!
*THUD, THUD*
My nose really itches…
As the man continues his constant blows of epiphanies, the corner of his peripheral vision notices a dark silhouette casting a shadow over his body.
His eyes now pay attention to their surroundings - focusing in of the hazy figure above him.
The room is dark, it has been since his eyes first opened, so making out the appearance of whatever is looming over him is difficult. The man manages to make out the outline of something that looks like a long hat on top of this creature's head.
The being leans in closer, beads of sweat form on the man’s head and this bodies long dormant adrenal glands begin pumping rapidly. The strange face now mere centimetres away, from his own. It seems to be wearing a large rectangular metal helmet, and it’s in terrible condition.
To the man’s amazement, the helmet’s eye slits glow bright white and the mouth area parts like a drawbridge.
“Good morning Sir!” It yells in an oddly cheerful voice.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” He screams - muffled by the tubes in his mouth.
“Let me get those for you Sir!”
The metal being then starts to carefully remove all of the tubes that have being invading the man’s orifices.
“There. It seems they have been safely removed. Please perform a vocal test Sir.” It asks politely.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” He screams once again, this time the volume isn’t being suffocated.
“Wonderful! It seems your vocal chords are working fine, Sir.”
“What be you foal spawn?! Are you a new kind of golem..? Or are you a spirit possessing some kind of weird armour?!” He shouts - cracking his voice in the process.
“It seems your long exposure to your virtual simulation has caused you delirium and memory loss. I shall administer a sedative, please hold still Sir.”
“Sedative?! What does that mean? I have no heard of this word before, wait… Have I..?”
As the man continues to talk, a pale white smoke begins to flow from the inside of the box he’s in, and quickly invades his senses.
“Hey wait! What be this sorcery? It mak… me… tir…”
The man’s eyelids close and his body relaxes.
* * * * *
Several hours later, the man wakes up again. This time however, he realises he is no longer inside that large box he originally woke up in. It seems that this time, he is laying on a table. He gazes in wonder at the glowing lights hanging from the ceiling above him.
“Good morning Sir.” Says the metal man - now appearing beside the man’s head.
The man tenses, but he is in a more controlled mental state than earlier.
“Who are you?” He asks the metal being.
“I am Helper-Bot T-15 N 6 14 9 Z, Edition: MARK III, or: Chappy, as that is the ‘nickname’ given to be buy my owner.” The being proudly declares.
“Chappy… I remember that name… Yeah, I remember… An annoying British guy, who kept making messes.”
“That would be me Sir. Although, I was actually manufactured in China, my voice however is English Man#16. Lady Holly was the one who chose my voice module.” Informs Chappy.
“Holly? I had... Have a sister called Holly. Annoying brat… Where is she?”
“I regret to inform you, Sir, that Lady Holly passed away sixty-seven years ago.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Oh…” He whispered.
The man wasn’t sure what to feel. He could remember nothing about his sister - other than her name and blurs of annoyance. And yet, that makes him feel more empty. His brain begins to throb in pain as it struggles to unlock the memories it long ago hid away.
“Chappy.”
“Yes Sir?”
“What is my name..?”
“Oh dear, you have forgotten something as simple and important as that, this is worse than I calculated. Your name is Callum, Sir. Callum Maxwell.”
“Callum, huh… I don’t remember anyone ever calling me that… I don’t remember anyone…”
Warm salty liquid trickles down Callum’s face as he ponders his life. He remembers very little, but some memories do seem to be appearing gradually, but what of his life as king of Felidorn? He remembers his life there so well, his mind is torn between accepting it as reality of a very long dream. The battles he fought, the friends he made, the people he loved… It was all fake…
Callum laid on the table, silently crying, and just thought; about everything. Chappy did not utter a single word and simply waited for his master to be ready.
* * * * *
It wasn’t until over an hour had passed, that the water ran dry and Callum found temporary peace.
“Chappy.” He says, turning his head; facing Chappy.
“Yes Sir?”
“How long was I in Feli… The virtual simulation for?”
“Three-hundred and seventy-five years, twelve hours, and thirty-two minutes.”
Callum is speechless. He knew that a lot of time has passed due to his room and Chappy’s shabby appearance. His sister also apparently died sixty-seven years ago, but he at all did not expect nearly four-hundred years.
The news hit him like a physical blow, but he knows he cannot keep falling into despair everytime he receives shocking news, and he has a feeling he is going to be hearing a lot ‘shocking shit’ for a while.
He exhales deeply and strengthens his determination.
“What year is it?” He asks.
“Why, it’s the year 2422.”
“So I entered Felidorn in… 2147 .”
“Correct. Very good Sir.”
“How old was I when I entered Felidorn?”
“Fifteenth and five months.”
“Fuck! How the hell have I been alive for 390 years? I'm correct in remembering that people only used to live until , like a hundred, right?”
“Under normal circumstances, a human, who has access to medical care, lives a sedentary lifestyle, a healthy diet and no biological abnormalities, has an average life span one-hundred and six years.”
“Then how am I still alive?”
The Lucid #14 is still to this day one the most advanced virtual reality/preservation chambers in existence. It’s highly efficient at slowing the ageing process, preventing bacterial infection and providing a human with their energy needs, it is unmatched by any other model. Your sister for example, was using an older model - the Lucid #8 and of course as you know, she eventually perished... I noticed that you would have only lasted another year at most in your pod, so I woke you up.”
“Oh… I must ask. How does removing my body from a place that’s keeping me alive, prevent me from dying?”
“Bully Sir! I am not so stupid as to leave you like this. Now that your body has been exposed to the air, you’ve only got approximately forty hours to live…”
“Okay… Still waiting for you to explain how you haven’t helped kill me.”
“Oh, sorry Sir. Do you remember the human drone project?”
“No.”
“Well, to give you the short version Sir. In the of 2093, the American military created man-made humans designed to fight on the front lines of combat. The drones were created using a specimen that was created using a combination of selective breeding and minor genetic enhancements - which they then used as the module to clone on a mass scale. The result was an army of identical soldiers, stronger, faster and more resilient than your standard human. However, due to the large amounts of complaints about human ethics and the protesting of ex-soldiers having being made redundant by the new soldiers, caused the project to cease. All the remaining drones were now considered normal citizens of the state. But that didn’t last long due to their lack of human empathy and would sometimes ‘malfunction’ and kill anything that was a threat to them. In the end, they were either killed or locked away.”
“That’s really interesting, but it doesn’t help me.”
“I was just getting to that Sir. In a nearby hospital is a drone. One that has never been realised from its pod and hasn’t had a memory bank uploaded.”
“So…”
“So, we can unload your consciousness into this drone, and tada! You’ve got a new functioning body.”
“Sounds… Reasonable, I think. So, how do you get the body?”
“We. I’m afraid sir. I can’t take the drone out its pod until you are in it.”
“Well how the hell am I supposed to get there? Look at me.” Callum would gesture with his hands, if he could move them.
“Already thought about that on Sir. You see, that table your laying on has wheels…”
What’s that suppose to mean? Oh…” Callum suddenly felt the sudden strength of hands gripping the area above his head.
“Fuck…”