Chapter 6: Awakening

Light; bright and shimmering, blinding all vision. Lawrence was confused; while the appearance of endless light matched the description of the afterlife given by so many, the feeling did not – the feeling, in fact, was distinctly uncomfortable, the feeling of one’s extremities being pressed hard against something icy and cold and not quite in one’s size. Then the light was gone. In the darkness, he could hear murmuring, whispering, as if from outside. Outside? He attempted to move, but all for naught. His body was trapped. In a tight, made-to-measure, cylindrical container.

Groping, he realised that he was still clothed, albeit his clothes felt different now; his tunic had been replaced by a long grey silk robe, stretching down to his knees, but that was his entire outfit. The voices grew louder, and he felt a shudder as the container he was in shook slightly, piling bewilderment on bewilderment; a creaking, a clanking, and a flood of light, as a large metal door slowly opened before him.

Dazed, confused, he stepped out and though weary and still in a state of mental disrepair, he attempted to gather some semblance of focus and determine the appearance of the area around him. The room contained small windows scattered across the ceiling, each glowing yellow and filling the room with a slightly odd and somehow unsettling light; the floor was cold, tiled, stretching from wall to wall, the walls themselves a pale white colour. Devices, machinery, surrounded him and seemed to fill a vast expanse of the moderately-sized room, the ceiling itself low; the machinery itself was being operated by two or three strange-looking men, dressed in an odd manner. They wore stretching white coats, goggles strapped tightly to their faces, their minds focused on all but their work. One now approached him in a careful and wary manner; he was quite elderly and bore little hair on his head and, after looking Lawrence up and down, he spoke.

“It seems that the test was a success,” he said.

“T…Test?” Lawrence mumbled, still somewhat dazed.

“Yes. Don’t you remember? The simulated reality test!” he exclaimed. Lawrence let these words sink in for a moment, before opening his eyes wide in horror.

“Simulated reality? What does that…I don’t…” Lawrence stammered; trying to understand what was going on.

“The world you’ve just been living in for the past year was a simulated reality, created by the company – sort of. You see, we strap you into this pretty little machine, put you out, keep you provided with the nutrients you would need to perform your bodily functions, as well as clearing out excreted waste, etc…”

The man paused, mentally taking note of Lawrence’s bemused face, before continuing, “Your real-life memories were suppressed while false ‘fantasy’ memories were created for you in your sleep, and you remained in a coma of sorts as the machine took care of you. It was an attempt at seeing if new worlds could be created from the minds of people. We create worlds for them and place it into their minds while they sleep, and as soon as they ‘die’ in the fantasy world they are ejected from the system. You really don’t remember any of this?” the man finished.

But Lawrence, much to his chagrin, did remember. As the memories of his life in the fantasy world began to dissolve away into nothingness, the memories of his real life began to creep back into his mind; yet the heartbreak of losing the world he had grown so attached to was too great for Lawrence, and so with tears in his eyes he began to deny the statements the scientists were making.

“It’s not true! You lying bastard, it’s not true!” he cried, shaking. “Look at my leg! This scar came from when I was a young boy! I slipped and fell from a tree while playing in the village one day, and my mother came to cuddle and console me when I scarred myself after landing!” he screamed.

The old man sadly shook his head, “Sorry, but that’s simply not true. You scraped your leg on your first attempt getting into the machine, and you had to spend three days in hospital having your wound stitched up before we could try again. Remember that?”

Lawrence did, and the false childhood memory was instantly vaporised inside his mind as the truth replaced it. But he was not done arguing; he gritted his teeth and flung forth his next argument.

“My friends…surely they exist! You must have based them on real people from my life! Renee, Kyle? I mean, I am Lawrence Fireheart, right?!” he argued, now crying in rage at the unfairness of the situation.

“I’m so sorry,” the old man told him, “but you do not know such people. Everyone in that world was a fictional construct. The only thing close to any input from us was the old woman’s warning – we were trying to keep you away from the temple, as we knew that dragon you had imagined would have probably killed you if you encountered it and thus would have wrenched you from the simulation. And your name was never Lawrence Fireheart – that, too, is fiction. Have you even forgotten your own name, Lucius Bartholomew?”

Lucius gulped and took a step back. Inside his mind he was screaming in agony, as the truth of his life came galloping forth from the depths of his subconscious while the memories of his fantasy world were rapidly being eradicated from existence.

Lucius sighed and looked down, shutting his eyes tightly. He could fight it no longer, and he had to now accept the fate given to him – the fate of his true life. Then his eyes opened wide, and he smiled with a glimmer of hope in his eye.

“Then remind me,” he said to the old man, “What was I to the company – to this world, might I ask?” hoping beyond hope that in this world he had a powerful and prestigious position.

“A guinea pig,” the man flatly replied, “something on which we could experiment and perform tests, such as this simulation.”

“A guinea pig?” Lucius’ mouth hung open in horror. “And that’s all I was?!” he bellowed.

“Not all,” the old man reassured him, “you were a pen-pusher, sorting out the fiddly bills, the worthless ones, the ones that the company didn’t need to worry about. You got your low-paying job out of pity from the company, and we gave you the lowest-ranking pen-pusher bill-sorting job we could find in sympathy of your plight; after all, you had no friends, no family, nothing. That’s why you were the first to test the simulation.”

Lucius Bartholomew was now fully reinstated within his own mind, and the beautiful life of Lawrence Fireheart died away as the few neurons carrying the remnants of those memories quickly disconnected and erased them forever. Lucius sighed and shook his head despondently, while the old man put an arm around him.

“Don’t worry, lad…” the old man said, patting him on the shoulder, “we’ll get you cleaned up and in a few days, your life will be just like it was before the simulation!”

The man led Lucius out of the door, and as it closed behind the two of them, an awkward silence descended upon the room as the remaining scientists quietly sympathised for the plight of poor Lucius Bartholomew – the man who lost a year of his life in order to live a lie.

Previous Chapter