Young and successful Edward Staulker, is an attorney with a very uneventful life.
He lost his faith in mankind many years ago-even as a child, he recognised the innate fakery borne by every Homo sapien and always resigned to a purer intercourse with...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
2054, Two years after the Singularity.
Edward's POV
A lot has happened since arriving here two years ago. So much, and yet, so very little.
My mind was a blank slate when I arrived; Temporary memory loss he had termed it. "He," is my one and only confidant in this place.
I have spent a lot of my time here with him. He said he was intrigued by me and my condition and wanted to help me. He predicted that my memories would return and they gradually did. I told him stories about my life (the ones I could remember) and he noted everything with rapt attention.
That's when told me that "this place" is an alternate timeline.
The first few memories I remembered were all about a woman. It's strange, I know they're my memories but they don't feel like mine.
This morning I had that dream again. The one where I'm following the woman from behind. It's always autumn in my dream. I can tell because, the scattered leaves on the footpath are golden, red, and earthy brown colours; there's a howling in the breeze, and the woman is always wearing a tartan plaid coat.
She doesn't look back at me even once; It's the same every time: I wake up with a start, my heart pounds erratically and the usual pain explodes in my chest. But why? I can't seem to remember much about what transpired between the woman and I.
It's like trying to grasp water; scooping it up is feasible, but clasping your fingers to get a good hold of it is futile. It slips through the the spaces in-between the fingers and you're left with absolutely nothing—like a forbidden fruit I could see but should never taste of; or so it seemed.
After searching for so long, I finally found her.
Seating directly opposite from me, is the literal woman of my dreams - The forbidden fruit. Somehow I know she is the key to unlocking my locked memories. But I had one concern. What price would I have to pay to satisfy my curiosity?
Unlike in my dreams, she looks more mature now. Her jet-black hair is longer and permed; each hair strand terminating in that bunch of wavy frills. Her baby-face is gone, and a subtle prominence of the cheekbones have taken its place.
She stands up all of a sudden, clearly interested in the lateral file cabinet towards her left, because she strides in its direction and pauses to observe something else on the cream coloured drawers. She pulls out the drawer at the top-right corner. Her fingers shuffle through the files; it takes a long while for her to complete this chore. I guess her search was fruitless because she slams it shut after a long time of burrowing through it.
She proceeds to a lower drawer; this time she had to bend her upper body forwards to comfortably resume her search.
The kind gesture emphasised the comeliness of her rear. Her grey trousers clung nicely to her perfectly rounded behind; they continued that harmony with her skin uninterrupted, until well past her knees where the fabric seemed to let up just slightly, as if to give her skin a chance to take a little breather.
