ERA ADRIFT

1: ETHEREAL

Take a second, and focus on the mere construct that your reality is just an illusion. Jacob waited as he closed his eyes. Allow freedoms to ring across the universe.
Gripping his hands together. A sharp pain, a tremor scraped across his back like pins and needles scraping across his spinal cord.
Stimulation, the body will eventually allow your beacon to integrate with your temporal nerve. Relax, this will all be over soon.
His eyes closed as the AI attempted to sedate Jacob. Deploying a syringe next to Jacob's neck. The AI slowly jabbed the needle into his neck.
Unity; reigns, a construct to be built like a monument to guide us to everlasting peace.
A monument. To guide who?
Only set towards the stars did they lie, a false king to guide only those who were deceived.
But he was deceived by her, like a child to a constellation, blinded and dumbfounded by its ever majesty. He had only assumed she'd come back again.
As the stimulate has coerced his veins, he clenched his fists as the pains' ethereal feelings sored beyond comprehension.
All of the sudden, a picture; faint yet familiar softened the pain. A memory had resurfaced and integrated his mind with ease. A slight breathe of air pushed out by his lungs, the doctor noticed as his stressed filled with ease. Waiting, while the doctor documented his notes on a data pad.
Jacob please! Stop! A voice yelled out.
As the synthetic stimulate started to sedate Jacob. A rushing jolt hit his chest like a train to a child. Sweating, the doctor stepped up and watched over Jacob's vitals.
Piercing like a needle through his skin. The memory started to grow, more clear like the reality around him. The beacon implant in his head had turned on and integrated successfully.
The doctor paused.

Hello, I'm Antic, your personalized digital assistant. Here to help you with all your desires and needs.
Jacob waited for his eyes to open automatically. Picturing not only her face. But he had also remembered the future like it had already happened. The Era, roaring through the skies scraping across planets like no other rocket before her.
"Now you're ready to discover new worlds." The doctor stated as he smiled to Jacob.
   Sliding over in his chair as he looked at his computer, another AI had guided Jacob off the chair and out the room. Jacob studied the AI as it's thin, hollow shell had portrayed no human characteristic. Just plain white, like a mannequin.
This way please. The AI guided its hand out. Basically blending in, the room so white. The lights so illuminated, Jacob carefully watched as the environment around him had suddenly changed.

As she pulled into a parking space, waiting to gather her breath, pacing her thumbs against her phone she watched and waited as she attempted to gain the confidence to message him.
Just parked!
Okay, I'll meet you at the front door.
He messaged back as he waited for her to walk by the front door.
You should have definitely had met her up there first. He thought to himself.
But as he stepped out from his car and walked toward the restaurant, he paused and smiled as she looked so beautiful in person. Only a picture could isolate such detail. Short, but she stood tall and waited as she swayed her dress and watched as he smiled walking up to her.
   "Hey, it's great to finally meet you!" Jacob stated as he smiled and guided his hands around her waste for a hug.
   "As to you Jacob." Annie smiled as she chuckled hugging him back.
  "You hungry?" He smiled as he guided her to the front door of the restaurant.
   Annie nodded as she placed her hand on the door to help guide it open. Watching as she stepped inside he couldn't do anything else but smile. As the two waited to be escorted a table. They bonded with minimal awkward interaction.

   He woke up, sweating with his heart pounding uncontrollably. Sitting forward in his bed he watched as the empty room filled him with despair. Dwelling over his own guilt Jacob stood up and walked to his kitchen. As the bottles of whiskey piled around his counter tops, Jacob looked over as his cats studied his movements. Listening to the bubbles from the fish tank, the chirping of the crickets outside. Removing his glasses from his face he rubbed with the pant of his boxers.

It hadn't been like this before, the feeling of attaching to something so easily; then falling apart so quickly. But it had happened, watching as his cats wrestled he stood and reminisced the visible memories within his mind. As he grew older, his great memory started to fade more and more. Like each memory made in the past no longer mattered. Each step the built Jacob into what he was started to fall apart.
Rubbing his hands against her chin as her purple hair follicles glided all around his neck and mouth. Guiding her eyes up she smiled at him as he could only admire her majestic beauty. Reaching for a kiss his lips grazed her own. Smiling, the both giggled and locked lips. Placing her hands around his face, she pulled her face forward to latch on further.
Jacob could only imagine what it had felt like to kiss her again, to be with her one more time. Tearing up, he could only blame himself. Sliding his back down against the cold surface of his refrigerator he sat in silence and continued to tear himself apart. One of his cats, Bailey walked up to Jacob's leg and rubbed his body against his shin.
    Only a glimpse of the memory could be resurfaced. Just a thought of the person she was versus who she turned out to be. He waited, for a moment or a sign to tell him to get back up and move on. But nothing, feeling trapped a sudden jolt of synthetic stimulation hit his central nerve.
"I know I'd be afraid to lose you, that's while I'll try my hardest to keep you." He pictured a fictional moment, only fictional to where she had said what he had wanted her to say.
Jacob woke up, feeling discomforted.
"How does it feel?" The doctor asked.
"It works, creates memories out of fictional thoughts." Jacob stated.
"Ok, so use these beacons lightly they are only within their prerelease stage." The doctor finished as he walked out of the room.
Jacob stood up from the bed. He had pictured the fragment memories from her, but he knew. It'd become hard to realize which would eventually be real, and which outcome would become subliminal.
She'll never become a subliminal thought in my head. Jacob thought to himself as he put his shirt on.