Chapter 1: strange reality
1094 Words
Rose ran into the Hall as fast as she could when she had dressed up, and unsurprisingly all eyes quickly became fixated on her, almost enough to make her feel quite anxious.
But when her eyes met with those of her best friend Denzel who nodded at her encouragingly, she mustered up her courage and adjusted her spectacles as she stepped forward confidently, there were indeed a lot of eyes staring at her in a lot of different ways, but all of that was normal and was expected after all she was here to make a presentation.
And not just a presentation but a very important one, the most important presentation in her entire senior year and different professors aside from her main instructor were there to watch what she had to say.
She cleared her throat lightly and took the microphone as she began first by greeting everyone present and introducing herself along with the presentation she was about to make, the theory behind it and the research she had to back it all up, that was just how things were done at Calmford college in the city of Dallway.
The work she had chosen was one she was really passionate about which combined recent discoveries in nanotechnology with what was already known about quantum physics along with a few theoretical experiments, but that was just it... Everything was theoretical.
As she spoke, her eyes locked contact with another one of her peers who went by the name of Elvis Dwight and she struggled to quickly find her voice and finish up the presentation, this wasn't at all because she had any form of crush or infatuation regarding Elvis but instead because he was the one person she wasn't even close to being friends with in the entire class.
"That was a... Wonderful presentation Rose, well done, " the professor said to her when he stood up, "everyone give it up for Rose, she's done an incredible job. "
Everyone else began to clap, everyone except for Elvis who continued to look at her seriously despite his best friend asking him to cut it out.
"I told you to stop looking at her like that, " Derrick, Elvis's best friend said to him while the applause was going on, "can't you see you're making her really uncomfortable? "
"If I am then that's good, because she is making me feel uncomfortable, I mean something about her seems off, something about her feels strange almost like she's not... I don't know how to describe it, it's like she's not real, " Elvis answered and continued to stare directly at the lady named Rose while the applause quickly died down.
"I don't know what new psychedelic or drug s**t you're on right now but you need to just stop it and chill the hell out, I mean you know her, we both do, we've known her for at least five years already," Derrick answered.
"Yeah but, that also feels weird somehow, I can remember her but it's like the memories of her that I have do not belong in my head, it's like they never happened, " Elvis answered rather seriously.
"Except that they did happen and you know it, there's proof everywhere, there are photos if you want to check so I have absolutely no idea where this is coming from but I think you should go see a doctor or something regarding your mental, " Derrick said seriously, "this is not the matrix, it's real life filled with real people. "
"How do you know it's real life, what if there are many other versions of reality like this one and we call this one the real life solely because we are more familiar with it? " Elvis asked
"I don't even know what to say to that bro, " Derrick answered and watched as Rose walked to take a seat in the midst of the crowd, his lips pursed as he turned to face his friend who had already started preparing to leave, "but if you are right, and if all of this including Rose is nothing but some kind of simulation or algorithm how do you plan to escape it at all. "
"That's the part that I don't know, " Elvis answered honestly and with a rather solemn expression.
"Crap, " Derrick said in utter dismay, now the thought had been planted in his mind and he wouldn't be able to think of anything else.
*****
Rose stood up from her chair and walked out quietly when nobody was watching, her expression very solemn and somewhat poignant, she felt empty for some reason, she felt completely hollow and like her life force had been completely removed.
But she had no reason to feel this way after all she had achieved her dreams of being at this college, and of even reaching such a new height, it was something her younger self would never have even dreamed of but yet...
She looked down at her hands and held them open as little drops of the rain began to fall on them, why did she feel like she had lost something very important, why did she feel like a zombie walking the earth without a plan and without a goal, without a heart and without a soul.
She felt like she was different from everyone else, and she was not exactly sure if that was a good thing or not.
Her eyes looked up at the clouds again which had now turned black as she tried to remember, to remember her real childhood, to remember whatever truth it was that had been squeezed out of her by whatever or whoever it was that was watching.
But the harder she tried to remember, the further away the memory got until she decided to just close her eyes and continued walking while in meditation, not caring about anything else, somehow she had figured it out already from the dream, she had figured out that she wasn't from here and even 'here' wasn't real, or more accurately it wasn't real in the same sense that she was.
It was as she continued walking however that she heard a loud voice from behind saying, "stop!" And when she was forced to stop, she opened her eyes and looked up, it was Elvis.
"Do you have a death wish? " Elvis asked.
Rose was stunned for a moment, but then she opened her mouth and with a serious expression, she retorted, "Why are you following me? "
- Writer
