Project Devilgama

Seven

"The first trial was a success and a failure." A sunken voice came before Mhaz, "The Irrans and Brexxy, respectively."

Mhaz found himself sitting on the chair, his mind was a hot mess. Strange goosebumps crept through his spine, occasionally. He had come to this room, and now faced a young man behind the square desk illuminated by a hovering crème neon bar above him. Mhaz could barely scan his look by the shaded protrusions that formed his face. It was dark after all.

Even after a long walk through the hallways, escorted by the officers, he retained all the weird sensations that came after waking up from the simulation machine; confusion, desperation, pleasure, and fun in a concoction. His mind could not process a long description. But it roughly felt like waking up after hopping from one dream to another in some sort of a deep slumber. But he was thankful that he can still distinguish between the shifting realities he had been presented with.

There had been too much for his brain to contain. He heard his subconscious screaming how exhausting the simulation was.

"Tell me anything you remember." He said again in a monotone.

"I don't," Mhaz responded.

"Just a big picture of them."

It was difficult for him to shape the remembrance out of his memory. He clumped his right hand into a fist, pressing it lightly on the armrest, and just after a couple of seconds, he surrendered, "I cannot. Have you ever come out of a dream? You know how it feels like to remember a dream."

"But it felt so real when that is happening, no?"

"Right."

"When we are in our sleep, nicely dreaming, everything was like a movie or a videogame. Sometimes we can control ourselves, but most of the time not. Either way, we experienced it so smoothly. Then, when our body rises from the bed, it began to disintegrate into a compilation of frames. One by one, we lose it. And by the time you hit the shower, the only thing left was a gallery of several photographed moments occuring in that dream, you hope to remember."

It gave you a hit of dopamine! Serotonins! A good sleep and a nice dream would supply yourself enough comfort to go through the whole day." He continued, now in stark joy.

"I saw odd-looking men in the forest, people turning into particles, and a lone girl on the cliff." Mhaz said, "That's all I remember."

"Alright, my friend." The man softly responded.

Mhaz was still pondering about the 'friend' word that came out of his mouth when the lamps on the walls began to light up. It flooded the once-dim room with lights, that revealed the groove lines making up irregular rectangular patterns on the wall. The suspended lamp was still in the air, around a foot over the unknown man's forehead. Mhaz had seen his shiny temple and half of his nose bar, and now the lights made all his features visible.

It shook Mhaz, baffling slightly. He could see several faint details that together formed a picture of someone he used to know. But there is nothing Mhaz could exactly point out to make any judgment. That man looks like a young adult, after all. Mhaz could see a pair of bionic arms attached to the man's torso that rested on a stone block with a flat top. Things of the wealthy, that is what came to Mhaz mind. A symbol of sophisticated disgrace to nature. "That is why I chose engineering, it taught me to build them. And you, what does natural stuff has to offer these days?" The man spoke again, now as he rose off his armchair. "You used to know me, mate. Say hi!"

"H-hi." Mhaz stuttered. His mind was not in a perfect state of being friendly. He was more confused than anything else. There was another thing unearthed to Mhaz's sight by the activated lights; a wide, curved windowpane on the side of the room.

Mhaz knew he was not tied down to the chair, so he lifted himself and peeked over. He and May met several feet before the window, faces on the glassy barrier as if there were something on the other side. Seen on the window was a panorama of the skyline, the night cityscape seen below as if they both were standing on a towering structure above everything. Buildings upon buildings reaching high to the sky, clustered by modules, interconnected by circulating lines of transport. Moving bright dots as the flying machines and colorful haze spanning the horizon that outshined the Milkyway. Stellar.

"You know, we're far below the earth."

"Yes."

"Our minds are fallible. We could make you feel the coldness of the night at the heights, buried beneath the shrubs and foliage of the jungle, or soar high in the sky," He paused, "but still, we are deep underground."

The sight was the world before the war. A snap back to reality, for Mhaz, to realize that everything was gone. But there was something he could remember from 2119, it was nostalgic. He was young and silly, but lucky for it was the most ideal time he lived in so far. It was authentic despite its imperfect. Deep in his mind, as deep as the bunker level he stood on, he wanted everything to return.

"It exists in our mind, Mhaz. In all our minds, an ideal realm. And we need them. Do you see those people? They are here because they have a reason. But you are unique. You are here because we have a reason."

"Are you-"

"Maykal."

Mhaz stared sharply into his eyes, worrying nothing of looking so deeply that he reached his core. "You're not lying, don't you?"

"Welcome to Devilgama," May said confidently with his fabricated glory, offering his mechanical-looking, metallic hand. And Mhaz grasped it tight. Excitement was overflowing inside him. His palm had a cold sensation he felt of touching the material but did not tell. He had never shaken any bionic hand before, let alone one of an old friend. His instinct constantly told him how alien it is.

"Did you put me with our guys from the school on Brexxy?" Mhaz asked.

"Yes. And I was there. You were looking for me." May replied.

"You didn't bring casual clothing."

"Spot on."

"God is great."

"Did you mind? I'm feeling guilty now." May paused for a silly chuckle, "It was a good experience, eh?"

"You know, I saw a girl. I was astounded when you rid of everybody."

"That is what you did wrong. You're supposed to look for her, not me. But, anyway, do you recall your friend speaking to the thin air?"

Mhaz nodded.

"Everything that happened in Irrans had been predetermined exactly based on your memory. Your subconscious thought that you got to follow the line, so you went along normally. But I like it when you chose to disobey the mechanics and go for your own path. We can do it again, tomorrow." May explained.

He smiled to Mhaz then laughed casually, backing off the wide windowpane he still gazed on. Mhaz understood, after all. But, his mind could barely believe it. Of the huge complex of bunkers and the simulators, he could not even accept if May was one of the janitors. He had seen his friends stepping closer to their peak of life, in all their transformations and resolutions, but all this was foreign. "Where are they? Where are our friends?" he inquired.

"You would like to see them. Physically, not in the simulations."

"And where's her?" Mhaz left the screen and faced straight at May, "Where's her? Tell me she be alive!"

May walked up to the armchair and sat, "I will."