She crawled up to the enormous tree, her advanced armor sputtering sparks, and the lights dimming. The timer in her helmet ticked away. 8 Minutes left, but she had no Idea what it meant, nor did she really care at the moment. The shiny, advanced chestplate that once served as protection from the cruel, outside world was now bent inward, restricting her breathing. The immense creature had torn her squadron apart one by one. She was the only one left alive as far as she knew. She heard a blood curdling scream echo through the darkness of the colorful woods, sending shivers down her spine at the thought of the gargantuan creature. That was Mike, he was a good guy, and nobody deserved that horrific of an end.
They had gone in with no intel, and had no idea what they were up against. What was command thinking? We knew nothing about what was outside the dome, and the chance that there were survivors from the previous expedition was next to none. We had almost no hope of success, but to refuse was treason, and punishable by death. She sold her life to Command when she signed up for the Advanced Guard Military Force. The pay was good, and her family needed it. But the pay stopped when she stopped serving, whether she was killed in action or retired. There was no life insurance, and no guarantee she would live to see tomorrow. Nobody retired, but most applicants didn’t have to make an expedition as their first mission. Patrolling the safety of the dome was all she wanted to do.
A nasty snarl erupted from behind where she sat. She coughed up blood into her helmet. Her lungs felt like fire. The Grand Nashor, as it had been nicknamed, had also crushed the armor in her right arm, restricting her movement tremendously. The pain was excruciating, but her adrenaline kept it under control as her mind raced for an out.
Seven minutes. The numbers flashed and her helmet made a beeping noise as it counted down.
She raised the small pistol with her left arm as she sat up against the tree. A trail of blood was left in the luscious blue grass where she was lying a second ago. She was bleeding from somewhere, but she hurt all over so there was no way to tell where from. God the pain was intense. Even with adrenaline she wanted to lie down and cry. There was no time for that if she was to live. Her family needed her, and as long as she lived, she got paid.
She turned her head and looked behind the tree through her helmet, which had somehow not been damaged. She wasn’t even sure if the air outside of the dome was even breathable. They didn’t know much at all about the world outside of the dome. If her helmet was somehow malfunctioning, she would never survive, but it didn’t look like she was going to live to see tomorrow either way.
The Grand Nashor's teeth protruded out of its face, and it was occupied with Mike's body, ripping at the armor with its powerful, grey muscles to try and feed off Mike’s flesh. It had horns encircling its head, and it was covered in short fur. Its long tail swirled around in delight as it happily picked apart its fallen prey. It growled with frustration as its clawed hand tried to get under the plates of the armor. Mike’s head was missing, and it probably had already been devoured. A mess of gore and blood encircled the spot over his chest plate where his head should have been, and a growing red stain on the blue grass left a permanent mark on her mind. Fear gripped her heart as she helplessly watched her squad mate get torn apart limb by limb.
It was distracted, she should run, but somehow her body wouldn’t move no matter what she told it to do. Her hand holding the pistol trembled at the thought of being eaten alive by the monstrous creature. She never signed up for this. This was a slaughter, not an expedition.
Her mind slowed down and analyzed the situation. Grand Nashor’s ate their prey slowly by sucking the victim dry with its straw like, razor sharp tongue. It pierced the target and drained it of it’s blood and other body fluids until the corpse was dry, then it picked the meat off the bones, but was careful not to eat the bones as it’s throat is too small to devour them whole. She had at least a fifteen minute gap before it would hunt again.
Six minutes. Another beep. What the hell was it counting down to? The numbers popped up when she was attacked.
She looked at the heads up display on her wrist that showed her suit’s status. A voice in her helmet chimed:
“Power at 50%. Chest plate heavily damaged. Removal highly recommended. Thrusters fully functional. Fuel at 75%.”
Her thrusters still worked! The growling intensified as the Grand Nashor finally succeeded in removing Mike’s chest plate and began sucking the fluids out of him with its tongue, making a gruesome slurping noise as it fed.
Five minutes. Another beep. She ignored it.
She stood up weakly and noticed the mess of blood and flesh that was her right arm. She couldn’t even feel it anymore. That explained the small trail of crimson on the blue grass below. Her head swooned and she almost fell from the blood loss, but she shook it off before jumping into the air, letting the thrusters in her boots and pack launch her into the sky. Her foot stepped off a branch above as she jumped higher, above the giant leaved trees.
The world had changed since the ancient day’s. The tree’s were large from the excess water that had been forced onto earth, which also drastically changed the climate. Animal’s had evolved to the change. Humans had to forcefully adapt, but not without billions of people dying to the floods.
She jumped from branch to branch, letting her thrusters do all the work until the dome came into view. This dome has protected humanity from the changing atmosphere and evolving wildlife that began hunting humans for food and driving them out of their massive cities. The dome was located a few hundred miles from where New York used to be. A giant city, thriving with people and culture and technology; it was all lost in a single tragic moment.
Four minutes. Beep.
She landed in front of an entrance to the dome, her legs giving out on the landing as she tumbled into the dirt. The Grand Nashor’s cry bellowed throughout the massive forest. It had finished its meal and had gone in search of the next. She forced herself to stand, and her head swooned at the effort, but she refused to be the creature’s next meal.
“Let me in!” She screamed at the display as she banged her left fist on the door. Blood stained the metal exterior with each weak hit. She could hear the massive, yet extremely agile creature, run through the forest growling all the way. It had her scent, and was coming in to finish its prey.
Three minutes. Beep. I guess she would find out what the timer meant when it hit zero. It could be the battery life in her helmet perhaps? She was still new to the suit in general. It was high tech and held many features that she knew nothing about.
Suddenly, the large metal door that separated her from the safety of the dome opened, and it hissed as white smoke billowed out the door. She tumbled into the entrance and collapsed onto the floor, completely exhausted.
Two minutes. Another beep. It was getting annoying.
Two soldiers marched out with large XM87 Assault rifles. One grabbed her by the back of her armor and dragged her inside as the other made sure the Grand Nashor didn’t kill them all, spraying lasers in its general direction. A bellowing roar was barely heard as the giant metal doors sealed shut, ensuring their safety.
One minute. It beeped twice. That was new.
The men dragged her by her armor into the safety of the dome. She slid across the floor with their help down a long silver hallway. She needed desperate medical attention. Her body was in no condition to be dragged like this, but she was just content that no creature was trying to eat her anymore. Her vision blurred as the adrenaline flooded from her body and the pain began to set in once more. She sighed with relief. She was safe.
Ten seconds left. It beeped at each passing second.
“Are you alright, soldier?” The man said as he forced her up onto the bed. The medical bay was neat, and the blood covering her body stained everything as they placed her on the soft bed. One man was clearly a doctor, and he wore a blue skin tight suit and a mask to keep everything sterile. The other man was a soldier like her in a similarly advanced suit of high tech armor. He was the one that had dragged her inside.
Five seconds. More beeping.
“Yeah I-” She managed to get out.
One.
The world slowed to a stop. Time froze. She was startled by the sudden silence. The doctor that was about to tend her wounds was still as a statue. Every detail about him remained the same. Every bit of his suit and flashing lights on it stopped where they had began. A beam of light from his wrist watch was seen half way from the bulb to where the light would have hit the wall. Time had been halted down to every last stunning detail.
She was startled. Confused. What just happened? She lifted both her arms and removed the helmet from her head. Wait, both arms? She examined her arms. They were healed, in fact, she was breathing fine again. No more pain. No more blood. No more pain. Thank god, no more pain. What a relief.
What the hell was going on?
Hello there.
She froze where she sat. The voice was audible, but nobody around her had moved an inch from their frozen position.
“Hello?” She asked in the empty room.
There’s no need to speak. You can hear me in your thoughts.
“What do you mean?” She asked the air. She could hear him perfectly and assumed that it could read her thoughts, but it felt strange having a conversation with somebody without moving her lips.
You were part of a project. Your code number is 49. Welcome to reality. Well, sort of.
“I’m confused. Why am I healed? What did you do to everyone here?”
Time is merely an illusion. This is my world, and you were my greatest creation. I am the god of this world.
“What?” She asked, even more confused.
Allow me to demonstrate. The men in front of you will now die.
In an instant the men inexplicably exploded into a fiery mess of gore.
“Holy shit!” She yelled at the sudden sight.
Their guts and insides sprayed the walls of the small medical bay she sat in and showered her in rivers of blood. She flinched and covered her face to stop it from hitting her directly. She was covered in all sorts of gore of the poor men, despite her efforts to block it from hitting her head. The smell was pungent and gross from the sudden exposure of flesh.
Now watch as I reconstruct them.
Time seemed to rewind itself as bits of gore and blood from the walls and herself sucked back into place until they formed the men that were there a second earlier. She sat in awe as every detail of them fell back into place until they stood in their original positions, ready to heal her as if she were still injured just like she had last seen them.
“What’s the point of all this?” She asked, still confused despite being terrified of whatever this...thing could do to her if it wanted to. “What do you want from me?”
I want you to forget your family. Forget your past, and pretend as if none of it was real. None of it WAS real. It was all fabricated. You are nothing more than a project for me to toy with in my world. Simply lie down and sleep. I will run the next simulation and observe.
“That’s it?” She asked. “What do you gain from that?”
It allows me to place you into a new world and run more tests. You see, I’m a scientist of sorts. I study the mind, it’s reaction to pain of different degrees, and document it. You are my test subject, and this was the physical test. You passed so far, but the tests simply get increasingly more difficult. I need to find the human breaking point, both physically and mentally. Would you like to help me do this?
“Why would I intentionally hurt myself?”She asked. “Why would I help you if it just means I’m going to be broken for the sake of your experiment.”
Please don’t be difficult.
“I’m not being difficult at all! I can’t just forget. I have a whole life behind me. If I go to sleep I’ll just wake up with the same memories.”
Oh really? You realize that your memories are in my control as well, correct? For example, what is your name, miss?
“It’s…” What? What was her name? The syllables she had used to identify herself for the entirety of her life suddenly weren’t in her mind. She panicked as her mind raced to any memory where somebody had said her name. Her head hurt suddenly trying to do so. The world around her fragmented for a moment, almost like a flicker. Why was her memory so hazy? She was just running away from something right? Or did she just dream that? She tried to remember why she was there. She served the military to help pay for her family’s living costs. She’d always been poor for as long as she could remember.
Then why the hell did she not know her own name?
What is your mother’s name?
“Stop!” Her head hurt so bad. Why did her temples feel like they were about to explode? Her migraine spread from her temples to the rest of her head, engulfing her mind in nothing but pain. She couldn’t remember a single memory about herself. Anything from military training, to her elementary years, to her boyfriend. All gone. She sat in terror as her past was ripped out of her mind. Fragments and stray memories remained, but as she fought it, the memories seemingly shattered into nothing.
I will simply have to do a hard reset. It will only pain you more. Oh well. I wish you didn’t have to go through this, but it is what it is. Good bye for now.
She screamed at the pain in her head. The world around her cracked and light from random directions spread from the wall. The men in front of her shattered into light, and the walls began to crumble and crack. What the hell was going on? The world appeared to be distorted as it shifted.
Suddenly, her vision swirled and the world faded to black. She was floating. No falling. The sensation was soothing. The pain flooded from her head like a rush and nothing but a cool, calm feeling filled her head. She didn’t remember her name, her past, her world.
She also didn’t remember the voice as she faded into the darkness.