As I sat up in the grass, I realized that it had all been fake. The entire second reality, the insane Kitagawa and even the supposed brain damage I was suffering from. It had all been another part of their simulation.

I grew angry before rage overtook me.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing? This is fucked up! I fuck thought it was real! I thought… This is insane. Why don’t you just get me out of here right now and-“

“Mr. Purlow, I like to inform you,” a voice popped out of nowhere. “In form 48, paragraph 4, point C you specifically agreed to-“

“Yeah, well, fuck off!” I screamed in answer.

This time the voice didn’t anything else.

I stood up and looked around. I was in a meadow and further ahead was a small lake. The moment I saw it, nostalgia washed over me. I knew this lake! It was the one that had been right next to the village my grandparents had lived at.

I let my eyes wander around and I recognized the old cherry tree nearby, the dirt path that led from the like to the village and even the distant forests. How in the hell had they created all this? Had they researched my past or had they somehow scanned my memories? Was something like that even possible?

After a while, not knowing what else to do, I began walking up the path that should lead me to the village. I was stuck in here anyway, without a way to end the simulation myself. And I had to admit, I wanted to see the old village.

I’d barely taken a few steps when I found an old bike lying in the grass. I noticed the black-red metallic color, the old, dirty gears, and the rusted bell. It was the mountain bike I’d owned as a kid. The memories of childhood returned to me and I saw myself racing down dirt paths and forest tracks. I couldn’t help but smile. Things were so different back then. For a moment I considered picking up the bike, but I was way too tall to drive it, anyway.

The path from the lake led to a tiny hill and once I’d made it up there my eyes grew wide. I couldn’t believe it. Once more I wondered how they’d created all this. For a while, I stood there marveling at the sight below.

There was the huge old farmstead. Here were the holiday homes at the edge of the village. Further away was the major part of the village with the church in its center. In front of me, though, was the part that my eyes rested on the longest. It was the lower part of the village which consisted of only a handful of houses, one of them my grandparents’. It had been over fifteen years since I’d last been there.

As I went on my way, I couldn’t help but be impressed by how real everything was. I felt the grass against my legs, the sun on my face, and I smelled the fresh summer air. You could almost forget you were in a simulation, I thought.

No, I reminded myself, don’t fall for it again, you idiot! Not a second time, hell, not a third time!

My steps led me to my grandparent’s house almost on autopilot. It was a small house, with a barn next to it. They’d been farmers for the better part of their life. When I was born though, they’d already abandoned the old trade and had opted for a more relaxed way of living.

The closer I got, the more memories returned to me. I felt goosebumps on my arm when I saw a cat in the grass nearby. It eyed me curiously and when I noticed the brownish, grey stripes on his back, I knew that it had to be my grandma’s old cat, Leo.

The cat watched me for a few more moments before it came over to me, purring and rubbing itself against my legs.

“Hey little fellow,” I greeted it and leaned down to pet it.

I wondered how they’d got everything right up to the smallest detail. Then I wondered if this was really what grandma’s cat had looked like. What if they’d created a vague image of a cat and my brain made the necessary connections that weren’t there and filled in the gaps? Was that how they did all this? Providing nothing but a vague framework for the rest of the brain to work with?

While I stood there, petting the cat and thinking about this, the sky suddenly grew darker. Within moments thick clouds had formed and blocked out the sun before it began to rain. It wasn’t long before the rain had turned into a full-on downpour.

Sure, it was a simulation, but I still felt myself getting wet and I felt the cold gusty wind. Within moments I was freezing and hurried to the open front door of the house. I watched as the downpour continued and saw Leo rush away into the barn. They’d done it all, to the minutest detail.

As I stood there, I wondered why they’d thrown me into a simulation like this. Why my grandparents’ house?

Then, something crawled back into my mind. As I stood there in the small entry hall, I shivered as a memory came back to me. The memory of the single worst day of my entire childhood. I’d never told them about that day! Hell, I’d buried it so deep inside my mind, I hadn’t even remembered it until now! So how did they know about it!?

No, I told myself, I wouldn’t go in. I wouldn’t enter this house. They couldn’t make me, could they? I rushed back outside. All care about the downpour or the cold had vanished. I’d make it to one of the other houses, or just over to the barn.

I don’t know what I was expecting if I thought I could actually do anything.

What I wasn’t expecting were the spiders that suddenly swarmed the ground. At first, there were only a few, but soon it was hundreds, thousands. They covered the grass, the trees, the barn, everything. Everything but my grandparents’ house.

For a moment I closed my eyes. If I don’t see them, they can’t hurt me, right? None of this was real, it was a simulation! Just run, you damned idiot, run, and get away from here.

Yet, I’d barely taken a few steps when I could feel them crawling all over me. They made their way up my legs, my back, and even my arms. I shuddered, tried to ignore it, but finally, I screamed, opened my eyes, and swatted them off me. I was shaking and as I looked ahead I saw that the entire village, no, the entire outside world was covered in thick, heavy spider webs. This whole simulation had become some arachnophobic hell!

When I couldn’t fight it anymore, when my phobia kicked in with full force I rushed back into the house. I didn’t want to go there again, but my body didn’t seem to listen to me anymore.

Still, I knew why they forced me back here. This time they couldn’t make me. No, I wouldn’t move. I’d stay down here, next to the front door. Once more the dreaded memory pushed itself into my head. I lost my balance and started shaking and sweating.

“You goddamn pieces of shit! Fuck you!” I screamed up at the empty, quiet house.

The last time I’d been here was a few days after my grandma had died. After that day, I’d never been to that house again, and I’d never wanted to return to it.

My grandpa had died when I was ten years old and after his death, my grandma had lived on her own. She died one year later. I shuddered thinking about the day I found her.

I sat down on the ground and didn’t do a damn thing. All I did was breathe slowly and steadily to keep the panic at bay as I watched the spiders outside.

“Mr. Purlow, we have to inform you again that you’re required to participate in the simulation. We are aware that you know where you’re supposed to go. Should you remain there without continuing, we’re forced to-“

“Just shut the fuck up! I’m not doing it! I’m not going there!” I screamed again without moving a single inch.

I tried, I honestly tried, but how can you fight something that you’ve got no control over. What can you do in a world that can become anything and do anything to you?

I sat there, unmoving, but after a short while, the spiders outside grew restless before they rushed towards the building. I could barely throw the front door shut, but I could feel it, the pressure of thousands of spiders trying to force their way in. Then I heard it, the sounds, the sounds of spiders crawling and skittering all over the walls outside. As I desperately pushed myself against the door, I saw the windows, the glass, the cracks. A moment later the glass gave way, and a flood of spiders made its way inside. They weren’t crawling inside, they swept into the building; it was nothing but an endless wave of eight-legged horrors. Within moments, they filled the entire first floor of the building.

In my panicked state, I picked the only direction that wasn’t covered in them, the stairs to the second floor. The spiders were coming after me, chasing me. I could feel them on my legs, my arms, felt them tearing at my skin and biting into my flesh. In a panic, I ripped them from my body by the dozens before I threw myself into the only room that wasn’t infested with them.

I was a shivering, shaking mess. Bloody bites covered my arms and legs. Tears stream from my eyes, and I was too exhausted even to curse.

It was only after a few minutes after I’d calmed down that I noticed the sweet, disgusting smell that wafted through the air. I realized where I was.

In a state of shock, I turned away from the door to take in the sight in front of me. It was my grandma’s bedroom. She was right there, lying in her bed, unmoving. The same as she’d been when I was eleven years old. This time though, I knew what was in front of me.

Right there, between the sheets, was the decomposing body of my grandma.

She’d been dead for almost four days when I found her. Back then my parents and lived in a small town only a few kilometers away from her. One day, on a whim, I decided to go visit her. After grandpa’s death, she’d become a lonely woman and had isolated herself from the rest of the world. Still, I loved my grandma, and I thought she’d be happy to see me.

When I didn’t find her outside, I searched the house and finally found her up in her bedroom. A wave of a disgusting sweet smell me when I opened the door. The same smell I’d known from bad, rotten apples. I remember walking up to my grandma to wake her, telling her there must be some apples that had gone bad. It was only at this point that I saw the state she was in. Her face was not that of my grandma anymore. Because of the summer heat and the stuffy air inside the room, it had become a bloated, mushy heap of flesh, covered by maggots and flies. I remember screaming and running from the house only to be found by a neighbor. It was he who’d called the doctor and the mortician. For years the memory of her rotten face and the sweet smell of her rotting body had stayed with me before I’d been able to bury it.

It was this same sweet smell that now crawled up my nostrils. I froze, unable to move or do anything. Suddenly I was eleven years old again. I was not Andre Purlow, the twenty-seven-year-old man in a virtual reality simulation anymore. No, I was little Andy, a scared eleven-year-old boy in his dead grandma’s bedroom.

After the initial shock was over, I turned back to the door of the room, but I couldn’t see it anymore. Where the door had been was now nothing but a solid wall. I looked around, confused, but there was no hint of it anymore. The door had vanished.

I went forward, hitting and beating against the wall hoping to find a way out. With each passing second, the smell of rot grew more and more intense. I gagged, pushed myself as far away from the bed as I could, back into the corner of the room.

I cried, I screamed and pleaded with them to end the simulation. The money didn’t matter anymore, nothing did. All I wanted was to get out of the simulation.

As I sat there, rambling on and on I heard a different sound. At first, I thought it was the spiders again, but then I heard it again, a quiet wet squishing. I almost vomited when a fresh wave of the rotten stink hit me. My eyes watered. I blinked once, twice, and then I saw it.

In front of me, between the sheets, grandma’s body was… moving. I thought it was a reaction because of the decay, but it wasn’t. In sheer and total horror I watched as her rotten corpse got up and her bloated, mushy face focused on me. Her lips were gone, her eyes were tiny, shriveled up like dried raisins. The worst though was the maggots that now fell from it in droves.

I screamed, scrambled back against the wall, began beating it, throwing myself against it, to get away somehow, but it was futile.

“Oh, my dear little Andy,” I heard a distorted version of her voice. The words were barely distinguishable from one another, not much more than a wet gurgle.

“How nice of you to come to visit your old grandma!”

The bedsheets parted, and I could see the full, disgusting horror of her rotten body. The bed was almost a sea of body fluids and she was nothing but an amalgamation of wet, mushy flesh. Her body was torn open, revealing her insides. As she pushed herself to her feet, something big and wet burst from her abdomen and onto the bedsheets below. For a moment she wavered, almost collapsed into herself, but then she moved, crawled towards me.

“Oh, how grandma missed you, little Andy.”

And then, as she touched me, as I felt a wet, squishy hand on my shoulder, despair overtook me. The world stopped existing at this point. My mind broke, and I clawed at the wall. I ripped at the wallpaper, dug into the plaster and brickwork below until my fingers were nothing but bloody stumps. My consciousness retreated and became an audience to my perils and could do nothing as I mutilated my body.

At first, the only sounds I heard was the scratching of my flesh and bones against the plaster, but then, the same wet gurgling started again. Grandma was singing an old nursery rhyme, the one she’d sang me when I couldn’t fall asleep. As I lay there, as I couldn’t go on anymore, she closed her rotten arms around my crippled, mutilated body.

I don’t know how long the embrace lasted. Every second felt like an eternity and her song seemed to go in endless repetition. All the while her body decomposed further and further as she held me.

I can’t tell you when or how the simulation ended. I only remembered struggling against the grip of other people. The details are nothing but a blur. There was security personal, an ambulance, and finally, I awoke in a hospital in Berlin.

A plump nurse was checking my vital signs and looked up in surprise when she saw I was awake. As she rushed from the room, everything felt different. It was my head, my brain.

As the memory of grandma’s rotting body came back to me, I screamed again. They gave me a heavy dosage of sedatives, and once I’d calmed down enough one of the doctors explained what had happened.

After the test of some electronic device had gone horribly wrong, they had brought here me. Apart from a few bruises, there was no visible external damage. Most of the injuries I’d suffered were related to the brain and the nervous system.

Shock washed over me and I tried to push myself up, but my hands and fingers didn’t react. I tried again, but I could barely move them, couldn’t even ball my hands into fists. As I stared at my almost useless appendages, tears streamed from my eyes.

The doctor stood there, an expression of misery visible on his face. He spoke, but I barely listened. Full recovery was out of the question, partial functionality might be possible, various approaches, therapy, and on and on he went. Somehow, though, I could tell that I was damaged beyond repair. I knew, and I cried.

The brain damage I’d sustained was more severe than originally thought. I’d trouble to recall certain memories and anything beyond simple math problems was impossible for me. I don’t know if I’d ever been smart before all this, but I knew I wasn’t anymore.

The most serious issue was the complete loss of my sense of smell. The doctors don’t know why, but I know the reason. I know that while the rotten corpse of my grandma held me, the smell must’ve been too much for my psyche. My brain must’ve cut off my sense of smell.

I stayed at the hospital for months. Once I could leave, people urged me to sue ImagiCom. I went to a lawyer, explained my situation, but it was not even a week before he got back to me. There wouldn’t be a case. ImagiCom was a subsidiary of a huge international conglomerate. They had all the money in the world to bury any case against them. Even worse though, they’d provided him with all the forms I’d signed and in them, I’d agreed to pretty much anything. Even the eventuality of lasting damage to my body. There was nothing that could be done.

It’s been more than a year since the entire thing happened, but I’ve only been able to write it down now. It was a long and arduous process with only the two fingers of my left hand who remained functional after all this.

But there’s one last thing I have to mention. The funniest, most fucked up thing about all this. The day I was released from the hospital and had gotten back home, I’d checked my bank account.

I laughed for hours when I saw the huge six-digit number of 100.000 Euros that had been transferred to my account the day the beta test ended. They’d fucking paid me. They’d paid me in full, just like they’d promised.

I have enough money now, enough to get rid of my debt. I’d gotten a second chance in life. Only now, as damaged as I was, I wouldn’t be able to make anything of it.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You arrived here at our Munich facility this morning to test our new immersion rig.”

With that, Dr. Kitagawa pointed at a different contraption. One I’d never seen before. It looked almost like a giant wheel a person could be strapped to. A variety of gadgets, a visor, a headset, and gloves were connected to it.

“You signed up for our beta test for compensation of 1.000 Euros. The test is scheduled to last between two and four days.”

“Wait, hold on, this is bullshit,” I laughed, but it came out more nervous than I’d hoped for. “I’m still IN the simulation.”

“People who suffer from damage to their visual cortex can often suffer from a different perception of reality. This can not only lead to false interpretations of what’s in front of you, but can also lead to distorted memories. It’s often influenced by the person’s subconscious beliefs and wishes.”

“All right, very funny, first of all, the equipment I used was totally different, and I was offered a compensation of,” but I broke up.

Distorted memories influenced by personal wishes? When I thought about it, would anyone really pay a hundred grand to test some piece of technology?

“For now I’ll have a look at the test results and see if what I found might impede you from joining the test. Depending on those results, it might be better to schedule an examination at a nearby hospital. For now, though, we should start on the general physical examination.”

I nodded and smiled, but I couldn’t shake off the weird feeling that flooded over me. This was a simulation, wasn’t it? They were just trying to fuck with my brain again. There was no damned way I could’ve imagined any of the stuff that happened before!

All right, Jesus Andre, don’t fall for their shit again. You’re in a freaking simulation, and none of this is real.

“Right,” I said to Kitagawa, “let’s go do the stupid fitness test then.”

The man frowned at my answer, but nodded.

The test was way simpler than before. Kitagawa led me to an exercise bike in the back of the room and tested my heart rate and my general stamina, nothing else. The same was true for the psychological evaluation. He just asked me a handful of questions, and that was it. Once it was all over, he called an assistant that led me from the room.

When I stepped outside, I stopped for a moment. The hallway was different. There weren’t any pristine white walls. Instead, it looked like any other office building I’d seen before. Nothing about the place screamed high-tech or fancy.

The same was true for my private quarters. It reminded me of a room in a simple hostel. There was a bunk bed, a small nightstand, and an old cupboard. The assistant who’d led me here excused himself and hurried away.

Once he’d left, I slumped down on the bed and took out my phone.

I opened up WhatsApp and had a look at my messages. The last one I’d sent was to my best friend, telling him about a beta test in Munich I would take part in.

‘Yeah, it’s not a lot of money, but at least I won’t have to eat just ramen for a month,’ I’d written to him.

I frowned at that. It sounded like me. Exactly the way I’d talk about myself, but I didn’t remember writing that message. Hell, I had told no one about the amount of compensation I’d be paid.

“This is bullshit.”

With that, I dropped the phone on the bed next to me and leaned back. None of this was real, anyway. A few minutes later I got up and hit my fist against the wall. I don’t know why I did it, but the result was as expected. The resulting pain felt real enough.

I picked up the phone again and had a look at my emails. It was all there, the instructions, the compensation for my travels, everything. Only the details were all different.

While I read through the emails, someone knocked against the door. When I opened it a nervous man stood outside.

His eyes were wide and darted left and right before he pushed himself past me.

“Hey, what are you-?”

“Quiet. Close the door!”

I laughed and did as he told me. All right, what now?

“Listen, I know this will sound weird, but everything that’s going on here is not what it’s supposed to be.”

“Yeah, no shit,” I said. “This is all just a simulation.”

The man’s face turned grim and a wordless curse escaped his mouth. Then he leaned forward, putting his face right in front of mine.

“All right. You’re NOT in a simulation. They are trying to make you believe you are in one, but that’s not what’s going on here. This whole damn thing has got NOTHING to do with any new virtual reality technology. Did you inspect the damned rig, and all those gadgets? Why’d you need all that for virtual reality? It’s all a front! They’ll run you through test after test after test, reschedule them before they tell you they found some anomaly. Let me guess your brain or your heart, right?”

When I looked up, the man smiled knowingly.

“Where do you think you’re at? Where’s that simulation you’re in taking place?”

“Berlin,” I said in a quiet voice.

The guy grinned. “Mine was scheduled in Dortmund. We’ve got someone here who said they were in Hamburg, another guy just two rooms further down said he went to Munich.”

“So, where the hell are we?”

The guy laughed.

“Don’t you get it? No one knows! We all think we’re in different locations! You might think you’re in Munich or Dresden or Hamburg, but that’s not where we are. Did they give you anything to drink when you arrived? Coffee, water, or maybe a soda?”

I nodded once more.

“They spiced it with some shit, some new, fucked up drug that scrambles up your memory. Once you’re in here, you won’t have a clue anymore what’s real and what’s not. It’s all because of that damned drug! None of the participants here have a clue what’s going on!”

I went back to the bed and picked up my phone. Once more I went over the emails. That’s when I noticed that something else was wrong. The dates. I’d talked to them for almost two weeks, so why were all the emails from the beginning of this month? Then I checked the date on my phone.

I stared at it, confused. Wait, why was it only the 4th? I got here on the 12th, didn’t I? The WhatsApp message I’d sent to my friend yesterday was dated the 3rd. If this was-

“That’s how they get you,” the guy cut me off.

It was right at this point that the door opened again. I recognized Brandt by his trained smile right away.

“Mr. Purlow, nice to meet you, I’m Mr. Zimmer, the CEO of ImagiCom. I can see you’ve already met Mr. Schuster, one of our other participants.”

Schuster’s face changed, and for a moment an expression of pure terror was visible. He fought hard to suppress it before he turned to the supposed CEO.

“Mr. Zimmer, I better get going. I’m sure you have, eh, things to talk about with Mr. Purlow here.”

With that, he gave me and Brandt, no Zimmer, a nod, and hurried from the room.

“All right, Mr. Zimmer,” I started and emphasized the name. “Where’s Mr. Brandt?”

“Brandt? We don’t have anyone working here by that name. I’m not sure who you’re referring to.”

“I’m talking about the man who showed me the introduction video and-“

“Ah, Dr. Kitagawa. His first name is Satoshi, in case you’re wondering. Brilliant man. He informed me about the anomaly he’d discovered during your brain scans. However, he already said it doesn’t seem to be serious. If we make a few changes to the simulation, there shouldn’t be any problems with the beta test.”

He continued to ramble on about the test and what was to come, but I didn’t listen anymore. My head was throbbing. This was all too damn real and way too fucking strange. Would anyone even go through all this effort and create a simulation like this? Why?

As I stood there, I thought about what you’re supposed to do when you find yourself in a dream and want to wake up. Would something like that even work in a simulation? Shit, I had no clue.

“… until then you’re at your leisure, Mr. Purlow. We’d like you to stay in your room if possible, but we understand if you’re interested in the project itself. If you need any additional information, our promotional manager, Mr. Wittich in room 14.B, would be more than happy to have a talk with you. Well, I got to leave now. Thanks again for joining our beta test. Please be at the ready at four to continue with the schedule.”

With that, he left the room. For a moment I stood there, trying to figure out how to prove what was real and what wasn’t. As my eyes scanned the room, I noticed something. It was small and partway hidden behind the ceiling lamp. I could only see it from a certain position. Was that a… camera? Why was it up there and why was it hidden like this? Were they spying on me? I stared at it for a while before I turned away.

Was this really a simulation? Would they put all those details in? Shit, this entire thing was driving me insane.

I couldn’t stay in this room anymore. The longer I sat still, the more confused I got. A few moments later I was outside again and started to walk down the hallway.

A lot of other people in office attire flocked the hallway, going through their normal workday. Yet, somehow, when I passed them, they all looked up, watched me, and whispered to one another. It made my skin crawl in the worst possible way. Something was definitely wrong here.

As I continued, I wondered how big this place was. It felt like the hallway went on forever. I passed room after room and other identical hallways. For a moment I felt disoriented, as if I was trapped in a maze.

I was about to follow down a different hallway when I bumped into Schuster. He looked up at me with a serious expression.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he whispered at me.

“What?”

“I just saw, I saw what they’re doing to, good god,” he shivered before he got a hold of my arm and pulled me after himself.

Schuster walked normally, trying his best to make a bit of small talk. As he dragged me along, I saw how sweaty he was and how much he fought to keep the anxiety at bay.

“What did you see?” I asked him again.

“I, I don’t know, there are people strapped to these things, but they’re bleeding and,” he broke up again. There was yet another group of office workers ahead of me that eyed us with curious interest.

Schuster seemed to be as disoriented as I was, his eyes darting left and right as he chose his directions haphazardly. Finally, though, we arrived at an enormous glass door. Schuster pushed it open, and we entered a giant lobby.

The moment we got there, the woman behind the reception desk looked up.

“Mr. Purlow, Mr. Schuster, can I help you?”

Schuster didn’t say a thing. Instead, he hurried towards the building’s entrance door. He pushed, then threw himself against it, but the door didn’t budge. For a moment, as I looked at the receptionist, I could’ve sworn I saw a smile on her face.

“Mr. Schuster, we’ve been over this before,” she started in a warm, friendly voice. “Unfortunately you’re not allowed to leave the premise until the end of your clinical trial.”

“No, fuck your trial! I’m getting out of here! You’re all insane, this entire thing here’s insane!”

When Schuster beat against the door with all the force he could muster, the receptionist pressed a button. A few moments later two men in suits appeared in the lobby. When Schuster saw them, he freaked out, screamed obscenities at them. The man didn’t waver, walked up to him, and restrained him with next to no effort.

“Mr. Schuster, everything’s all right,” one of them whispered at him while he struggled against their grip.

“It’s just the aftereffects of the new medication. Everything’s all right,” the other chimed in.

As they said this, Schuster was still screaming, still struggling while they dragged him back through the glass door.

“What the hell’s going on here?” I yelled at the receptionist.

“I’m very sorry about that Mr. Purlow. Mr. Schuster is part of a different test group, a test for a new type of medication against certain mental issues. Unfortunately, some test subjects suffered from mild cases of reality distortion and paranoia. I assure you though, it’s normal and no reason for concern.”

“No reason for… what? He was freaking screaming! What the hell are you even-? You know what I’m out of here. It doesn’t even matter if this is some fucked up simulation or if this is real, but I’m fucking out!”

“It’s all standard procedure, Mr. Purlow,” she continued. “Might I remind you of paragraph 5 on form 27? ’Unless there’s the imminent danger of brain damage or curricular arrest, the beta test will continue.’ Now, of course, you’re free to end the test here and now, Mr. Purlow, but we will pay no compensation in that case. Furthermore, as paragraph 11 on form 41 states: ‘Should a person quit the beta test after giving their official consent, ImagiCom will be forced to take legal action, which might include fines of substantial height.”

I stood there and listened as she rambled on about some damned legal matters.

“The hell are you talking about? What’s that about those damned forms? You can’t just-“

But I broke up when the two men that had taken Schuster away appeared again.

“We can assure you, Mr. Purlow, we can indeed.”

With that, the two men got a hold of my arms. I struggled against their grip but soon realized that they were much stronger than me. As they dragged me back towards the hallway, they whispered the same calming words they had at Schuster before. They didn’t even react when I called them out on their bullshit.

I thought they’d bring me back to my room, but they dragged me to the examination room. Kitagawa was already there, waiting for me, smiling.

“Excellent news, Mr. Purlow,” he said with excitement. “We’ve just got confirmation that you’re eligible to take part in our rest.”

Kitagawa’s face transformed, twisted by a sadistic smile.

“The fuck kind of test are you-“

I couldn’t keep talking anymore, because one of the two men pushed a gag into my mouth.

“Well then, why don’t you take Mr. Purlow down to hall B, I think model thirteen should be free at the moment.”

With that, they dragged me outside again, down the hallway. The few office workers who were still around watched the entire ordeal with excited faces.

“You should be honored, Mr. Purlow, you’ll be contributing to the advancement of human society!” Kitagawa rambled on.

I wanted to say something, scream at him, and call him insane, but the damned gag didn’t allow for any of it. All that escaped my mouth were muffled, indistinguishable sounds.

It wasn’t long before Kitagawa pushed open the door to another room, much bigger than any I’d been in before. The moment we entered, the iron smell of blood reached me and I could hear the low moans and muffled screams of the other participants.

They were all strapped to one of the wheel-like contraptions Kitagawa had called their new immersion rig. The moment I saw them, I fought against the grip of the two men once more.

The first participant was twisting and shaking against the restraints of the contraption. A gag covered another’s mouth, but I could see the blood that streamed from the visor, could hear his muffled screams. Yet another’s teeth were grinding against one another before they started biting at his lips and leaving them a tattered, bloody mess. And then, way further down, in the last contraption, I saw Schuster. He was barely recognizable anymore. Blood leaked from his mouth, the visor, and the headphones. His arms and legs looked different, twisted as if the joints had popped and his tendons had snapped. He dangled there almost lifelessly, only twitching once in a while.

Kitagawa’s eyes wandered to the man.

“Well, guess model seventeen is available for a new participant already,” he said with a smile.

I stared at the man wide-eyed.

“Oh, don’t you worry Mr. Purlow, it’s all standard procedure! There’s not a thing you’ve got to worry about!”

As the two men started to strap me to model thirteen I inhaled sharply, mustered up all my strength, and threw myself forward. One restraint snapped open, then another one, and I was free. Adrenaline rushed through my veins and I could somehow avoid both men’s outstretched arms. In an instant, I was out in the hallway.

I heard Kitagawa scream after me and a second later the two men came running after me.

All I could do was run. I pushed on, down one hallway, then another. I ran left, then right, almost crashed into a group of office workers before I changed directions again. Where the hell was I even going? I no idea where the damned lobby was. Everything looked the same, the walls, the room, even the people.

I hurried around another corner and threw myself into the first room I saw. With shaking hands, I took out my phone. I dialed the number for the police, but nothing happened. Fuck, I realized, I didn’t have a signal.

I scanned the room and instantly saw the glass paneling that separated me from the outside world. If nothing else, then… I picked up a chair standing in the room and hurled it against the panel.

The chair crashed against the glass right as my two pursuers stormed into the room. They were still smiling the same smile, still uttering the same reassuring words. I avoided the first man’s grip, threw him to the ground, but right at that moment the second man tackled me. His body crashed into mine and I was thrown backward.

I felt the impact as my body crashed against the glass paneling. Then there was the sound of shattering glass as the surface exploded into a thousand pieces.

For the blink of an eye, I was weightless.

There was no impact, though. Instead, I lay in the soft grass.

I freaked out, jumped up, but felt no pain. There was no damage, no blood, and no glass. When I turned around though, the office building had vanished, too.

It had all been fake, a farce.

It had been nothing but another one of their fucked up simulations.

“Hitting rock bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.” – Michelle Parsons

That was the reason I found myself in front of a small, mundane office building in the outskirts of Berlin.

It should be the greatest mistake of my life, even more so than all the shit I’d pulled before.

To make a lengthy story short, I had massed a serious debt. Let’s just say I thought I was far smarter than I was and made a few questionable investments.

I tried to find a way out, I did, but there weren’t many options available for a university dropout like me. Before long I scurried the less reputable parts of the internet for ways of making a few quick bucks. Nestled between shady offers and medical trials, I found one that picked my interest.

“Company Searching for Beta Testers of New Virtual Reality Technology”

I’d skimmed the article, but the moment I read that they’d pay me 100.000 Euros I laughed and told myself it was nothing but a hoax or a scam.

After a few phone calls, half a dozen exchanged emails, and a bit of research, I learned that the company, and their offer, were genuine. Why they offered to pay that much I didn’t know, but damn could I use it.

To be honest, I’d expected to find high-tech building, the type that consisted of nothing but glass and steel. The reality, as so often before, proved to be different.

The moment I entered, the young woman behind the reception desk greeted me.

“Welcome, may I help you? Are you here for the beta test?”

“Yeah, I mean, yes I am.”

I handed her the invitation letter they had sent me and after giving it a short look, she nodded.

“Great, we still have a bit of time, so please have a seat in the waiting area over there.”

She pointed at a compact room to my left. There was nothing inside the room apart from a few lonely chairs. Everything here gave me the impression of being quickly put together. The walls were bleak and empty, almost sterile. Was this really the office of some high-tech company?

I took out my phone and went to ImagiCom’s website again, to see if I’d somehow messed things up when I heard a door opening. A well-groomed man in an expensive-looking suit walked up to me.

“Mr. Purlow, welcome to ImagiCom! It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” he said and shook my hand.

“My name is Gabriel Brandt, I’m responsible for the beta test. We’re stunned to have you with us,” he said with a smile that was so typical to business people. He’d probably perfected it over many years.

“Likewise. Now, just a question, how come you’re paying that much money for a test like this?”

His smile didn’t waver for even a second, but I could see a slight squinting of the eyes.

“Let’s discuss the details in my office. We’ve got quite a few things to talk about, anyway.”

I thought about pressing the issue, but I might as well listen to the rest of his proposal.

“Sure, lead on.”

He led me through a short hallway as bleak as the rest of the building. It seemed we were the only people there apart from the reception lady. Before I could look around more though, Brandt opened a door and led me into his office.

The room looked different from the rest of the building. It was almost completely white and seemed far more modern, almost futuristic in design. A sleek white table filled the center of the room and one wall was nothing but a giant wall display.

Brandt motioned for me to sit down on a chair. Once he’d taken a seat opposite me, he pressed a button somewhere below the table and a video started to play on the display.

It started with the catch line ‘ImagiCom presents, the most immersive virtual reality experience ever.’

The video showed a quick succession of various photorealistic environments from a person’s point of view. Then the system itself was showcased. It differed from anything I’d seen before. There was no bulky headset, no gloves, nothing like that. Instead, it showed a pair of connectors placed on a person’s head, a sort of membrane one wore over the face, and a small black box responsible for connecting to ImagiCom’s cloud.

“So, what do you think?” Brandt asked once the video was over.

“Is this real? That looks like it’s from a science-fiction movie.”

Brandt smiled, but for the first time, his emotions seemed to be genuine. There was an edge to his expression, however, something sharp.

“Well, Mr. Purlow, reality isn’t so different from science-fiction anymore.”

“So if this is a beta test, I’ll get to use one of those things, right?”

Somehow I wasn’t convinced. This seemed way too advanced. To be honest, I expected the video was nothing but a marketing ploy to get more investors. The actual system was probably way different.

“Indeed, you’ll be the very first person to test our new system.”

“Outside of your company, I assume?”

“Naturally,” he answered, and once more he showed me his trained smile.

“Now, let me ask you again, why are you paying such an exorbitant amount of money?”

Brandt pressed another button and a small touch-display activated on the table in front of me.

“Well, to be honest, I’m only responsible for scheduling the beta test. You can find all the other details in the contract forms in front of you. Please take your time to read through them and sign them. Should you have questions, feel free to ask me.”

I started to read the first form. It was a simple non-disclosure agreement. The second one handled the eventuality of damaging the system itself, while the third one was on the company’s terms and conditions. The fourth was another non-disclosure agreement, this time about the virtual environments. It was the fifth form that discussed the payment. It was a new revolutionary system. The compensation was so high because they required absolute secrecy about the system itself and the virtual environments showcased. Here and there details about the payment popped up, but there were dozens of these forms. I read the first few carefully, but before long I started to skim. Then I only took a few looks and eventually signed them without so much as reading the title. It still took me more than an hour to work through all of them.

“Well, that’s that, all done,” I said after I signed the last one.

“Perfect,” Brandt said, and the display in front of me vanished again. A moment later a similar one appeared in front of him.

“Let me just cross-check everything. It should only take a few minutes.”

After a little while, he pressed another button. “Cynthia, something to drink please, how about coffee?” he said out loud.

A few minutes later the reception lady entered the room and brought each of us a hot steaming cup of coffee.

She’d barely put it down when I took the first sip.

God, I was tired. They’d scheduled the test to start at eight in the morning. Not such an unusual time, you might say. The problem was I had to make it to Berlin first. The company offered to book me a train ticket and pay for it, but it also meant I had to get up at three in the morning if I wanted to make it in time.

I finished the whole cup in a matter of minutes, but it didn’t seem to help one bit. I sat there drowsily while Brandt took his time going through the documents.

“Well, Mr. Purlow,” he said and brought me back from my half-asleep state. “It seems everything’s in order. We’re happy to start with the examinations right away.”

“Examinations?”

“It’s all standard procedure. As explained in form 32, section D you’re required to pass a few additional evaluations. Please follow me.”

Before I could so much as frown, he pressed another button and the wall behind him slid open, revealing another hallway. I hadn’t even noticed the sliding-door until now.

This part of the building was much more modern. The walls were pristine and stainless, the complete opposite of what I’d seen so far. It felt like we weren’t even in the same building anymore. For the first time, I saw other people apart from Brandt and Cynthia, the reception lady. There was a group ahead chatting next to a futuristic vending machine and others hurried up and down the long hallway.

I was about to ask Brandt about the company, but we’d already made it to the examination room.

“Hello there, I’m Doctor Kitagawa,” a man in a lab coat introduced himself. He followed it up with a lengthy list and honors and explained he was an expert in neuroscience. Brandt gave him a brief nod before he hurried from the room.

The evaluations lasted almost the entire day.

They started with a detailed assessment of my general health and fitness. It was to make sure I didn’t suffer from any serious health conditions like respiratory or cardiovascular problems.

After that came several brain scans. Kitagawa explained that certain brain conditions could influence our perception of reality. A certain percentage of the population wouldn’t be able to discern between the real and a simulated reality. For those people, the possibility of actual injury existed, even in a simulation. The most common one was hurting or overstraining your muscles. The second, rarer one was nerve damage because of the brain believing that a simulated injury was a genuine one. To avoid any of those, they had to make sure I didn’t suffer from any of those brain conditions.

I don’t even know what sort of brain scans they did. Kitagawa threw around so many terms, half of which I hadn’t even heard before. CT, MRI, MRA, MRS, you name it. Once those were done it was time for the last part, the psychological evaluation.

The questions were all standard. Did I suffer from depression? Had I been diagnosed with any mental illnesses? Did I have any mental condition they might want to know about?

The only ‘condition’ I could tell them about was the ADHD I suffered from and sometimes used medication for. They didn’t linger on the topic for too long and assured me it would be no problem.

What they seemed to linger on though was phobias, general fears, and anxiety. After they’d asked me more than a dozen questions on the topic, I spoke up.

Kitagawa assured me it was all standard procedure and important for the design of the simulation and a smooth run of the beta test itself.

So I explained that I suffered from slight bouts of anxiety because of my situation. As for phobias, I told them I suffered from arachnophobia but I also added, embarrassed, that I wasn’t fond of dark, confined places either.

Once the psychological evaluation was over, it was already early evening. I realized I’d been here for more than half a day already and the test hadn’t even started yet. Still, I was exhausted and apart from a quick lunch after the first half of the examination, I also hadn’t eaten a damned thing.

Thankfully, the company had prepared for all that.

I’d expected them to have booked me a hotel or some other accommodation. Instead, they lead to what they referred to as my ‘private quarters’ for the duration of the beta test.

The room was as modern as the rest of the complex. Half of it was made up of a bed that looked more comfortable than anything I’d ever slept in. There was also another one of the giant wall displays opposite the bed. Before I could even ask, they informed me that dinner would be served in a few minutes.

It was a juicy, tender piece of beef with a side of vegetables. After eating nothing but fast food and microwaved meals, it felt like heaven to me.

Once I was done with the meal, I threw myself on the bed, activated the wall display, and switched through the available media. Most of it was long videos about nature with low, relaxing background music. For a while, I watched colorful fish and stunning coral reefs before I felt myself dozing off.

When I woke up again, I couldn’t feel the soft bedding anymore. Instead, I lay on a cold, damp floor. It took me a few moments to realize that I was somewhere different.

I jerked up, confused, and when I looked around, I noticed that I was in an empty, dark room. The surrounding walls were damp, dirty, and covered in moss.

A quick check revealed that I was still wearing my clothes and my phone was still with me. The screen showed that it was already long past midnight and that I didn’t have a signal.

Once the shock was over, I used the phone’s flashlight to illuminate the area I was in. Old, brown stains covered the floor and a pair of rusty chains dangled from a wall behind me. A few meters ahead of me was an opening that led into a tunnel. There was no other light source apart from my phone.

Shit, what the hell was going on? How did I get here? Had I been kidnapped and put into some sort of torture dungeon? Had it all been a farce to lure me here? But why go through the effort to… No, wait, think, Andre, that’s not it. This room, the tunnel ahead, I realized as fear washed over me. It was a dark, confined space, wasn’t it?

I remembered the evaluation, the questions about fears and phobias. As I realized I grinned. They must’ve waited till I fell asleep and started the test. How I hadn’t woken up through that ordeal though was a mystery to me. Still, where I was right now had to be a simulation, and I was sure they wanted to see how I’d react to the situation I found myself in.

“Well, you got me,” I said to no one in particular.

“So, what now? You want me to explore or something?”

No answer.

I crossed the room and put my hands against the walls. They felt cold, solid, and musty. If I hadn’t known I was in a simulation, I wouldn’t have believed it. As a fresh surge of anxiety washed over me, I took a deep breath before I entered the tunnel.

Now here’s the thing, you might know things aren’t real and that you’re in a simulation, but it doesn’t help a single bit. However much I tried to convince myself, things felt and looked way too damn real.

With each step, the sound of my footsteps reverberated through the gloomy tunnel ahead and I couldn’t help but cringe. The only other sound was the slow dripping of water from the ceiling.

It didn’t stay like that for long though.

After only a minute I heard other, weirder sounds. The distant rattling of chains and the sound of shuffling feet made me shiver.

“There’s nothing here that can hurt you. None of it is real.”

I repeated those two lines over and over again like a mantra.

I considered going back, to retreat to the room I’d come from, but then what? Wait till they turned the damned thing off? And how long would that take? Slowly, another thought crawled into my mind and scratched at my sanity. It was the stupid, impossible thought of what if this was no simulation after all?

“Calm down, Andre, calm down,” I told myself and pushed the thought back into the back of my mind.

Still, this simulation was too damned real. They’d explained before that they were simulating all sorts of sensual inputs and transferring them into the brain. That’s why it all felt so real. Once more I reached out a shaking hand to touch the wall next to me. Cold, damp, and solid. If this wasn’t real, shouldn’t I be able to-

Suddenly, a hand jerked from a hole in the wall I hadn’t seen before.

“Shit!” I called out and cringed back. My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the outstretched hand.

“Who’s there?” I called out in a quiet voice, but all I heard was the rattling of chains from behind the wall. Whoever was behind there was panting, moaning, and after a few moments, the hand retreated.

I stood there, frozen, afraid, and as I illuminated the tunnel ahead I saw dozens of similar holes. Then, further ahead, I could make out a sturdy, wooden door. As I stood there, more chains rattled. I heard the erratic shuffling of feet and bodies. More hands reached out, clawing at the walls, and wordless screams seemed to be directed at me.

“Fucking hell,” I cursed as a hurried on and pushed me past all of them, repeating my mantra like before. Get away from here, I told myself, get away and reach the end, wherever that was.

Right at that point, a distant, lonely light started flickering at the end of the tunnel.

My steps got faster, passing hole after hole, but then I heard something. A growling ahead of me, then someone screamed. There was a loud bump, the creaking of wood, and then the sturdy door I’d seen before was pushed outwards. For a moment dust and wood splinters filled the air, but then I saw it. A giant, bulging figure pushed itself from the doorway and into the tunnel.

When I cursed up in surprise and shock and the figure turned towards me. I cringed back a single step, then another before I turned and ran back down towards the room I’d awoken in.

Behind me, another scream cut through the air before I heard heavy footfalls from behind me.

I ran with all the strength I could muster, but I didn’t make it far. A giant paw of a hand came to rest on my shoulder. I was ripped backward, saw a terrifying grinning face, and then all light vanished.

I screamed and struggled against something on top of me. When I opened my eyes, I was back in the same bed I’d fallen asleep in. What I’d struggled against were the bedsheets.

My heart was beating hard against my chest. As I lay there my eyes darted around the room, afraid to find the giant figure lurking somewhere inside of my room.

“You can calm down now, Mr. Purlow, there’s nothing to be afraid of. It was all part of our simulation,” a friendly, female voice said.

“What the hell was that?” I screamed. “Are you crazy? What if I’d gotten a heart attack? That thing was-“

“I can assure you that your heart is fine. As you might recall, during the examinations, we informed you that the simulation won’t put you in harm’s way. The chances of you suffering a heart attack from the previous simulations were evaluated and deemed to be zero.”

“Fucking hell,” I cursed, “I didn’t sign up for this surprise stuff!”

“You indeed did, Mr. Purlow. In section 2D of form 54, you gave full consent to be subjected to simulated inputs of any sort without proper-“

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I said with a sigh.

“Have a good night, Mr. Purlow,” the friendly voice said before she disconnected with an audible click.

“A good night, yeah right.”

Shit, what was that about a form 54? Then I remembered how I’d not given any of the later forms so much as a glance. Shit, how could I’ve been so stupid? How many of the freaking things had I signed?”

“Hey, I’ve got a question, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Shit, guess they won’t talk to me anymore,” I cursed once more.

If things got out of hand though, I should be able to tell them I was out, right? There are rules to these things, aren’t there?

Annoyed and slightly worried, I turned back to the wall display and turned it on. The fish and the ocean depths were gone. Instead, the display showed a beautiful beach and a similarly beautiful woman walking through the sand. Well, better than nothing, I thought and leaned back to listen to the quiet, relaxing background music.

As the video continued the woman approached the camera, getting closer with each step. The moment I could make out her face, I noticed that she was crying.

“Help me,” she spoke up.

All right, what the hell? While I searched for the display’s small remote she repeated it over and over.

“Help me, Andre,” she suddenly said, emphasizing the name, my name.

When I looked up again and found her eyes resting on me I felt goosebumps all over my arm.

“You have to,” she said once more, her face growing harder.

“What the hell?” I pressed out, confused.

“You dare not to help me?” she screamed at me.

I’d finally found the remote to turn the damned thing off, but whatever I pressed, there was no reaction.

Instead, her face grew angrier and angrier, becoming a distorted version of her former, beautiful self. And then, to my horror, she got even closer. By that point, her face filled out the entire display. A moment later she pushed her giant head forward, not against the display but out of it, right not my direction.

I screamed, jumped off the bed, and hurried for the door, but it didn’t open. When I turned around, I saw in disbelief that her giant head was inside of my room. It dangled from a long, stretched out neck that vanished somewhere in the depths of the wall.

“YOU DARE TO IGNORE ME?” the creature screamed again and my ears rang because of her bellowing scream. I pushed my hands over my ears, then threw myself against the door. Once, twice and then when I did it a third time the door sprang open, and I pushed myself outside.

“What the fuck was that shit?!”

The answer popped into my head right away. I was still in the simulation, I had to be. There was no doubt about it. The moment I’d woken up there had been no connectors, no facial mask, nothing at all. They must’ve ended one simulation and plunged me straight into the next one, a simulated version of my private quarters. They’d tricked me, complete with the call of an assistant to tell me the simulation was over. No, wait, that wasn’t correct. She’d never said a word about it being over, had she?

As I stood there, in the hallway, the same woman spoke up again.

“Mr. Purlow, if you’d please continue down the hallway to room number 34. Please take a seat there so we can continue with the test.”

I looked up, but there was no sign of where the voice was coming from. For a moment I looked around before I started on my way down the hallway. Everything looked the same as when I’d arrived here. The walls, the doors, only the people were gone.

But I was still in the simulation, I told myself. When I made it to room number 34, I saw that it was the examination room I’d been in before.

I looked around for a moment, but I was alone. Eventually, I popped down in one chair. Right away I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jerked around to find Doctor Kitagawa standing next to me.

“Mr. Purlow, are you all right?”

I looked at him in confusion.

“Wait, why are you,” I broke up and shook my head.

The man stared at me for a moment before he frowned.

“We were finishing your MRI when you passed out.”

“Yeah, sure I did. Hilarious. This is nothing but a simulation.”

His frown deepened and a worried expression replaced it.

“You haven’t entered the simulation yet, Mr. Purlow. Your tests are all scheduled for tomorrow and the day after. Today we’re evaluating your mental and physical capabilities.”

I laughed a bit. “Well, whatever you say. So what sort of test is this going to be?”

“Mr. Purlow,” he started again, his voice serious. “Do you often suffer from episodes such as this one?”

“What episodes? Oh, you mean ‘this’. No, never before I entered the simulation.”

His face still showed a worried expression.

“What I’m talking about are episodes of prolonged memory loss, distorted memories, vivid daydreams, or hallucinations.”

I didn’t react, instead, my eyes scanned the room.

“Can you come here for a moment?”

I got up and stepped over to one of the monitor.

“What you see here is a small swelling in your visual cortex. It’s not necessary anything malicious or dangerous, but, as I said, it might lead to various problems related to your memory. I’m asking since what you’re talking about might be an indicator for-“

“All right, is this a sick joke?” I called towards the ceiling of the room. “Did you put this into the simulation because of my stupid ADHD?”

“Mr. Purlow, please calm down, you’re disturbing the rest of the personal. Now, please tell me what you remember about your trip here to Munich.”

“The Wonderful Works of Nikolay the Wonderful,” he read out loud as he stared at the book I’d handed him.

His eyes returned from the book to me, and a questioning look formed on his face.

I couldn’t help but giggle. Nikolay was the smartest man I knew, a bona fide genius. Yet, whenever it came to things like social interactions or love, he acted like a young, innocent boy.

“It’s a present, a collection of all the memories we shared,” I blurted out and felt myself blushing a bit.

Each page of the book contained one memory I shared with Nikolay.

The very first page detailed how Nikolay and I had met. We were about the same age, but he was already a professor while I was nothing but a lowly research assistant. Nikolay seemed so distant. Not just to me, but to everyone. At first, I detested him because I mistook his social inaptitude for arrogance. In time, I learned that it was just how he was. He simply didn’t understand how people worked and so he didn’t bother with them. Once I looked behind the mask though, I learned how special he was.

On another page, I’d written about that long night we spent together, talking until the early morning hours. I was so fascinated with him. When you talked to Nikolay, it felt like he could answer all the questions you never thought of asking. As he laid open the mysteries of the universe, I laid open the ones about humans and social interactions.

I told him so many things in the book. I wrote how much I cherished our relationship. It differed from that of other people, but it was exactly why I liked it so much. As an introvert, I hated crowds, or to be honest, most people, in general.

There’d been those nights when I let fellow students or colleagues drag me along to a bar or a club. When they introduced me to their charming friends. During these nights I learned that I wasn’t made for those normal interactions either.

My relationship with Nikolay was so much different and because that our love flourished.

It wasn’t just stories though, I added pictures, newspaper clippings and details from his many research projects. I even added the interview that called him ‘one of the rising stars in the field of neuroscience.’

Nikolay’s reaction to the book was as simple as it could be.

“Oh,” was all he said before he gave me a nod, put the book down and returned to his work.

I was a bit shocked, but not in the least surprised. Nikolay didn’t function like normal people and there was no reason for me to be mad at him.

I was surprised the next day, though, when he asked me to marry him. I was so blown away, I couldn’t say a thing. Instead I threw myself at him, kissed him and nodded repeatedly.

Our wedding was a quick and private affair. No church ceremony and no big celebration. Instead we went to the registry and after that spend a bit of time with my parents.

I liked it that way and didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and Nikolay, I was sure, didn’t either.

After our marriage we continued to work at the university for a few more years.

During that time, Nikolay worked on countless projects. Some funded by the university, others by the private sector. When some of his discoveries were commercialized, he earned a small fortune.

It was nothing compared to what his sponsors made, of course. I remember how mad I was about it, how I told him they’d cheated him, but Nikolay didn’t care. All he cared for was his research and with the money he’d made, he could build his own private laboratory. Finally, he told me, he could indulge in his own independent research without relying on outside funding.

After his parents had died Nikolay had inherited their old home. It was a small colonial house, far away from the busy city and at the edge of a tiny village. Here Nikolay decided he’d build his laboratory.

He didn’t even need to ask me to come along. No, a life far away from the bustle of the city and its people sounded like a dream to me

The laboratory Nikolay had planned wasn’t big. It was nothing more than a few rooms in a small one-story building. Still, Nikolay was as happy as a little boy the night before Christmas when constructions began.

Once it was finished, he spent a sizeable chunk of his fortune on computers, state-of-the-art research equipment and all sorts of chemicals and contraptions.

Many people weren’t happy with his decision. I still remember how the university begged him to return and the checks they threw at him. Nikolay didn’t even bother to look at them. It was never about the money for him.

Worse even was the private sector. No day passed without new offers arriving, but Nikolay ignored them all. Eventually, they stopped chasing him and instead painted him a madman. The mad scientist, they called him. A man too obsessed with his own demons to further the advancement of mankind.

When I showed him the articles and asked how he could take it, he’d smile and tell me they might be right. Maybe he was mad. Back then I could still laugh at his words.

In the months to come, Nikolay would engross himself in his research. For days, sometimes even entire weeks, he’d lock himself away from the world, only leaving his laboratory to stock up on food or supplies.

One day I asked him about his research and what he was trying to do. He started explaining with his usual vigor, but after only a few minutes I had to stop him. I didn’t understand a single thing, so I pleaded with him to make it as simple as he could.

He tried to explain, he really did, but I still wasn’t able to make fully sense of it. The only thing I understood was that he tried to uncover ‘the mystery of life’ as he called it. From what I gathered, he was referring to the brain and its functions. One might be tempted to think he was talking about the soul or other less feasible things, but Nikolay was always practical, always logical.

I’d ask him if he needed any help, but he always declined. He had it all under control. He was making slow but steady progress, and the laboratory was too small for two people, anyway.

Oh, he’d gotten better at it, but I knew he was lying. Still, I couldn’t blame him. Deep down, I knew I didn’t understand what he was doing and would only be in the way.

Instead, I spent my days with my own interests, the ones I’d abandoned when I went to college and majored in science. Writing, arts, crafts and most of all painting.

I soon learned that these were other aspects of life that Nikolay didn’t understand. When I showed him the first painting I’d done in over a decade, he was more impressed than I’d ever seen him before.

It was always like that with him. So many things others couldn’t do came to him naturally, yet things easy to us were a mystery to him.

That night we made love like never before. Nikolay was so different and it was the first time he took charge of things.

At first, I was unsure, but after the sixth week, I knew I was pregnant. When I told Nikolay, he was dismissive at first, then panicky, but finally happy.

Our relationship had always been a distant one. I’d gotten used to not seeing him for days, yet it still hurt. The moment he’d learned about the pregnancy it all changed, Nikolay changed.

It was during this time, during those beautiful months we spent together, that I returned to the ‘Wonderful Works of Nikolay the Wonderful’.

No week passed without me adding a fresh page and filling it with pictures and memories. Other people might have called the things I added mundane, but to me they were special. There was a page about us watching a movie together. Another about spending the morning in bed cuddling and talking. I even wrote a long, lavish passage about a country walk we shared. Most of all, though, I wrote about all the times we sat together and talked about our child.

If it was a boy, he wanted to name him Alyosha, after his late grandfather who’d introduced him to the wondrous world of science. If it was a girl, he wanted to call her Ivana, after his sister who’d died during childbirth.

He had become an entirely different person. Sure, he still worked on his research, but not with the same vigor; gone was the time when he stayed at his laboratory for days on end. No, it seemed for the first time Nikolay had learned that there were things more important than research, books and science.

As I grew heavier and daily life became harder, Nikolay spend more and more time by my side.

I was happier than ever before and often imagined life with our child. I saw myself reading him or her fantastical stories while Nikolay’d talk about the stars that illuminated the universe.

Life was like a dream, a dream I’d never thought possible.

But like all dreams, it had to end. In a single moment, with nothing more than a missed step, it ended and turned into the worst nightmare imaginable.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and Nikolay’s call from downstairs awoke me. Breakfast was ready, he announced.

Still sleepy, I went through the ordeal of putting on my clothes before I waddled down the hallway to the stairs. For a moment I felt drowsy, like so often during these later weeks of the pregnancy. I staggered for a moment, but then I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the descent.

My hands reached out and clung to the railing on both sides. Yet, I’d barely taken the first couple of steps when a sudden, sharp pain shot through my entire body. I cringed, lost my balance, and one of my hands slipped off the railing. I called out in shock, tried to put my foot down to steady myself, but found nothing but thin air.

Do you know that horrible feeling when you realize something bad is about to happen, but there’s nothing you can do about it?

The moment my foot didn’t land on a step, I knew I would fall. My one hand still holding onto the railing slipped off, and I felt myself toppling forward. For a moment I felt weightless, as if gravity had stopped working before I crashed down.

I felt the pain only for a moment. A blazing pain that cut into my abdomen. I heard myself screaming before sweet oblivion took me away.

The time after the fall was the hardest in my entire life. So much of it just isn’t there, memories gone or reduced to unrelated bits and pieces.

I can still see Nikolay’s pained face when I woke up, and the stern and determined look of the doctor. I felt something was different about my body. There was something… missing.

There was no need for words. I knew what had happened, and I knew what I, we, had lost. Lying in the bed I cried, wept, screamed and wailed and then I went away. My consciousness retreated to a dark little place in the back of my mind.

I can’t tell for how long I was there. My memories during that time were hazy, as if hidden behind thick fog or mist.

In one I’m in my bed, with Nikolay standing above me, making me take some sort of medication. In another we’re at the family graveyard behind the house and Nikolay’s holding a small wooden box. Finally, I’m outside, sitting on the porch staring out at the empty fields ahead.

When I returned to myself I was alone at the house again. Nikolay was back at his laboratory, back working on his damned research. Fleeing from the real world like he’d done so many times before. I waited for him to come back, to take me into his arms, but he never came. Not that day, not the next, and not the one after.

I spent those days apathetic, staring out the window, bothering myself with chores that didn’t need doing or in bed in a medically induced sleep. Existence was strange, I was less a person and more an empty husk trudging along.

It was almost a week before I saw Nikolay again.

The moment he stepped through the front door, I gasped at how different he looked. Before the accident he’d been happy and healthy, now he was a scrawny, indifferent man. His face had grown dark and haggard, deep circles surrounded his eyes. I almost didn’t recognize him, and for a moment I thought some ghastly apparition had appeared in our house.

“My god, Nikolay, you look terrible,” I burst out.

He gave me the weakest hint of a smile, but there was something in his eyes, a strange glimmer.

“Just tired,” he mumbled and made his way towards the bedroom.

“Nikolay, wait-“ I started, but he didn’t react and soon vanished.

I told myself to go after him, to get in bed next to him, but I couldn’t because of those damned stairs. I took one step, but the memory of the fall made me cringe back and for a moment the pain I’d felt flared up inside of me again.

Eventually, I returned to the living room to sleep on the couch. It had become my sole little world, my safe haven.

I can’t say when the dreams started. Those terrible dreams of the baby I’d lost. In them I ran through the dark, unlit hospital corridors while the distant cries of my baby reached my ears.

When I woke up in the middle of the night, the cries of my baby still fresh and lingering, the only to return to sleep was Nikolay’s medication.

One day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I made my way to his laboratory and called out to him. But there was no reaction. He only noticed me when I pushed open the heavy doors. His face showed a mixture of surprise and anger.

“Nikolay, I thought I could prepare dinner for us. It would be the first time we ate together since,” I broke up for a moment, swallowing the saliva that had gathered in my mouth before I continued. “I thought it would be nice for us to eat together.”

“All right,” he said in a voice as thin as a whisper before he nuzzled me aside and closed the door behind himself.

The word dinner didn’t fit the meager meal I prepared for ourselves, yet I still hoped he’d appreciate the effort.

As we ate, Nikolay was quiet. His eyes wandered back to the window again and again, from which he nervously watched his laboratory. Finally, I had enough.

“Can’t you talk to me for once?” I confronted him.

“I know you’re suffering Nikolay, I know you do, but you’re not the only one! You’re not the only one who’s lost something that day and, and,” I couldn’t continue anymore.

“I need you, Nikolay, I need my husband!”

“I know, Lisa, but my work-“

There it was. The ‘but’, the ‘work’. This was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. As I pushed myself up my chair clattered to the floor behind me. I stared at him, but his eyes rested on the plate in front of him. He couldn’t even muster up the courage to look at me.

“It’s always work with you! I thought you’d changed, I thought we’d finally be a real,” I broke up, not able to say the word, and I felt my eyes welling up with tears.

God, how could I’ve ever thought I could be more important than his work!

I stormed from the room, leaving him there by himself. As I cried on the living room couch, there was a shimmer of hope in the back of my mind. He’d come into the room, put his arms around me and tell me how sorry he was.

That last, small shimmer vanished when I heard the front door and knew he was returning to his laboratory.

I knew then that our marriage had failed.

That evening I took out ‘The Wonderful Works of Nikolay the Wonderful’ once more. As I started reading it couldn’t help but call myself stupid. I cried as I read the parts about our would-be family and about our child.

When I fell asleep, the dreams came back to me. Once more the terrible cries of my unborn child haunted me. I woke up again, a crying and sobbing mess. As I lay there, the baby’s cries still lingering, I reached out for Nikolay’s medication. For a moment I held it in my hands before I threw it aside in a fit of anger.

As I got up, the baby’s cries seemed to follow me, to echo through my mind. A never-ending illusion that wasn’t satisfied anymore by haunting my dreams. Had I finally snapped, gone mad at last?

I crossed the room, then the hallway, and then I stepped outside into the cool, fresh night air. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know where I was going. All I knew was that I had enough, enough of all of this, this entire life.

The moon was bright and high in the sky, yet I couldn’t appreciate it. The baby’s cries were still torturing me, still not letting up. For a moment I screamed into the night, pushing my hands against my ears, desperate to drown them out.

At that moment though, when I pressed my hands against my ears, the cries almost vanished. They weren’t coming from inside my head, I realized, they were coming from somewhere… else.

In shock and horror, I listened more closely. My eyes wandered towards the family graveyard, but that’s not where they came from. No, they came from Nikolay’s laboratory.

In the bright moonlight, the place looked so different. A small, bone-white structure that stood in stark contrast to the dark and empty fields around it.

With each step, the crying grew more distinct, clearer, and my mind was ablaze with confusion and shock.

At first I thought it was something different and that the implications my mind was making were impossible. But somehow I knew that Nikolay had made the impossible possible, and that I was hearing the cries of my stillborn child from inside his laboratory.

When I reached the door, I put my ear against it. The crying ebbed down, got quieter, and finally vanished. I cracked the door, only an inch at a time, careful not to make any sound.

Inside I saw Nikolay, hurrying from one of his weird contraptions to the next. He was pushing buttons and punching numbers into computers before he rushed to something in the back of the laboratory.

I saw his face, and Nikolay, he was smiling. He went back to one of his computer, staring at the lines and lines of numbers that flooded the screen and an excited chuckle escaped his mouth.

That’s when I couldn’t take it anymore. This hunched over, haggard creature; was it really my husband?

I pushed open the door with all the strength I could muster to confront him.

“Nikolay, what’s going on!?”

This time the anger on his face was real. A hand shot up, urging me to be quiet as he leaned forward, almost pushing his face against the monitor.

“It works,” he pressed out in a low, awestruck voice. “It finally works,” he said again, this time louder and I could hear the triumph in his voice.

“What are you-?” I started, but broke up when the baby’s cries started again.

“My god, Nikolay, what’s going on in here!?”

That’s when I saw the tank at the back of the laboratory. There was something inside, something that was small, moving and crying for his parents, his mother!

Nikolay smiled at me, his mouth agape. All the anger was gone from his face and his eyes glowed with mad satisfaction.

I pushed him aside and rushed to the tank.

My eyes grew wide when I saw what was inside.

It was a small, gray lump of flesh. Countless cables were connected to it, shoved deep into the wet, grayish flesh.

I watched in horror as it moved, opened its tiny mouth, its black, empty eyes and then another cry followed.

My half-rotten, stillborn child was there, crying in front of me.

“It worked, Lisa, I brought him back. I brought our son back. Our dear little Alyosha,” I heard Nikolay mumble behind me.

And I, I just stood there, frozen and unable to say anything.

I stared down at the mutilated lump that would one day have been my son. I listened to those desperate, anxious cries, those heart-wrenching cries that should never come from a baby. And then I watched as my hands reached out. I carefully lifted the grayish abomination and held it in my hands.

My fingers almost slipped before they thank deep into the soft, wet flesh. He was so small, so tiny, I thought, and as I held him he giggled before crying again more intensely.

It was the worst thing I ever experienced. Worse than Nikolay’s abandonment, worse than the fall and worse even than the time that followed.

I started shaking as the tears streamed hot and heavy from my eyes. I realized how wrong all of this was. The thing I was holding in my hands, the machinery all around me, this goddamn laboratory and the research Nikolay conducted here.

Despair washed over me, the tiny form that would one day have been my son Alyosha slipped from my hands and I fell to the floor weeping.

There was a wet squish as he crashed back into the trunk and a moment later all sounds died down.

Nikolay rushed forward, kicking me aside, his attention focused on the thing in the trunk, the thing that was our son.

“No no no no no no,” he started in a panic and began frantically working on the small body.

He tore off the remainder of the cables before he pushed his hand deep into the small body, prying it open. There was a disgusting wet sound as the flesh parted. Then he began meticulously reattaching the cables before he pushed thick metal connectors deep into the baby’s organs.

“H-how could you,” I pressed out. “Nikolay, how could you do something like that?”

Yet he didn’t listen. He was too absorbed into his work as he hurried through the laboratory, trying to bring our child back once more.

“Why’d you bring him back?!” I finally screamed at him at the top of my lungs.

At that, Nikolay’s eyes focused on me, almost as if he’d forgotten I was still there. His face twisted into an innocent smile.

“So he could be the first.”

His face looked like that of a child, a child that didn’t understand what he was doing, no, what he’d done.

Or, I realized, a child that couldn’t understand.

Without another word, I got up and stumbled from the laboratory. I left Nikolay to his computers, his contraptions, his notes and data, and his ghastly research.

Back in the house, I picked up the book once more. The book I’d titled ‘The Wonderful Works of Nikolay the Wonderful.’

At first, I wanted to tear it apart, to burn it right then and there, but then I picked up a sharpie. I crossed out the title and in crude letters, I wrote ‘The Insane Works of Nikolay the Mad’ below it. I even laughed as I did it, and then I began to write.

I wrote down everything I’d witnessed that night, everything he’d done.

Once I was done with the last damned chapter of the book, I knew what I had to do.

I’d get a box of matches and some of the highly flammable chemicals he’d stored away.

And then, I’d return to his laboratory and burn it all to the ground. Him, his research, our son and myself.