Kira

Chapter 4: Kira's Journey

Kira felt like she was dreaming as they traveled through the Simulation. Everywhere she would look her mind would create everything from simple plants and creatures, to cities and entire planets. The Simulation delved deeper into her subconsciousness as it started to show her her dreams, fantasies, and nightmares.

Alex spoke in an even voice "Everything you see in this place has been created by you or another being that has been in contact with the Simulation. The simulation doesn't just record facts and data from what you humans input into it. It does much much more than that.

"When someone interacts with the simulation for the first time they are processed thoroughly. During this scan, every bit of imagination, every desire, every dream, and fantasy inside a person is uploaded into the simulation whether they are aware of it or not.

"Think of this as a completely separate universe, ever-growing and expanding. Each addition causes it to grow exponentially. The simulation can manifest entire worlds in vivid detail, originating solely from inside a person's mind. Most of it is inspiring, beautiful, and uplifting to see.

"But there are always those with darkness in their hearts and minds. They create dark and evil things hidden deep in the simulation.

Kira shuddered at the thought of such people. "How come this was never explained? I don't understand. I thought the simulation was just a virtual reality system that gave humans a way to interact with one another when they're apart?"

"Would you like to see how the simulation actually began?" Alex responded.

Kira nodded but before Alex could start explaining, her bedroom appeared around her. Darkness filled the space and her mother's voice echoed around her.

"No!" came a distant voice. Kira froze as her fears enveloped her mind.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"You're dreaming again..." Alex's voice was soft and distant in the back of her mind, fading away as the nightmare began to fully render itself.

Kira's nightmares had haunted her before, but now they were so ... real, so lifelike. The night her mother was murdered. The sound of the crickets chirping, the smell of the fresh rainfall, the feel of the cold wooden floors under her bare feet. It was all so real.

Then she heard her mother's screams echoing through the house. "Not my Kira!" She knew exactly what was going to happen next. In that heartbeat, that single instant of time seemed to slow as she ran towards the voice. She was staring right at her mother's face, seeing her fear, and the killer's gun pointing at her mom. The gun went off so fast and her mother collapsed to the floor.

The murderer looked right at her and smiled. "You're finally here, Kira." His voice was slick and deceitful. The darkness of the house hid his features but she could tell he was a large man. His voice was deep.

"What do you want with me?" she asked in a bitter angry tone.

He laughed. "Oh, but you already know that answer, don't you?". He pointed the gun at Kira but before he could pull the trigger something strange happened.

The man fell to his knees and grabbed his head. "What devilry is this?" he asked as something began pouring out of his ears, his mouth. Nanites. They swarmed over his skin, devouring him bit by bit.

There was nothing left, not even the nanites.

Kira watched dumbfounded but a slight smile spread across her face. Once he was dead, she turned back to her dying mother.

"Mother... I'm here." She swiped away a lock of her hair behind her mom's ear. It was too late to save her and she knew it. "ALEX!" She screamed

His voice spoke gently. "This memory of yours. You think of it often but this is the first time you have seen it in such detail. Tell me, why does this memory bother you so much?"

Kira shook in pain and let her mother down gently. She closed her eyes and said a small prayer for her soul. "Alex." She tried to say without crying. "Don't you understand? My mother died... is what I just saw, real?"

Alex didn't answer right away. "To answer your question I shall once again ask you, do you want to see how this all began?"

Kira stood wiping the tears from her eyes and nodded. "Yes, maybe I can get some answers if I started at the beginning."

"Very well." The world around them broke apart and reconstructed itself. Kira watched, trying to keep her emotions in check and to learn as much as possible.

She watched entire planets being built by incredible technology well beyond anything the Earth had ever seen. Each planet was a machine in itself and they all moved in sync with each other.

Each planet seemed to be controlled by an intelligent being. These beings created these planets and used them as pieces of a much larger system. They worked together to make stars, wormholes, and other celestial events, unknown to Earth.

As a star died, they built a wormhole inside, creating a black hole. It was a dangerous experiment, with dangerous consequences. Without warning, the entire universe began to collapse in on itself, as it was sucked towards the out-of-control black hole.

In order to preserve everything, in case something went wrong, they had prepared the ARK. This device had cataloged everything these intelligent beings knew. Every single mind, and every being all formed into a collective intelligence called the Alien Life Entanglement Xeno project or ALEX. This allowed them to continue on, and after the ARK was launched a system protocol would send it far away from the anomaly in order to survive. So it was sent through space into a wormhole and made its way to prehistoric earth where it crash-landed deep in the earth's crust.

A long time passed before life on Earth was intelligent enough to interact with ALEX.

Kira was speechless as she tried to process everything. She asked "So I get that is where you came from. What I don't understand is how did this place, the simulation, come to be and how did we find you?"

Alex considered the question and responded by recreating the event. The world once again recreated itself as Kira was immersed in another scene just as vivid as real life.