False Paradise.

Prologue - I should have stayed in bed.

The mysteries of the human mind have always been horrifying. For centuries it's been studied, and, much like the ocean, there's still so much we don't know, even if we think we know these things for certain.

But certainties are difficult, and when confronted with what they don't understand, humans find solace in simple things, every day statements like, "When you close your eyes, it's dark," for being able to grasp at least some understanding is better than having none at all.

I felt that right now, for those exact reasons.

I felt confused, staring at darkness without knowing where it was. Then I'd noticed it was because my eyes were closed.

A heavy silence left a ringing in my ears, something I found very uncomfortable, but I didn't want to move. Through my eyelids, I could tell that wherever I was, it was bright, and this annoyed me. I just couldn't catch a break.

Not wanting to deal with that, I turned on my side, then realizing that I was on a... bed? When had I fallen asleep? The comfortable bedsheets invited me to go back.

“Good morning! Please state your name.”

A high-pitched voice made my eyes snap open, squinting immediately after due to how bright it was.

I sat up, turning to where I'd heard the voice. At first I didn't see it, I noticed the room I was in first: large, pure white walls and ceiling, and that was all I was able to discern before the light made me squint again.

The odd sight made me scrunch up my face, so I tried looking for the voice again with a response.
“It's—” I stopped myself once I realized I didn't remember. It was such a weird thing to suddenly realize, but it was true. Like a puzzle piece that you recognize, but can't seem to find anywhere. Instead of answering, I blanked out for a second, trying to remember. Though racking my head gave no results, maybe it would come back eventually, but still... I hoped it was just the shock of waking up in an unknown room, it probably didn't even mean anything.

“Please make your way to the exit,” said the voice again, snapping me out of my trance, and this time I was able to discern where it came from: on the wall behind my bed, a screen was implanted into it, and from it a simplistic face smiled down at me. I didn't even answer, and it let me go?
Almost immediately I felt disgusted by it. With those instructions out of the way, I looked around the room, expecting to find anything else of interest, but... nothing. There was a door at the far back, and now that I got a better look at it, the room wasn't nearly as big as I'd envisioned it at first. It had a nightstand with flowers - the only colour in a room devoid of it - and the curtains moved gently from a breeze I couldn't feel.
Curiously, I rose from the bed and glided over to the window, pulling back the curtains to find myself face to face with light.

It was blinding. A pure white light that had been halted by the curtains poured through the window, but while I stubbornly tried to see what was beyond the light, I felt the breeze on my chest.

I looked down and nearly jumped when I saw I was wearing nothing but a thin hospital gown. Despite there being no one around, I felt a sense of shame crawling up my skin and stopping at my face.

“Hey you stupid machine! Isn't there, like, something else you can give me? You don't expect me to head out in this thing, do you?”

I wasn't sure who I was asking, but most likely the screen that gave me the questions. It was ridiculous to expect it to actually answer me, so I just glared at it before trying my best to keep it covering as much of my body as I could.

As I had thought, it didn't respond my query but it did give another instruction.

“Please make your way to the exit,” it repeated. I glared at it again and ignored the instruction, dusting myself off from dust that wasn't there and instead going to look through anything else this room might have - most noticeably: the flowers. I wasn't in any mood to follow instructions from a mechanical douche, considering I'd just woken up, plus these flowers being the only thing to have different colour disconcerted me.