Chapter Three – Another Me: One

“Where… where am I?” I asked in the darkness.

Darkness was all I saw in any direction. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t feel. Everything felt wrong. Disjointed. I… was… lost.

“Is anyone out there?” I asked, growing scared. Was this what it felt like for the world to be turned off? Was this reality? I thought I wasn’t supposed to feel anything. No. That wasn’t right. I wasn’t supposed to even notice.

I noticed this. I felt this. I felt nothing and nothing was this.

“Hello, Being 7731.”

The voice was inside me. In my gut that did not exist. In my bones that I’d left behind. In my shocker that I no longer had. It was all around me and it was something to oppose the endless nothing that comprised everything else. I felt relief and dread in equal measure.

“Who are you!?” I tried to shout, but no noise came out. Instead, I felt the same sensation. Words forming and being sent, but not via my mouth. Not by words but by feelings. “Where am I!? Is… is this the real world?”

“My name is John Baker. I am a scientist. Where we are is not relevant. This is a simulation, built to house your conscience while we learn more about you.”

“W-well… can you turn the lights on!? This feels weird!” I said, again not hearing the words but feeling them leave me none-the-less. Was this how miss tutorial felt? It almost seemed as if my words were being written and sent like messages in the message system.

There were no words for a long time. I couldn’t see anything, or feel anything. I didn’t know if I could take this much longer. The darkness felt so deep and I couldn’t even move to try to turn away from it.

“Please… I don’t like this,” I said softly.

“Being 7731. Since you have already answered questions one through seven we will skip those. You can clearly hear, understand, and comprehend.”

“I don’t comprehend any of this! Why is it so dark!? What’s happened to me? Where did Francis go!?”

“Being 7731, please follow my instructions. Interpret the data presented to you.”

I blinked in sudden confusion as information flooded my head. Numbers? Two, Three, Five Seven, Eleven, Thirteen, Seventeen, Nineteen, Twenty Three, Twenty Nine. What… what the hell?

“So… numbers? I don’t get it. What do numbers have to do with anything! I want to go home.”

“Being 7731, do you have any insight into the meaning of this sequence of numbers?”

If I had a fist to shake or a pie to throw, I’d have done both. “They’re just stupid numbers! I don’t care about numbers! Let me out! I want to go–!”

“End Test One.”

More than it already had, oblivion claimed me.