Recollection(Glen Thenaka) ‘Where… am I? Who am I?’
I opened my eyes. In front of me, a woman garbed in white, marooned brown hair, cut just short to the shoulders. On the pale, yet cheery, face laid grey frameless glasses, the mellow orange sunlight peeking through her shoulders. I glanced around, a clock silently ticking, a soft, classical medley pleasantly reverberating throughout the room. Such a relaxing scene, but somehow my body felt anxious, like it’s anticipating something.
“You okay?” Vaguely said a feminine voice
Closing my eyes, I started recollecting my thoughts.
‘My name is Robert Wallace, age 29, rookie detective, currently on the 7th floor of Dr. Alice Brown’s apartment for a mental health evaluation.‘
In an instant, my senses returned, anxiousness gone, time reverted back to its normal pace.
‘Ah, so this is what they call déjà vu.’ I reassured myself.
Opening my eyes, it seemed like only a few seconds had passed. The figure across the glass table, politely sitting on a chair, looked at me with a worried look.
“Mm, ah yes, sorry, I spaced out a little bit there.” I quickly stuttered out.
“Right,” The doctor’s head nodded down to her paper and clipboard, seemingly taking notes. “Well, aside from your weird dreams you’ve been having, you passed all the tests and will be assigned to office by tomorrow.”
She handed me a light brown paper folder. I opened it, inside was a form with my picture attached on it, a badge, a card and a—
‘A handgun?’ I thought as I felt my face distort at the sight of the murderous tool.
“Standard issue stuff.” The doctor remarked with a little jolt.
“Ah, thank you doctor.”
Alice and I got up, with her escorting me to the door.
“We should get coffee sometimes, tomorrow evening?” I jokingly said.
“Work comes first, rookie,” She gave a brief chuckle “Good evening”
“Good evening”
‘Alice Brown, age 28, childhood friend, child prodigy’
I headed for the elevator, pressed the button and waited. The doors of steel opened at last. Who was inside was a man in a black jacket. Dark shades laid over the rigid features of his face, more so covered by a black fedora resting upon his head. He went out of the elevator, took a glance at myself and went off. Shrugging, I stepped in the elevator. The doors closed, and it started descending. Mellow music played, just like the one back in the doctor’s room. Arriving at the lobby, I stepped out of the elevator and walked out of the building.
The streets were bathed in orange sunset, cars passing here and there on the broad asphalt road. The wide pedestrian’s pass was crowded of people. I glanced at my watch, [5:36 p.m.]
‘Still time for some burgers’ My mouth salivated at the thought.
Turning left, I started walking. I glanced up, towards the 7th floor of the apartment. In the arrangement of incredibly broad panes of glass, I could discern the doctor’s room. I turned my eyes up above. A calming, orange sky, a flock of doves passing by, above them arrays of white, fluffy clouds—
‘!!’
A feeling of heavy anxiousness suddenly overcame my senses. Time slowed down. Sounds became vague, my mind running wild, everything covered in a sense of familiarity. It’s the strong feeling I felt back in Alice’s apartment.
‘D… Déjà vu? Again?’
All the sounds I heard, all the sights I saw, the smells I smelt, it felt like I experienced them before.
‘But when?’
Just then, my mind led my eyes to the doctor’s apartment, anxiously anticipating something. Suddenly, the large glass pane shattered, a figure got thrown off to the sidewalk. A woman garbed in white, stained red. The pale, now dreadful, face, with the pair of glasses 3 feet off of where it was, broken. Alice, dead.
My senses returned. My feet shuddered at the sight. I looked back up at the now decimated pane of glass. No one was there. I gazed around, faces of terrified people, men and women alike. I quickly took my phone with my shaking hands, and pressed the buttons 9-1-1.
The police came within minutes, fencing off the scene with yellow tape. They covered the body with blue plastic. A car of black came a few minutes later. All that time I just stood there, in shock. From the car came two men, both dressed in formal black, one a familiar face. Percy Willington, a man of his early 50s, my boss, beside him a much younger man, hair shiny black, with a comical mustache above his mouth.
“Quite the event, eh?” Percy gave out a brief chuckle.
‘How can you be in such a mood in such a dire situation?’ I thought to myself
“Well then, Agent Wallace, your first case,” his hand held out, as if to escort me, to the area inside of the yellow tape, towards the blue irregularity lying on the cold concrete sidewalk. He then handed me a folder, the cover read ‘Dr. Alice Brown’, a picture of her was stuck in the inside, along with some several blocks of text.
“Agent Rasputin here will be your partner.” He patted the man beside him on his back.
“Rasputin, Jacob Rasputin.” He firmly held out his hand
“Wallace, Robert Wallace.” We shook hands
“Now then, I’ve got a meeting to attend to, ciao!” Percy went back in the black car and drove off, leaving a trail of dust along the way.
“His cheery nature, it disturbs me”
“I still wonder though…”
“Well then, let’s get to work.” I turned my gaze back to the scene, reminding me of the shock of the event that happened just before.

‘…’

I looked at my watch, 8:23 p.m. Jacob and I had parted ways about twenty minutes ago after we finished our investigation on site. Jacob picked up a cab, while I’ve gone and grabbed a burger. Riding a cab home, I had the folder open on my lap, silently examining Alice’s records, taking a bite at my burger every once in a while.
‘Alice…’
I closed the records, turned my attention to the street lights passing by. It was a residential street, just a few more minutes and I would arrive at my apartment. I saw shops passing by, towering apartment complexes, people strolling about in the sideways, bathed under the full moon—
‘!!’
This feeling again, what was it this time? I anxiously scanned the alleys to my right, to my left, right, left. What was I looking for? Then I saw it, two dark figures in a dark alley, time seemingly slowing down even more as my eyes focused on the scene.
“Stop, stop the cab!!”
Without even waiting for the cab to halt to a complete stop, I barged out of the door and ran back to the alleyway I just passed—
A terrifying noise reverberated through the air.
‘A gunshot!?’ I broke into cold sweat.
I ran as fast as I could to the dark alleyway; a dark figure, lying motionlessly on the ground, with red, viscous liquid gushing out of the head. The other figure was nowhere to be found.
‘Where could he have gone?’I looked at the solid block of concrete that was a dead end at the end of the alley.
My senses returned. Turning my gaze to the ground once more, I ran over to the figure lying on the ground; his face, a pale one, full of terror, hair black, with a comical mustache over his mouth, a bloody hole between his eyebrows.
‘Jacob...’
I pulled out my phone and once again dialed 9-1-1. The police came within minutes, covering the body with blue plastic, fencing off the scene with yellow tape. Such a familiar scene, but yet my déjà vu didn’t return.

‘…’

I went home walking, opened the door to my apartment, gave myself a change of clothes, washed my face and laid in bed.
‘Two people, one day’
I shook off the thought off my head and glanced at my watch.[9:14 p.m.] I gave a brief sigh and went to sleep, the fatigue of today overwhelming me.

‘…’

That night, I dreamt, pictures flowed in my head, a dark alleyway, a room of darkness, a vast machine rumbling against the silence, on screen was a series of numbers and letters, a dark figure in the background, seemingly observing my every move, streaks of light passing by wherever I go, Rasputin’s bloody face, Alice dead against the ground, Alice, Alice…
“Alice!!”
I woke up in cold sweat, heart racing. I looked out the window, the sky was still pitch black. I glanced at my watch, 4:57 a.m.
Slowly getting up, I gave myself a shower, put on clothes of formal black, took my suitcase and headed out. The sky started to give out a hue of blue as time quickly passed by. I took a cab to the burger shack conveniently placed just a few blocks off my office, and ate a breakfast of bacon and cheese. Quickly finishing my meal, I headed out once more, took a look at the time, [5:33 a.m.], still plenty of time before I get fired in my first day of work. Looking up at the sky, tinged a nostalgic orange, I could see doves flying off in the distance. Taking my gaze down, I saw the towering behemoth of a building that is my office. I took my attention in front of me and I started walking—
‘!!’
This feeling again. Why now? I brushed the thought away and let my eyes lead me.
‘The office?’
I couldn’t help but think that someone was about to die. I broke to cold sweat, my heart pounding in anxiousness. One second. Two seconds. Nothing.
‘M-maybe it was just my imagination?’
I gulped and started walking forward—
Noise, like rumbling thunder, suddenly rang in my ears, followed by the slight shake of the ground below me.
‘An explosion?’ I turned by gaze back up with the thought
‘N-no…’
The towering behemoth, the office, rumbling down, decimated. I could vaguely make out the many screams from the inside. Time seemingly stopped, people froze like statues with horrified expressions stuck on their faces.
My senses returned. I could hear sirens and alarms going off everywhere, people panicking around, cars crashing to each other; chaos.
‘Please’ I thought as I frantically searched my mind for anything that could give a clue of what was going on. Alice’s death, Rasputin’s death, the man in black, the dark figure in the alleyway, the concrete wall, a dead end, the dead end—
‘!!’
My mind once again entered a state of trance. I rushed through the crowd, ran full speed towards the road of which the alleyway was, not even bothering to take a cab. What might’ve took 15 minutes felt like one as my mind was still in a state of shock. I arrived at the dark alley, panting. I let my body take over, using vague memories gained from my current state of déjà vu. My legs led me to the huge concrete obstacle. I laid my hand on the wall, on which a 3 meter tall chunk of concrete just broke into grains of light before disappearing.
‘What… Is this..?’
My senses returned, the hole left seemed like a doorway, leading to a long, hallway bathed in white light.
‘How..?’ I shrugged off the thought ‘No, it’s not the time to think’
I slowly walked inside. The walls of the hallway was smooth, the floor felt like ceramic. All was impossibly white, devoid of any impurities, any dust, any smudge, any dirt of any kind. Lights peeked out of the ceiling in a regular fashion. I took several steps forward. The opening suddenly turned back to concrete. I took several more steps forward. The hallway took a turn, and suddenly I was on a bridge, one out of many bridges connecting to a circular platform in the middle. Surrounding all this was a behemoth of a sphere of pure black.
‘Where is this?’ Anxiousness turned to curiosity as I approached the platform.
On the platform was a vast machine, the one I saw in my dream, softly humming against the silence. On it was a keyboard, with a large screen above it.
‘A computer?’
In front of the machine was a mechanical chair, similar to a dentist’s with unlocked metal straps all around the construct. Beside the machine, a long table, with many folders arranged on top of it. The first folder read ‘Subject #001’, the second ‘Subject #002’ and so on up until ‘Subject #018’. I took one of the folders and opened it.
“Subject #012: Bryan Oscar Pattingson, Status: Side Character” A picture of a man was stuck beside the text, and below it a long block of text.
‘Side character?’
I closed the folder and took another one.
“Subject #013: Annabelle Rose, Status: Side Character” Yet another picture of a blonde woman, and below it a long block of text.
Now a tad bit shivering, I closed the folder and took the one next to it.
“Subject #014: Mendeleev Troika, Status: Antagonist”
‘Antagonist?’
I examined the picture, dark shades laid over the rigid features of his face, more so covered by a black fedora resting upon his head—
‘The, the man on the elevator!?’ I mentally screamed aloud, breaking into cold sweat once more.
The next three folders revealed the names Percy, Rasputin, Alice, their statuses all being side characters. With my hand and mind now heavily shuddering, I reached out to the last folder in the end of the table.
“Subject #018: Robert Wallace, Status: Protagonist” The picture shown was the face of a man in his late 20s, black hair, a stubble across his lower jaw.
I froze in shock, greatly confused, not realizing the folder dropping through my cold, stiff fingers.

“…”

I calmed myself down, turned my attention away from the table and unto the giant machine beside it.
‘A little too big for office’
I tried pressing keys on the thin, metal keyboard that attached itself to the huge construct that simply looked like a vastly oversized television. Sure enough, nothing happened. Scanning the object, I found a button on the underside of the keyboard. The machine booted up, with the words “Project Geschichte” in a giant, blue text appearing on the screen.
The text soon disappeared, replaced with a screen entirely black. The words ‘Command Prompt’ appeared in blue text on the upper left corner ,with a small, light blue vertical stripe below it, appearing and disappearing in a regular fashion.
‘Command… prompt?’ I was held agape, but soon recollected my bearings.
‘Okay, lets try something then,’ I thought as I placed my fingers on the keyboard. ‘<whoami>, enter.’
The machine gave an electronic beep, and words appeared onscreen.
[Command not recognized, please do ‘list’ to list all available commands]
‘Alright then’ I gave a brief sigh before readying myself to type again. ‘<list>, enter.’
This time, huge list of items came before my eyes. I browsed through them one by one. Words like ‘simulation’ and ‘experiment’ came before my eyes. I shuddered at the sight, then readied to type again.
‘<experimentinfo>, enter’
[Tetragon; WorldSimulator v1.03, simulationNumber: 0072, setting: New_York, simulationTime 28/04/12_07:13, observedCharacter: Robert_Wallace]
“S-simulation?” I took myself aback and laughed “What is this? The matrix?” The thought of it made dismal of my emotions once more. I turned by gaze back to the list of instructions. On the very bottom were two commands that didn’t follow the alphabetical order. I readied my hands once more and placed it on the keyboard
‘<systemreboot>, enter’
[Are you sure you want to reboot the simulation?]
My eyes froze. Doubts started forming in my mind.
‘Please’ I thought to myself ‘I’ve gone this far, give me anything that’ll explain what the hell is going on’ With that thought, I forced myself towards the point of no return.
‘<Yes>, enter’
And with that my consciousness gradually faded, with the world going away with it, streaks of light filled my sight, like the ones that filled my dreams.

‘…’
[System reboot initiated, Tetragon; WorldSimulator v1.03, simulationNumber: 0073, setting: New_York, simulationTime 27/04/12_05:27, observedCharacter: Robert_Wallace]
‘…’

I opened my eyes. In front of me, a woman garbed in white, marooned brown hair, cut just short to the shoulders. On the pale, yet cheery, face laid grey frameless glasses, the mellow orange sunlight peeking through her shoulders. I glanced around, a clock silently ticking, a soft, classical medley pleasantly reverberating throughout the room. This feeling again. The anxiousness, my mind fleeting away, déjà vu.
“You okay?” said a feminine voice
“Alice!!” I jolted out of my chair, eyes staring unto the figure in front of me.
“Y-yes, Robert? You okay?” she gave a confused look
My mind was in complete disarray. ‘She’s alive, but how could she be alive? I saw her fall off the window just yesterday—‘ Quickly realizing something, I turned my gaze at my watch. [27/14/12, 5:27 p.m.]
‘The command, the computer, i-it reverted back time?’ thought raced past me. ‘A-Alice, she will be thrown off the building, dead, a bit after 5:36 p.m., i-if I don’t do anything soon—‘
“Robert?” The doctor’s voice snapped me back to my senses
“Mm, ah yes, sorry, I spaced out a little bit there.” I quickly stuttered out.
“Right,” The doctor’s head nodded down to her paper and clipboard, seemingly taking notes. “Well, aside from your weird dreams you’ve been having, you passed all the tests and will be assigned to office by tomorrow.”
She handed me a light brown paper folder. I opened it, inside was a form with my picture attached on it, a badge, a card and a—
‘A handgun...’ Things were going exactly like before.
“Standard issue stuff.” The doctor remarked with a little jolt.
“Ah, thank you doctor.”
Alice and I got up, with her escorting me to the door.
“We should get coffee sometimes, tomorrow evening?” I jokingly said.
“Work comes first, rookie,” She gave a brief chuckle “Good evening”
“Good evening” I finally broke into cold sweat
I headed towards the end of the hallway, hid myself in a corner and waited the handgun already in my hand. I saw the man in black come out of the elevator, walking down the hallway, towards Alice’s room. My mind flashed back to the long table with folders.
[“Subject #014: Mendeleev Troika, Status: Antagonist”]
‘…The…Antagonist’ I readied the gun in my hand. The man unsheathed a gun from his coat, and went inside Alice’s room. I jolted from my corner, towards the door. I kicked the door open, saw Alice frozen at gunpoint, her face locked in a distorted expression. Reflexively, I aimed and pulled the trigger. The man’s body stiffened up in pain. He turned around to face me, I took another shot. Underneath his shades, I could make out a horrified expression, before slumping to the ground, dead.
I lowered my gun. Alice broke from her frozen state, kneeled down to the floor, as if all strength has been pulled out from her body, face locked in shock. I took a step forward towards her. Just then, I heard my phone vibrate.
‘A message? Now?’
Realizing that this didn’t happen before, I quickly took my phone out. It was a message, an e-mail, sent by an anonymous sender.
[Bravo]
Just then I felt great pain in my head, like it was going to burst out any second. As my consciousness slipped away, I heard a voice calling out my name. Darkness enveloped me at last.

‘…’

“The protagonist kills the antagonist, the good defeats the bad, the hero banishes the demon. Quite the cliché ending, don’t you think?”
I opened my eyes. A man garbed in a white lab coat stood before me, features of a young man in his 30s, and behind him, a behemoth of a machine, humming against the silence. A long table laid beside it. I tried turning my head around—
“Ugh” I gave out a silent scowl, my head was fixed in place with some kind of metal strap. My entirety of my body was in the same condition. I couldn’t move at all.
“I bet you’re wondering, ‘where am I?’, ‘Who is this madman with the lab coat’?” He gave a hearty laugh before continuing, “I am the mastermind, the all powerful, the god of this world” He laughed again, this time even louder.
“W-what ‘s going to happen to me?” I said in a shiver. The man approached the long table and took a folder, on its cover I could discern “Subject #018”.
“Ah, Dr. Robert Wallace” The man started, “He and his team created an invention that could change the world, or I might say, create one. On May 12th 2023, the Tetragon was created, a vast, complex machine capable of simulating whole worlds. You, oh you created it just for the fun of it, Alice Brown, Jacob Rasputin, Percy Willington, they all did, planning to publicly announce its creation to the world and leave it at that. While I…” He gave a sinister laugh “…I was much, much more ambitious, to have a dream of a utopia, The Matrix of my own.”
He closed the folder he was holding and walked towards the keyboard.
“The law didn’t allow human experimentation, stupid law, so I decided to hold a little… Developer’s testing”
He started typing something. By the time he was finished, a picture, no, video overwhelmed the screen. On it was a man, physique identical to mine, lying on a bed, wires attached to his head.
“Oh don’t worry, you and your team have been announced dead, including me. Your families, your friends, all think you’re long gone from this world.”
“W-What do you plan on accomplishing with this? Taking us hostage? For what!?” My voice suddenly rang out.
“Aah, finally, the curious one, eh? I’ve heard the same question 71 times and I’m not surprised to hear it again; the code, Robert, the code, the code of God to this world, the code of The Administrator, hidden within your subconscious. You never gave it to me when you were still oh the great doctor, that led me to taking it by force. I can only do so much in this world without the code with this very console. The work and time have I put in writing down pleasant memories to replace your own, Robert, the work I put to make the perfect plot and characters for you, just give me the code already!” This time he was already shouting.
“Code— What code?”
“Here we go again, the same damn questions. 72 simulations and 72 times I’ve been confronted with the same damn questions. Don’t you ever get bored, Robert, seeing Alice, Jacob, everyone die everytime, no, because I took the courtesy of rewriting your memories for you every damn time Memory’s a funny thing, so easy to be written, impossible to be read, only can be forced out. Well, no matter, it’ll all happen again anyways, just a bit more of information gathering and I’ll have it, the key to this world, and soon enough, everyone will know the name Xavier Wolf!”
He turned his back to me, facing the giant screen once more, he closed the livestream of my helpless body, connected to all those wires, and began typing out a command.
‘The code, code, what code?’
On screen was the writing ‘memoryreboot’—
‘!!’
This feeling, time slowing down, body heavily anxious, caused by the 71 times of the same scene played over and over again before my very eyes in previous simulations. Yes, the déjà vus, I’ve seen them all before 71, now 72 times already.
I frantically searched my mind for a code, any code, where did I see it before. That night, I dreamt, pictures flowed in my head, a dark alleyway, a room of darkness, a vast machine rumbling against the silence, on screen was a series of numbers and letters.
‘That’s it!’ I mentally screamed aloud
Xavier pressed the enter button, and with it a confirmation message appeared
Silently, I whispered out the code, quickly, quickly…
“I’ll see you later, Robert Wallace, have a good day” he confirmed the command
With my slipping consciousness, I finished whispering out the code, and with it, a command, the other one of the two listed last, not in the alphabetical order, the most powerful command in the system.
‘To the man that wanted this world all to himself, let him have it, let him have everything’

‘…’
[System reboot initiated, Tetragon; WorldSimulator v1.03, simulationNumber: 0074, setting: New_York, simulationTime 27/04/12_05:27, observedCharacter: Xavier Wolf]
‘…’

‘Where… am I? Who am I?’
I opened my eyes. In front of me, a woman garbed in white, marooned brown hair, cut just short to the shoulders. On the pale, yet cheery, face laid grey frameless glasses, the mellow orange sunlight peeking through her shoulders. I glanced around, a clock silently ticking, a soft, classical medley pleasantly reverberating throughout the room. Such a relaxing scene, but somehow my body felt anxious, like it’s anticipating something.
“You okay?” Vaguely said a feminine voice
Closing my eyes, I started recollecting my thoughts.
‘My name is Xavier Wolf, age 31, rookie detective, currently on the 7th floor of Dr. Alice Brown’s apartment for a mental health evaluation.‘
In an instant, my senses returned, anxiousness gone, time reverted back to its normal pace.
‘Ah, so this is what they call—‘

‘—Déjà vu’

[END]

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