Trapped | The Trapped Trilogy Book 1

Nineteen

Nineteen

PETER

"Ughhh..."

I wake up sitting in a chair in a square room with orange colored walls. They glow dimly.

"Remain seated," I hear a voice blast into my ears.

"Where am I?"

"You're in a Simulation Sphere."

"But it's not spherical. It's... squarical?" I say, slowly standing up.

"Technology has changed since you were last here, Peter Hemmings."

The air around me lights up and changes. In a split second I go from standing in the orange room to being in a forest with trees surrounding me.

A man stands before me.

My father.

"Dad," I smile, tears coming to my eyes.

I run over to him and throw my arms around him. No, not around him.

Through him.

I fall to the ground behind him. He looks down at me with disapproving eyes.

"Wha...?" I look at my hands and back at him. "You're not real..."

"I wish I raised you better, son," He says, his hands still in his pockets. "Maybe then you wouldn't have wanted to be a Cooker."

"Dad...? Dad, no. I wanted to be one. It wasn't anything you did. I just loved cooking... Dad?"

I reach for him and my hand goes through him.

He's not real.

"You didn't save us, Pete... You let them take us. You let them kill us."

"Dad..."

"We're disappointed in you, Peter..."

I turn around. My mom is standing behind me. I run to her.

Stop myself.

"You're not real."

"Peter, you let us go..." Her bottom lip trembles.

"No," I'm too loud. But it doesn't matter. They're not real. "Go away. Nothing you say is true. Nothing you say is real. You're not real."

My parents disappear, and I sit on the ground.

I hear slow clapping coming from behind me. President Murkas is walking up to me.

I jump up, ready to fight. He throws his hands up, and then places them in his pockets.

"You can't hurt me in here, boy," He says. "You're inside a simulation."

"What was that then? What was that with my parents?"

"It's to get you to talk. I could do anything I want in here. This is monitored only by me. No one can tell me what I can or can't do. Your mental pain is to my own discretion."

"This is inhumane. This is why the rebellion exists."

"Oh, poor thing," He mocks. "Too bad your girlfriend isn't here. I bet she'd tell me everything I need to know in exchange of watching you get beaten."

I think of when we were in the jail cell in the rebellion complex. She came back for me, then I was taken away again. They took me to a room and locked a long chain to my arms. The chain was bolted to the wall. The guard that shot me in the foot beat me to a pulp. He thought I wouldn't talk because of who I was, so he over-beat me. I think he was trying to impress that Rebecca chick.