2.1.53

Chapter Thirteen : Appointment

"So not this death either?" The familiar sound of Rino echoed from some part of the room.

"Umhu" I replied in the affirmative.

"All right" He seemed to care less while my mind was filled with questions.

Why did I saw dad's dictating version even though he was always kind to people around him? Who was the person Shruti was married to? I had never seen him in my life? Why was I taking drugs even though I have never even seen any in real life?"

"Why does the machine show me bizarre things?" I asked him.

"Bizarre things?" Rino seemed confused.

"Yes. Things that I have never experienced, or even imagined or even witnessed in any form" I clarified.

"Oh yes, yes, it might show you things like that" he said, "It doesn't just run on your memories, it can create scenarios out of the smallest of things"

I stayed silent. The machine was humming softly, and the only visual I had was darkness. There was a sharp pain in the back of my head from the poison that was injected after I clicked on 'no', taking another five years of my life. I also have this headache in those scenarios as well but I don't realize the reason. The headset was hurting the bridge of my nose, but I can't even remove it and for a moment I doubted the peaceful aspect that I was promised. Seeing scenarios of what life could have been if one or two things were different and then dying in that life seemed nothing close to peace. My heart was in turmoil contemplating what is next in store for me, I knew the machine will be started again.

Taking Prinita for granted and then abusing her in the first, assaulting my own dad, and then overdosing on a drug in the second. What will the next one be like?

"So, shall we move on to the next?" Rino's said what I was wondering.

"Yeah sure. I am ready" I said.

I closed my eyes; the green light appeared and then intensified its brightness. The hum of the machine filled the room and kept on increasing.

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The sound of siren was blaring somewhere nearby. I struggled to get my eyes open and even when I did saw the face of daylight, it took me some time to fully be conscious of my surroundings. I sat up on the bed and searched for my phone. Once I retrieved it, I turned off the alarm sound and then tried to deduce what went wrong that led me to set a siren tone as my alarm tune.

I slump into the pillow again, it was just 7 in the morning. I checked my notifications, just spam emails, and alerts from some social media sites. I was going through the online dating app when the siren blared from my phone again. It was a reminder saying 'Meeting with two publishers'

I wondered what it was and then when I understood, I was out of the bed and into the bathroom to freshen up in no time. Two meetings with two publishers were scheduled around a month before. I had my manuscript ready for over a year now and have been circling the offices of publishers for the last eight months. Rejection is what I always got. The reason for it astonishes me more than anything- They want drama and cheesy lines filled romance novels which can also be easily converted into a film screenplay. Everything else either will be from already renowned authors or wealthy people who can pay them a hefty amount of money and I didn't fall into any of the criteria.

My novel was a comment on the nature of humans blended into a sci-fi story. It is sad, depressing with a heartbreaking ending and cannot be easily transformed into a screenplay. It was my first novel, I was not renowned in all senses of it. I hardly gathered attention from my writings on social media, I hated writers who took milked on the topic of cheesy romance and I didn't sugarcoat my views online just to please everyone. And for the wealth part, I wrote on a broken laptop which needs to be restarted a couple of times before I could even open a writing software and lived on cheap sandwiches and an apartment whose three months of rent was due. The only bit of wealth I had left was my father's car that was handed down to me when he stopped driving himself.