Prologue: Back to Reality

Flickering tube lights, long corridors tinted with a revolting beige only years of grease could produce, and a general smell of death and dismay – the seemingly endless maze spoke to Nathan as he became aware of the spiral patterned wallpaper for the first time.

     Spiral? His eyes lit up for a moment, on the verge of understanding something important. Something about –

     “Nathan. Are you there, Nathan?”

            He lost his train of thought and saw that he sat in a small room, dingier than the corridors outside, and darker too somehow. The room might once have been white, but now it reeked of grey neglect. He was sat on a chair, and less than a metre in front of him sat Doctor Engel, adjacent to a freshly made bed.

     How long did I sleep here?

            Doctor Engel watched Nathan with knowing eyes behind frameless spectacles and a pitying smile that drove Nathan insane. He wore tan trousers, smart, leather shoes, and a light-blue turtle neck. His nose was long and slanted, and his white hair was pulled back neatly, accentuating  heavy receding. His right leg crossed over the left, with both his hands respectfully placed in his lap; he was a statue of calm and relaxation.

            “Yes doctor. Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?” Despite all the help and intervention from Doctor Engel, Nathan still felt contempt at his presence. Something about the man just pissed him off.

     “Well that’s good Nathan. Very good,” Engel seemed to elongate the end of every word. It felt extremely patronising. “I suppose your time here has finally come to an end. We’re so happy for you.” The doctor always flashed the tips of his teeth in a sickly sweet smile whilst speaking. “Now that it’s over, you just need to take these tablets regularly okay? You’ll be fine.”

            From his pocket, he produced a clear glass bottle filled with multi-coloured capsules.

     Anti-depressants, Nathan thought glumly. At least they’ll be colourful.

     Nathan snatched at them and stuffed them away into his fraying sweatpants, once again noticing what a stark difference there was between him and the doctor. Nathan was garbed in a vest top, cheap bottoms, running trainers and a papery thin jacket that rustled with every step – it seemed extremely unfair.

            Doctor Engel smiled as though he read his patient’s thoughts and continued talking, “So, Nathan… Before you go, do you have any questions?”

     Ask him…

     Nathan’s eyes shifted uncomfortably as he struggled to find the right words, before reluctantly saying, “I do have something I want to ask.” The Doctor simply nodded. “Well… I want to know what happened to me.” 

            Nathan fidgeted with his fingers, locking them together and pulling them apart. Again, and again and again. The eyes behind those ominous spectacles observed his habits like a hawk – it was unnerving.

     “I suppose it could do no harm to be educated,” said Engel with a deep sigh. “You know about GOD, I presume?”

     “It’s inside us,” Nathan said instinctively.

     “Yes, that much is fact. But do you know what GOD does?” The Doctor spoke as if Nathan were a child, still wet behind the ears and naïve about the ways of the world. It didn’t help, however, that Nathan didn’t know the answer to the question.

     Condescending cunt.

     “I – No, sir.”

     “I thought as much,” Engel laughed.

      Is he fucking provoking me?

     His laughter resounded for a long time before he carried on, “GOD controls the senses Nathan; directly influences them. And we have found that GOD can be controlled – stimulated, if you will. I’m sure you’ve seen the advertisements for TMPL?”

     TMPL… Who hasn’t heard of TMPL? It’s what we fucking live for.

     “Yes Doctor. I’ve seen them.” The bitterness was coming through in Nathan’s voice, but the Doctor didn’t seem to pay any mind at all.

            “Then the pieces are all there Nathan. GOD and TMPL are the greatest innovations of this century.” His eyes began to glaze and zeal entered his voice. “In a world that has decided to die on us – to abandon its residents – we have taken control of our own future. We have taken control of our every sense with the chip and the console. When the world leaves you behind, then you make your own.” He finished his speech, enunciating each syllable with passionate force: “Fully immersive Virtual Reality.”

     Nathan recoiled at the last of the words.

     Something’s wrong with my head.

     “Y – Yes, sir. But that still doesn’t explain what happened to me,” Nathan voiced.

            The doctor looked at Nathan intensely as he leaned forward on his chair. “You see Nathan, a number of ‘products’ have ended up on a ‘black market’ of sorts. It seems you got yourself involved with a product and felt the difference first-hand.”

     “The difference sir?”

     “These products are… temperamental. Sure, you’ll get your VR alright, but nothing like a TMPL console, and it will usually come at a price.” The doctor’s lips curled.

     “What price?” The conversation was making Nathan’s skin crawl. Something in his mind was screaming at him. It was as if it were trying to enlighten him, or break him free from a cage in his mind – it just wasn’t strong enough however.

     “Well if you look at your case – what brought you here I mean… You were stuck in there, Nathan. Once the faulty program you played ran out, it just looped to the beginning again, and continued to do so, again and again, with no way out. It took a miracle to resuscitate you back to reality.”

     What is this feeling? I’m forgetting something important.

     “How long was I trapped?” A part of him needed to know, and the other part dreaded the reply.

     “You had a program with horribly dilapidated time unfortunately… Out here, only a few weeks had passed. You were hooked on to a life support machine when you were found. Lucky that you were; any later and you definitely would have –.”

     “Doctor please!” Nathan shouted in frustration. It was coming back to him, the horrors of that world. The isolation and phantoms; the endless search for an exit, and the moment it all looped to force him through it cyclically. His hands shook as he gripped his sides, tightly clenching his ribcage, his eyes were wide open in a nightmarish reminiscence. “How long was it for me in that world?”

            Doctor Engel’s smile only widened, “I’m afraid in there, you experienced… one thousand and nine years.”