A Prophet's Tale: A Collection Of Short Stories From A Twisted Mind

Modern Day Romance

What if that the reality you live in, was solely created for you? Then what would happen if you found this out? What if your reality was filled with machines, who don't know what they are? What if you think that this is your reality, when in fact, this is someone else's reality and you are just a pawn controlled by the king?

  .................................................  

Waking up was an experience worth paying for. Leaving a never-ending darkness, filled with concepts of which you would rather be experiencing, to then enter the light. Shada opened his wide sparkling blue eyes and climbed out of his double sized bed, which held an IKEA mattress, pillow, sheets and a rather unusual purple duvet, as it was near impossible to determine the exact shade of purple. Shada had tried, but always reached the same conclusion somewhere between this colour and that colour. He lumbered towards his windows and pulled open his pink curtains, which were bought for him by his parents when they were refurbishing the room for his arrival 10 years ago, they had thought they had purchased a girl when it was in fact himself in a wig and dress. He rather liked the curtains though. He knelt bringing his 6'2" frame down to 3'4" in order to open the drawer in his wardrobe which contained his underwear. He quickly got dressed, ate breakfast, and brushed his teeth.

Vira had already arrived and had been patiently awaiting the arrival of her blind date since the restaurant had opened 45 minutes ago. Vira had wondered what it was which prompted her to swipe right. He was tall, slim, lacked any muscles whatsoever, and was dark-skinned. These were things she wasn't normally looking for in a man. She was never a racist, she just always preferred white or Asian men. The restaurant was quite bleak. The walls were painted a sandbank colour, not well, but not badly painted either. Vera took a deep breath, all she could smell was the burning of fries coming from the kitchen. The six tables all square and all wobbly on one leg, had white tablecloths and had small ceramic plates, ready to have uneaten bread that had already sat on the table to the left of her's, placed on it. Finally, her could-be new boyfriend stepped through the door. She sighed. What was she doing here, it was like she had no control over her life. She was 35 and still single, her mother set up most of her interactions, outside of work, now She sat awaiting her male companion to sit down and talk to her, in a bleak, boring manner, while they ate bleak, boring food, in a bleak, boring restaurant.

Shada walked over with a hopeful grin. He shook hands, they were soft. He sat down, the chair was comfortable enough. He could have chosen a better restaurant. He saw she didn't like it. It was penned to have Denver's best burgers. They started to talk. The discussion was mainly concerned with Shada's latest life development; the creation of an advanced computer program that allowed for statistical figures to be turned into music, which was also synced to the march of elephants. It was a revolutionary idea and it had already been picked up by a massive computer company. The only issue was that Shada hadn't finished it and it was due on the next Saturday. Vera was partly engaged in conversation. She had purchased one of those earpods, seen on TV ads, where small chips were inserted in one's left ear and music played through them. She, however, was, at this present moment, using them to living up her lunch date, by listing to an audiobook of Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James.

.................................................

A fair few months had passed since that uneventful lunch date. Shada and Vera were married and were also expecting. The experiment had been going well. Scientists, or people of the sort, huddled around the large curved screen, while it showed a broadcast of the pair's current preceding. These 'people' had been studying human nature, for a while now. The end of humanity had been detrimental to their study of all of the universe. When the discovery of a human embryo on Mars had been found, they realised the gift their God had given them and chose to complete their research. The scientists spoke in a foreign tongue, but they were stating something along the lines of, "Let's begin phase 2."

................................................

Shada didn't feel the relief he once felt from waking up anymore. He opened his eyes, from a dream about himself fighting a 'super', while Vera looked on proud of him. He turned to face his wife, whom he had just celebrated 2 year of marriage with and he smiled. Suddenly the cry of a dying rat emerged from a nearby room. Vera opened her eyes, looked at her partner and urged him with a look that said, "I'm not ready for this sh*t." Shada's smile disappeared almost immediately. His unusual home, with his IKEA furniture and pink curtains, had turned into a French-themed family home. He hated it, but Vera loved it. He went into his offspring's room, where what he saw made his eyes widen and hands tremble. Shada and Vera, still in their underwear, grabbed their child and rushed to the hospital. The doctor had the same reaction as Shada, pure fear. The doctor came back and looked into the parent's eyes and a loud siren noise came out of his mouth. The sterile hospital became like a beacon. Shada had to step back and look at what had just happened. It had happened so quickly, too fast for him to process it. His baby had lost all of its skin, revealing an exoskeleton underneath and his doctor was standing on a brown, wooden desk, with his mouth wide open and facing the cork roof, which had the receptionist's pencil's sticking out of it. The noise made from the doctor's mouth was frightful. It sounded like an air horn was being blown into one's hear over and over again.

Vera trembled and returned to her husband and then proceeded to do something she had never done before, hugged him. She closed her eyes and wished all this would disappear. The noise was causing her great distress, but she couldn't escape the feeling of being drawn to it. Suddenly the hospital doors burst open. Not just the hospital doors though, as Vera turned her head she saw every door in the hospital as well fly open, like a grenade went off in each room. Every patient; man, woman, child and animal, walked out and walked-trance like to the doctor, who was still ruling the scene, as he stood on the desk. As they walked, Vera watched as the skin of the patients melted away off their bodies, like acid had just been poured all over them. Vera felt a strong pull, towards the beacon. She held her husband's arm as she screamed and her feet dragged along the hospital floor. Her husband yelled and grabbed a nearby pole, as to hold them still. Then all of a sudden the hurricane-like situation had stopped. Vera and her husband had fallen to the floor. Too afraid to cry Vera stood up and looked at the sight that beheld her. Every patient and the doctor had no skin. They were standing in a group, like a position a choir would take when performing, with the doctor standing on the table still, in the middle.

Shada watched as the doctor started to speak. "Make a choice." The doctor's voice had turned magnetic. "We have been studied you. The last human. We now have concluded our process of collecting information on your species. Now the ultimate test has come." Two of the exoskeletons had knelt down and slid two handguns to the floor. "All of the people in this world were created by us to help study you. The only way for our study of human nature to be perfect was to create the illusion in the minds of every one of our creations, that they were human." Shada and Vera held each other and continued to watch the doctor speak. "One of you is human. One is not. Whose life is more important, yours or your partner. The person you love or the last of the human race. We look forward to your decision."

Vera and Shada both stared at the guns, as the 'non-humans' watched on. Shada and Vera looked at each other and quickly bent down and reached for their guns. They pointed it at each other, each with tears streaming down their face. Vera, who had found love from recent events, was shaking and Shada, who felt more emotions then he had ever done before, sucked the vomit coming from the back of his mouth back in. Vera spoke in a soft voice, explaining to her husband that she should be the one to go. She felt the pull. She was obviously the robot. Shada yelled to her to stop, as she put the gun in her own mouth. Shada without thought, relying on instinct alone, watched on as his wife cried and screamed and looked longingly at her husband. Shada then did what he thought was right. His body fell to the floor almost immediately. Vera dropped her gun and ran to her best friend, the person she had only just decided, she would be willing to take her life for. She was sad, for the first time in her life.

Shada woke up. Not in the hospital anymore but in a light room. He heard noises. It was speech. For some reason, it was in a foreign language, but he could understand it.

"The human failed the experiment. She showed us the true nature of humans."

Shada put his hand on the back of his head, where his bald spot once was, a hole now remained.

"Our next question is why she believes she thinks he killed himself and not that she actually shot him at first chance."

A tear rolled down Shada's eye.