My alarm went off at 6:30. It was time for school. I looked at my hand with bruises and scars all over it, leftovers from when I punished myself and tried to feel pain. While putting on my school uniform I looked in the mirror thinking: the schooling system has never really changed. Walking towards the front door I look at the news my dad was reading on our holographic wall. It said “JAPAN’S POPULATION SEVERELY DROPPING WHILE ECONOMY BOOMS.” As I walked down the streets I could see robots and people walking to work and all of them passing by the holographic walls which all had the same old news my dad was reading. Tokyo’s famous Hachiko town center used to be flooded with people, but now it was emptier than ever. There were only gigantic skyscrapers, completely robotized. This depressing view made the same old recurring thought pop into my head.
“Why not put it to a test?”
I climbed the tallest building closest to me.
“Well this is it, time to say goodbye.”
I really couldn’t care less. Dropping down was an amazing feeling! The thrill in my blood…the excitement! I couldn’t feel more alive. And then – boom.
I woke up in a white room taking huge gulps of air.
“Where am I?”
“You are in the sandbox.”
“What is this?”
“Well, this is the place you go to before you respawn. Aaaand, according to my watch that should happen in three, two,…”
“Wait. What?”
“One.”
I woke up in a hospital room. I had just been birthed into another life, just like the voice said. I knew now that the scientists were right when they told us that the world we live in is a lie. This is a simulation. This baby’s body was significantly harder to control. I was crying and I wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t utter a word, let alone a sentence. Then everything went black.
The next time I was able to see, I was looking in the mirror. I looked like a toddler, but my legs and arms were still pretty lumpy. I knew what my goal was. I wanted to see the mysterious being that put me in this world. I had to kill myself to even be able to talk to him. My head immediately started hurting. I couldn’t think. Everything was getting mushy, and I was starting to black out again. I needed to stop this feeling so I bit my arm as hard as I could.
It was like somebody hit pause. I was breathing heavily and was a bit dizzy. The headache stopped. This was really weird. The reason why I blacked out and the headache had to be connected. I needed to go back to the sandbox. Looking around the room I spotted an electrical outlet which seemed like the best option for a quick death. Crawling up to it my head started hurting again, stronger than last time. A voice started screaming in my head louder and louder. I dropped down on the floor, paralyzed. The headache got stronger. I started shouting. This “voice” wasn’t letting me kill myself. It became so loud I couldn’t even hear my own screams. And then I blacked out again.
When I woke up I was on a beach, looking at my own reflection in a lake. There weren’t many people around. It made me daydream of my previous life. But then I snapped back. I remembered what I was here for. I needed to drown myself. But as soon as I thought of it the headache came back. It was excruciating. I couldn’t let this happen, so I bit my hand again but the headache barely subsided. I bit down as hard as I could, so hard that my mouth was filling with blood. It started dripping down my arm and spilling on my legs. Then I tore off some flesh to reach the bone, and the headache stopped. Finally, I rolled down into the lake and swam a bit deeper in.
I woke up in the sandbox, still shaken by the experience I went through. I checked my arm and there were no scars or marks on it.
“Don’t worry. The scars of your life don’t follow you here.”
A man was approaching me. He had dark glasses on and was dressed in a black suit.
“Who are you? What is this place?”
“This is a simulation, or if you prefer, a video-game. You die and respawn. I’m simply your guide to the game. You don’t need to know anything else about my kind.”
“Well, what is it that you want from me exactly? And what is to come next?”
“Now, that is the hard part. You have been through a hard task. It trains you to have more control over yourself and prepares you for a shot at life that comes next. Many people fail. There is a catch though. You are up against many challenging tasks and you will never know if you are in a simulation or not. And if you completely fail there is still an actual death. There is, however, another option. And that is to “reset”.
“What does resetting do?”
“Well, it makes you respawn in the last life you lived, brainwashed of everything you knew. People who aren’t successful at the first task usually get sent on this one.”
“I choose to reset”
“Well don’t you at least want to try? I mean, resetting is pretty much like dying.”
“That’s what I want: to die. When I threw myself off that building I didn’t want any of this. And resetting is the closest thing to death I can get to.”
“OK, then. Three, two, one…”
I was lying on the ground wet. Someone was giving me CPR. I looked at my hand with scars and marks on it. This was it. I relaxed. And a white light appeared in front of my eyes.
