A Future Unknown

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What if the line between nightmares and reality began to blur? What if one's reality was not what one thought it was? For Theo Willmall, waking up from a night terror, would not be the end  of it—at least, not the end he wanted. How drastically could a life change in one day? He was about to find out.

    Drenched in his own sweat and completely alone in his bedroom on the hundredth floor of his luxury apartment building, he felt disoriented. A nightmare so real that when he woke up, he briefly believed he was eighteen years old, working as a blacksmith and living in a world called Formaré on the other side of the galaxy. In a flood of tears, Formaré seemed to be coming to an end—a strange world he had visited many times in his dreams throughout the years. He shook his head, contemplating the power of imagination.

    He sighed and got out of bed. In the past, his ex-wife had experienced similar nightmares, waking up believing someone was hunting her. Or that the world was coming to an end in a flood of tears. He used to tread carefully when those night terrors took over her mind. She had been a fragile soul.

    He missed her; he missed everything about her. Among the countless women he had spent the night with after she passed, none had come close to her. Time was supposed to heal all wounds. A century later was a testament that it didn't.

    Theo had lost her, and it wasn't just because he couldn't save her. His obsession with pushing the boundaries of his experiments had driven a wedge between them, turning her into a purist who couldn't stand the sight of him anymore. He had crossed lines she couldn't accept, and in his desperation to succeed, he had created his own worst enemy. She had watched him spiral deeper into his work, and when she refused to follow him into the darkness, it shattered his heart. But no matter what he did no matter how he tried, the presence of her love remained, refusing to fade away.

    "Winston, please order a new bed, and bedding. I can't stand it after a night like this. Have them express deliver it. I need it by tonight."

    "Certainly sir." Shortly after he had uttered the command. Winston opened the blinds for his massive bedroom, which overlooked his newly built infinity pool stretching from one side of the penthouse to the other. With care and utter precision the construction company had to reinforce the entire sky-scarper in order to extend the pool from the top of the building. It had cost him more than people earn in a whole lifetime, but he didn't care. He had earned it.

    Vast floor-to-ceiling windows, towering 30 feet high, stretched across the entire wall, offering an uninterrupted panoramic view of the metropolis that Cambridge had become. Little over a century ago, everyone who was anyone in tech had flocked to San Fransisco. With tech companies everywhere and then with the boom of AI, at its forefront. Then when he cracked the Human genome Cambridge had become the new San Francisco. The world had changed.

    Some years later with his advancements in Human Genome research, Cambridge had become cemented it status. Everyone who was anyone in DNA research, had moved here.

    "Winston, make a recording of my dream and a note it in my memorandum. So I can analyze them later."

    "Right away sir."

    A short buzzing feeling, and his memories were downloaded into his virtual, memorandum. All his secrets, hidden. In his quantum-encrypted AI, named Winston. His robot servant had changed with all the learning and data he had provided. Almost lifelike it had become. As a security measure he had erased his own memories locking it away inside Winston's complex memories.