The Forest.exe

Part 7

"Where is everybody?"

It was the janitor, a guy that always "joked" about my weight.

"Um," I said out of surprise. "I've no idea."

I tabbed down The Forest.

"Hey, what was that?" he said. "Some kind of game?"

"N-no..."

"Come on, let me see it."

I nervously brought the program up on the screen again.

"The Forest?"

"Uh, yeah, it kind of just appeared on my computer", I said.

I panicked and didn't know what else to say but the truth.

"So what do you do? Is it like Age of Empires or something?"

"Yeah," I said hesitantly, "no, not really. I don't really know what it is." I felt a drop of sweat running down my cheek.

"You aren't supposed to play games at work, you know? That's why you're so fat, you need to stop playing all these computer games all day and hit the gym, man!"

He laughed.

"It isn't really a game," I said, ignoring his insult. "Look, there are only two options. Import and Export. And hey, look, if I press Import I get this list of everyone that works here."

I opened the list.

"Really?" he said. "That's weird."

"Yeah, everyone is on the list. Look." I typed in his name. "Here's you. You're on the list."

"Well, what happens if you press Import?"

"I-I don't know. Let's try it."

I selected his name and pressed Import. The usual dialog box appeared: "Are you sure you want import Ignacio Gonzalez into The Forest?"

Ignacio laughed. "This is some strange shit, man, I..."

I clicked Yes. I never saw him disappear. Even though he stood right next to me, I didn't see him vanish. He was just gone. It almost felt like he had never been there at all.

I quickly sped up time again.

"Ignacio Gonzalez is about to expire, do you wish to export?"

I absently clicked no and let time flow by in The Forest at full speed. Given what I knew about history on Earth, I assumed that the civilization inside The Forest would soon mimic my own civilization. A minute later, I saw that I was right. The city had gone from ancient to modern in only sixty seconds. I didn't see any skyscrapers or anything, though. The camera was inside what looked like a huge military facility.

People that looked like scientists walked around it doing different kinds of measurements. For a few minutes, I watched them work. On one of the walls, there was a huge world map. It didn't depict any continents on Earth. I could see borders and dots marking different cities. On some primitive level, I felt kind of offended that the people had stopped worshipping the camera.

The scientists worked meticulously, but even though it fascinated me a great deal, they weren't that fun to watch. So I sped up time again, this time to a year per second. Everything started moving quickly in front of the camera. Suddenly – in a flash of light – the military facility was gone and revealed a city that was completely destroyed.

I slowed down time. I had no idea what had happened, but it looked like the city had been bombed. I could see skeletons of skyscrapers in the distance and there was smoking rubble everywhere. Then, I saw a bright light in the distance followed by a mushroom cloud climbing towards the sky.

A sadness came over me. Over the timespan of a few hours, I had accidentally created a civilization, seen it grow and then destroy itself. I couldn't see any signs of life. I set the speed at maximum. It only took a second for everything to turn green. The forest was back, just as pristine at it had been from the beginning. Now, I figured, it was time to end my own life. Not as a failed man, but as a failed god.

I left The Forest running on my computer and walked towards the window. My steps felt heavy. As I opened the window, letting the summer air in, I realized I had forgotten my phone at my desk. I didn't want anyone to enter it after my death so I went back to get it.

Something had changed on the screen. Somehow, mankind had survived in The Forest. It had taken them thousands of years to rebuild it – just as if they had had to start from scratch again – but the city was back. When I slowed down time – letting a few more hundred years pass in the forest – I noticed that the city was larger than before. The skyscrapers reached further up into the sky and, to my amazement, I could see thousands of vehicles flying through the air. I used the camera to look around and when I looked up towards the sky I could see lights on the surface of the orange moon. People were living there now. As I watched this world, now completely transformed from a horrific wilderness to what looked like a technological paradise far surpassing anything on Earth, I cried tears of a happiness I've never felt before in my entire life.

I looked at the window in my office and at the boring, primitive city stretching out into the horizon on the other side of it and then at the city glittering on my computer screen. I thought about my beloved mom. She would've wanted me to live.

This was before I started writing this, my last words on Earth. I just clicked on Import.

"Are you sure you want to import Sam Wilkinson into The Forest?"

Before I press yes I just want to say one more thing: If you ever get an email from a man named Leif with a login to The Forest. Say thank you from me.

THE END

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