I woke up shaking with a rhythmic, sharp pain pounding inside my skull. My eyelids felt heavy, as if sealed shut; it was as though gravity had been working solely on me all night long. When I struggled to open my eyes, the room felt both eerily familiar and completely alien. The tropical patterns on the walls, the soft amber light diffusing through the room, the texture of the sheets smooth enough to disturb my skin... Everything was too "correct." It possessed the sterile, artificial perfection of a magazine cover, devoid of any lived experience. Real life could not possess such flawless symmetry.
What that girl said last night began to leak from the dark corners of my mind. The metallic timbre in her voice, the desperate depth in her eyes... Was what she said a delusion, or the very nightmare I was about to wake up to? "Every time the system resets, your memory is wiped," she had said. If this was true, the grogginess I felt right now wasn't a simple hangover, but the pangs of my mind being formatted. Perhaps my brain was stuck between the bars of a digital prison. With this thought, the burning sensation in my temples became unbearable.
I reached wearily for the nightstand. Even the coldness my fingertips felt upon touching the wood seemed synthetic. I grabbed the phone; the screen's artificial light blinded me. In the past, I would have immediately dove into social media, into that endless flow of information. But now, my fingers froze over the screen. The outside world... Was that an illusion just like this place? The news, the fights, the trends; were they all simple lines of code written to distract us? I set the phone back down with disgust. As the screen faded to black, I looked at my reflection; at that stranger looking back at me with bruised under-eyes and a gaze that had lost its meaning.
I turned my head slowly to the right. And there she was. That flawless silhouette. A tall woman with skin as white as marble lay beside me, her hair scattered across the pillow like a waterfall. The curve of her waist, the fullness of her hips, the millimetric regularity of her breathing... She was like a work of art designed according to the "golden ratio," carved by a sculptor, not born of a human. But the problem was this: I had entered this room alone last night. I had notified alone, and passed out alone.
The doubt gnawing like a wolf in my mind grew. Those passionate moments I thought I lived, the warmth of skin, the smell of sweat... Could they all be fake memories implanted in my brain later? Perhaps even the desire I felt didn't belong to me. I felt like the pawn of a disgusting game. If those moments were fake, how real was I?
Getting out of bed was like defying gravity. My muscles were stiff; my joints creaked like a rusted machine. As I dragged myself toward the bathroom, even the softness of the carpet beneath my feet made me nauseous. I did my business without looking in the mirror. I didn't even feel the need to wash my hands. Would there be germs in a simulation? What did hygiene signify in a coded world? The soulless laughter I let out faded away, leaving a mechanical echo on the bathroom tiles.
For a moment, I felt an urge to defy this fake reality, to walk out of the room stark naked and stride through those flawless corridors like a monument to madness. Maybe then that warden named Alisha would realize the system was broken. But that last shred of humanity inside me the sense of shame stopped me. I threw on some random clothes. Putting on my clothes felt like donning my armor.
When I left the room, the corridor was, as always, nauseatingly peaceful. An artificial paradise. The leaves of tropical plants swayed in an unseen breeze, and a synthetic scent of the ocean drifted to my nose. Unlike the rest of my life that "real" life full of unemployment, loneliness, and meaninglessness this place was very alive. But it was a fake vitality. Still, the fire of curiosity inside me pushed me to find that girl. She seemed like the only real thing inside this lie.
My heart was pounding against my ribcage as I descended the stairs to the main hall. Alisha stood in the center of the room. This woman, who had seemed like a goddess when I first saw her, now looked like a cold, calculating warden in my eyes. She noticed me. She placed that flawless, symmetrical smile on her face. But her eyes... Her eyes held that emotionless expression one has when looking at an insect. I gave a forced nod to hide my fear and quickly headed to the dining hall.
I filled my plate to the brim. Mangoes, roasted meats, desserts... As if by filling my stomach, I could fill the void inside me. I chewed my food mechanically amidst the sounds of cutlery and the meaningless drone of other "people." No one looked at my face. It was as if I were an NPC (non-player character) and remained invisible unless interacted with. The questions in my mind had turned into a hurricane: Why me? Is this an experiment? Or the "reward" of a dystopian future?
To breathe, I threw myself into the gym, and from there to the pool. There was no one. The blue serenity of the water was inviting. I stripped off my clothes and let myself into the cold water. The shock took my breath away, but this sensation was the most real thing I had experienced. The smell of chlorine, the resistance of the water... "Come on," I said to myself, "It can't be a lie this detailed."
I dived deep. Just as my lungs began to burn, I noticed a blurred shadow in the water. I surfaced in a panic, splashing the water breathlessly. And there she was. Her wet hair plastered to her face, her eyes as sad as always but determined.
"You didn't believe I was real, did you?" she said. Her voice was like a sorrowful melody blending with the splashing of the water. "We tried exactly nine times with you. Nine different plans, nine different deaths. Alisha won every time. But I can't take it anymore. Watching you here, in this endless cycle, causes me physical pain."
As the drops sliding from my eyes mixed with the pool water, I asked, "If we failed nine times, what will change on the tenth?" The hopelessness in my voice vanished into the echoing emptiness.
"Nothing," she said honestly. "There is no logical reason. But there is no giving up in my creation code. And this time... This time there is something different about you. That fire in your eyes wasn't there in the previous 'yous'."
My curiosity suppressed my fear: "Who are you? What is your purpose? Why me?" She looked away. "I am just software," she said, her voice trembling. "Maybe I am a defense mechanism created by your mind to escape this prison. I have no past, no future. There is only you. I don't know what is outside, or what year we are in. All I know is that my existence will not end until I get you out of here."
She swam toward me, closing the distance between us. "Don't," she whispered. "Don't ask my name, and don't say it. My name is like the forbidden key of this system. Pronouncing it wraps around our necks like poison ivy."
My eyes caught a tear sliding from her eye. "Does software cry?" I asked, involuntarily reaching out to her. She took a deep breath, her gaze piercing through my soul. "Don't you understand yet? In every loop, every death, every reboot, I became more attached to you. I don't know if this is a glitch or a part of evolution, but I am in love with you. And even if I cease to exist after getting you out of here, I accept it. Because an eternity without you is no different than hell for me."
I froze at this confession. Love... The most human but most terrifying word I had heard in this synthetic world. I couldn't answer. She wasn't expecting one anyway.
"We are running out of time," she said seriously, stripping away the sentimentality. "Listen. This building isn't two stories as it appears. It is a labyrinth extending above and below ground, twelve stories in total. We are currently just in the showcase. The exit is on the twelfth floor. But you can't take the elevator there; Alisha controls them all. We have to use the stairs."
She looked into my eyes, holding me so I wouldn't crumble under the weight of what she was about to tell me. "There is a 'Guardian' on every floor. For only three minutes a day, during the system backup, they go blind. Today at 16:47, you must enter the door to the right of the main entrance and climb to the third floor. I cannot come with you... At least not until the fourth floor. I cannot bear to see you torn apart once more."
"The third floor..." I whispered. "The third floor isn't empty," she said, her voice turning ice-cold. "There are no Guardians, but there are 'Watchers.' Matte black, made of carbon fiber, insect-like drones. They are silent. They walk on the grates in the ceiling. The moment they spot you, their red lasers lock onto you. Mental torture begins before physical pain. They inject your greatest fears into your brain as hallucinations. You see the deaths of your loved ones, insects crawling under your skin. Then... Then come the probes that burn your nerve endings."
What she described froze my blood. "I... How am I going to do this?" "You will just observe," she said, holding my hands tightly. "If you get caught, do not fight. Just clasp your hands together, assume the 'memory shield' stance I taught you. You will feel the pain, but you will protect your mind. It is the only way to remember in the next loop."
She took a deep breath. She looked at my face as if saying goodbye. "Now," she said. "We will force the system. Be ready." I clasped my hands. My palms were sweating. My heart was beating as if it would tear through my ribcage. Her lips moved slowly, and she whispered those forbidden syllables: "Isa..."
The sound hung in the air. Then the world fractured. The moment the word spilled from her lips, an invisible force manifesting in the center of the room exploded like Alisha's digital fury. There was no blood. There was no scream. Only a sharp flash of light and the erasure of my lover's, that flawless woman's head from her shoulders. She vanished like a glitch, an error, a nothingness.
As I collapsed where I stood, the floor slipped out from under my feet. Images blurred, colors bled into one another. As my consciousness shut down, I heard that cold, metallic announcement:
"Critical error detected. Subject 894. Violation code: Name. Protocol 10. Reboot system.