I ran away from my home to find the truth of this universe, and I found things that no being could handle. Heed my words stranger and spread the truth, they can, and will silence me, but not all of us. I count on you.
For my whole life, I’ve been a sucker for questions. I questioned how fridges worked, I questioned the authority, and eventually, my curiosity led me to question the universe we live in. Among the people, the universe chose me and whispered answers to me. At first, I thought everyone could hear them, however my expectations were left unsatisfied.
I remember the first whispers from middle school, initially I ignored them but they told me things that no other person did. The amount of knowledge it bestowed upon me was too great for me to keep in mind, so I decided to write them. Unfortunately, my mother found them when I wasn’t at home and burnt them. She knew I’d scavenge through the trash so that vile woman burnt all of them. This didn’t stop me from seeking the truth, however. She must’ve expected that I’d eventually become another NPC in the society, but she underestimated my willingness to go above and beyond.
I shared the knowledge the universe loaned me to others, but they either ignored me or belittled me. I had a rough middle school and I avoided school several times without the knowledge of my parents. This in the end culminated with me being sent to the “therapist” at the school, who then proceeded me to a psychiatrist. I don’t remember that day well because I had a visceral reaction to the hospital and the doctors, which never went away.
So here I am, a sophomore at a nameless high school, sedated with many meds my parents shove down my throat. I didn’t know why I took them, only because I was supposed to. If I didn’t, they threatened to lock me away. For the last couple of years, my interest in the universe died down quite a bit, and I turned to an automaton with no purpose or aim. This continued for a while until I found a friend on one of those old forum websites. Only a fringe group of people used this website so we were quite in touch with each other. To my dismay, the owner of the website said that it would shut down soon, so I exchanged my socials with the person I trusted the most. We started chatting on social media every day, we shared secrets and talked about the universe.
One day, she informed on how she fulfilled the final step to find the absolute truth. Years of cultivated energy and information finally paid off, and she found the location of an “abandoned” bunker. Our divine journey would start from here, and end at the edge of the world. We agreed on meeting in this place in three days. I already attempted to run away from my home a couple of years ago and got punished for it. This time, I left through my room’s window and jumped to the grass from the second floor. I yanked my bicycle and set the destination to the bunker.
At dawn, I saw a couple of police cars patrolling the area. I had no doubts in my mind that they were looking for me, so I did my best to steer away from crowds. They didn’t expect me to outsmart them at every step. Still, I had to be careful, the authorities could find me if I slipped up. I camped at a state park and honored my guests which consisted of a couple of birds, a deer, and a cat. As I observed my notes, I considered the possibility of my parents being fake. After all, some people had no souls and the creator of this universe only sent them to test us. This terrified me; however, I had my reasons. Either way, my parents were out to get me, and I’d definitely be locked up in a white room if I got caught.
I cycled day and night and arrived at the location. I exhausted my water and food; I had nothing other than a couple of clothes and pages of notes. I sat down and listened to the birds while staring at the river in front of me. The wind licked my face with ferocity. At that moment, I was truly alone. No parents, no feds, nothing. Just me and chiming birds. I didn’t feel happy or sad but engulfed myself in emptiness. I couldn’t stay like this forever, though. I listened to the universe consoling me and stood up.
I observed the metal door and approached it. Immediately I retreated as I heard strange noises from the other side. I sat on the grass and waited for my friend to arrive. She came an hour later; she had a nice dress and a bag full of equipment. After a while of chit-chat, we prepared for our trip. She gave me a flashlight and brought a crowbar. I warned her about the strange noise, but when we came to the door, we didn’t hear a single thing. She said it could be the wind, and we attempted to open the door. It gave in after the third time.
Mold mixed with coal dust violated our nostrils, and I almost emptied my stomach to her shoes. We walked and talked about ourselves to each other. I learned so many things from her at that time. She was someone like me, isolated from the world and stuck in a virtual machine. We bonded even more, I snuck into her left arm and strolled confidently into darkness. We noticed a shining object from afar, and when we got closer to it, we saw a railway and a tunnel separating in two directions. The sign there didn’t help at all, so my friend concluded on the right path.
We also felt a faint wind from the right side. The wind got stronger and stronger until we found ourselves at the edge of a cliff. The tunnel opened to a thin bridge made out of rusted iron. A harsh wind struck us, we held each other to not fall off the edge. Pure darkness resided below us, gray structures in every shape and form poked out of the void. Some even went further to the ceiling, and these illuminated the area around them. It reminded me of those unfinished maps I made during my game developer craze, but unlike those, this laid in front of me. This was real.
From head to toe, my body trembled in fear. I couldn’t even take a single step to the bridge, my brain screamed at me to get the hell out of there. My friend, however, as much as she seemed to be scared, tugged my t-shirt.
“The way to the truth is to see what others won’t want to see, no, even doing their best to ignore it. They will forget themselves and become a soup of consciousness in the face of nothing. We will carve our destiny and achieve what others can’t. It will certainly hurt, but you can’t light a fire without burning yourself along the way.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I couldn’t leave my friend alone like this, and no way I would walk back to the entrance. I nodded, hugged her and we lumbered to the middle. We stopped for a moment and looked each other in the eyes. At that moment, I realized that there was no return from this point, and in a sense, that comforted me.
Our momentary relaxation was interrupted by a loud thud from behind. The tunnel collapsed; it became another part of the wall. Chills went through my spine, and I embraced my fate. We walked to the edge, and to my amusement, the bridge stayed intact. The tunnel we went in slowly morphed into a wall the further we walked; the sterile white walls had computing machines so foreign to us that we had no idea how they operated. Our attempts to meddle with them showed no results.
The white walls accompanied us until we reached an elevator. A sign next to it read “Floor 100”. We didn’t mind the stairs going below and above, we didn’t have much time. Someone or something used these devices, and they would come back sooner or later. My friend occupied herself with the computer attached to the elevator and jumped in joy.
“Good news, Eve! We can use this computer. See, it is in English.”
I looked at the computer, and it was indeed in English. We called the elevator, and it arrived after 5 minutes of waiting. This is where we encountered another serious issue. The elevator didn’t open, and the computer made weird noises. We looked at each other, none of us wanted to walk to the end of this building. As we contemplated our choices, the computer shut down and the elevator opened. We walked into the capsule elevator. Anyone could see us and we could see them in return. We hesitated for a moment and touched to 0 on the pad. It went to the command room.
We passed through several floors on our descent, each floor had similar qualities to the one we left. The same white walls with computers attached to them. The indifference of the environment almost comforted us, we could sit down, have a breather, and decide our next step. This immediately changed when the elevator spoke in a demeaning manner.
“The elevator will stop at the 15th floor.”
We were on the 20th floor, so we had to act quickly. Someone called the elevator, and we had no idea what they’d do to us. We decided to leave on the 14th floor so that they’d be distracted by the elevator while we would sneak past them. Before we finished our plans, however, I saw one of them through the glass. It had no similarities to a human other than having a white humanoid body. Words aren’t enough for me to explain what it was, my brain refuses to process it. All I could process was that it gave off a white noise. My friend didn’t seem to notice the thing, so when she saw my pale face, she looked puzzled.
I tried to explain what I saw, and to my bewilderment, she wasn’t impressed. Or so I thought, she pulled a Desert Eagle out of her bag and grinned.
“I killed a lot of monsters with this, the engravings on it give you good luck.”
We didn’t have the time to chat or laugh, our goal laid just a few floors behind us. We saw those white things again but hid to avoid detection. As we approached our objective, I noticed the walls taking a grayish green there. I touched the wall, and a cloud of coal dust obscured my face. I held onto my dear life to not cough at this moment and managed to do so. Still, our problems didn’t end here. When we approached the command room, a laser appeared and scanned me. The doors of the floor locked out; we could only get along with the charade. A loud voice from the speakers rang in my ears.
“Eve Shawn, soul search… positive. Your name isn’t in the database. Did you connect to the simulation just now?”
Pushing the wild implications aside, I had to make something up before we became another victim of this concoction. I got a bright, but risky idea.
“Yes, I did. If you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my work.”
“Alright, make it quick,” the voice groaned.
The door before us opened with all of its secrets, but my body didn’t move an inch. In just a few hours, my world turned upside down several times, and I had no idea how to respond to this other than leaning to the wall and taking it all. My friend comforted me and encouraged me to get up, and after 5 minutes of disassociating my brain from my body, I stood up. Whether I liked it or not, the truth was a few steps ahead of me. My friend seemed to be shaken up too, she slurred her speech, and her movements slowed by a huge margin. We held each other and entered the room.
A giant screen on our right showed a picture of the known universe with several sliders going up and down beneath it. On our left, thousands of cables went in and out of machines I couldn’t comprehend. They were useful for something, but for what, I don’t know. The real deal stood in front of us, a computer that had a tree with a text below. I read it, and I read it again. Over and over again. For a moment, time froze for both of us.
“Simulation Alpha, souls remaining: 7 million.”
My friend dropped her pistol as she read the sentence. We stared at each other. This meant that most of the people in this world were indeed, fake. They were created to continue a simulation that existed for who knows how long. Several questions went through my head, but the most important one stood out. Who created this simulation, and was there a way to get out of it? We looked through the computers for a long time, but it was either encrypted or unintelligible garbage. At the worst moment, we heard the voice once again.
“Eve, I didn’t notice that you brought a friend here. It’s compulsory to scan everyone.”
I comforted my friend as the machine scanned her, but the machine compromised us.
“Olga Mulya, soul search… negative. You’re careless, Miss Eve. Now I’ll have to terminate someone in the office.”
Without a word, I picked up the pistol and emptied all of the magazine into the machinery. My friend handed me another mag, which I happily unloaded to the scanner and the camera next to it. The whole base became aware of the situation and closed up on our location. We opened Pandora’s Box, and it only left us with even more questions. We had to leave, or there’d be no one to tell this revelation.
I found a vent hidden behind the computers, and we rummaged through the trash to advance. We could only crouch and go slowly as too much noise would attract attention. After a grueling hour, we found an “exit”. I opened the door, and as I did it, we found ourselves falling into the ocean. We hit the water pretty badly, and I bruised my ankle. I had no idea how that happened, but I stopped questioning anything, for I knew, the questions would never end.
After we sat on the beach for an hour, we found a store and bought some food to eat. Just as I dozed off, I noticed two posters on the wall. The police were looking for me and Olga, and the amount of money they’d give was huge. I grabbed Olga and we ran to the woods nearby. At this point, I knew it was over for both of us. The police would find us and turn us into one of those white mannequins. I knew for sure that the creators of this simulation used them to order this place.
Since then, I’ve been hiding with my friend and managed to put my story on several boards on the net. They keep removing the story, but it’s getting the attraction it needs. I’m sure they’ll find me and Olga in a week or so, but they can’t stop all of us. I have done my job, and it’s your turn. Stay safe, and stay on the true path.