The Many Lives of Nathaniel Reed

It’s called the Test. One would have a difficult time finding a man, woman, or child that has not heard of it. It is taken at fifteen years of age by every person in the world and although everyone knows of it, no one seems to know anything about it. What is it testing and what is its true nature? I have asked myself these questions time and again but I, nor anyone else, has any answers. Even adults who have taken this mysterious Test before merely reply with a distant and monotonous phrase, my own parents included. Every time I have asked, they reply with the same three words.

“It is necessary.”

The delivery of this phrase is always mechanical, as if they were machines repeating something that has been programmed into them. I suppose, in essence, this is as close to the truth of the matter as one might get. As far as I have been able to discern, this phrase is repeated by every parent when they are asked about the Test. I have interviewed other classmates of mine and, as I suspected, they were all given that same, mechanical phrase. It is curious, is it not? How could something be so widespread and yet so obstinately mysterious? To me, it seems to resemble some mass brainwashing effort by parties unknown.

I suppose I will get my answers soon enough. I am, as it so happens, on the cusp of my fifteenth year. In fact, tomorrow is my birthday. The insatiable curiosity that has hounded me for so long will come to an end and I will finally know why the Test is so necessary. I can hardly contain my excitement and now, as I lie in bed with my room lit only by the blue LED of my night light, I find myself asking if I really do want to know the truth. Perhaps the Test is a horror beyond my imagination. Or it may very well be something meant to test the bounds of our own sanity. Personally, I feel it is a means to somehow control the populace. A sort of leash, as it were.

I admit I do not know, but what I do know is that the excitement made it rather hard to fall asleep. That was annoying but I didn’t have a quick solution to my problem. My mind would not quiet itself long enough for me to slip into sleep. Instead, it wanted to buzz with this thought or that thought. This thought would lead to a different thought that would lead to yet another thought. Then that thought would explode into smaller thoughts in a chaotic burst. In the end, I simply had to endure it and thankfully, hours later, I was finally able to sink into that absolute and peaceful blackness.

“I don’t want to wake him.”

The voice belonged to my mother. There was such tenderness and warmth to it. The sound evoked a similar warmth inside me. It was such a pleasant sensation.

“He has to start getting ready for the Test. The rules are very strict.”

That voice, as you may or may not surmise, belonged to my father. Where my mother’s voice was full of tenderness and warmth, my father’s was stern and commanding. He was a man that knew what was required and did so without question.

“Sweetheart,” my mother said as she reached out and gently shook me. It was so timid it barely even counted as a shake.

I opened my eyes and stared up at them, alert and ready for what was to come. The excitement had never left me and now, it had a queer sort of energizing quality to it. Instead of feeling exhaustion over not having adequate, restful sleep, I felt wide awake and hyper aware of everything around me.

“Good morning, Mother,” I said. I did not smile but that was not unusual. I rarely, if ever, smiled. I think that I must have gotten that from my father, who also rarely, if ever, smiled. “Good morning, Father.”

“Son,” he said. “As you know, today is the Test. You are required to eat a full breakfast of our choosing along with a drink of two parts water and one part an essential electrolyte solution. Do get dressed and meet us downstairs in ten minutes. Do not forget to brush your teeth.”

“I will do so now, if you would please give me the privacy I need to get changed,” I responded.

They both gave me a curt nod and left the room. A few minutes later, I heard the sounds of my mother preparing breakfast downstairs.

I got out of bed and went over to the clothes that had been laid out for me. They were a smart, thoughtful outfit of a periwinkle blue button-up shirt, a navy bow tie, an argyle sweater vest comprised of different shades of gray, a pair of khaki slacks, and a pair of recently shined and buffed dress shoes. When finished, I double-checked myself in the full-length mirror affixed to the back of my room’s door. My bow tie was ever so slightly askew. I tugged on one end and made absolutely sure it was straight.

Then I went down the stairs to the kitchen where my mother and father were patiently waiting for me. My father pulled out a chair and I sat down at the kitchen table where a plate full of pancakes, sausage, bacon, and scrambled eggs waited for me. A glass filled nearly to the brim with the water and electrolyte solution was beside it. As I sat, I breathed in the enticing aromas of cooking food which made my mouth salivate. The pancakes were cooked to golden brown perfection. The bacon was just the right amount of crispy. The sausage had a beautiful sear on them. And the eggs were cooked with a healthy amount of black pepper and a dash of onion powder.

All of them were my absolute favorites and had been since I was young.

The care and attention to detail with my breakfast had a somewhat negative effect on me. Instead of comfort, I felt an unnerving anxiety spread through me. The meal that had been cooked with evident, loving care suddenly felt like a last meal. Like the ones given to inmates on death row back in the archaic days when prisons were in extensive use. The imagery was so strong that I nearly lost my appetite altogether. Thankfully, I managed to push that aside and instead, focused on systematically devouring everything in front of me. Devoured, of course, is somewhat of an exaggeration. In reality, I ate with delicate precision so as not to dirty my outfit.

“Do not forget the drink,” my father insisted.

I nodded my head and took several long gulps from the water. It was very cold and had a sharp crispness to it. There was a slightly unpleasant aftertaste to it that I did not enjoy. After the gulps of the water solution, I went back to my breakfast and ate a few more bites. Then I proceeded to finish the water. This was a strategic choice. Due to the water’s aftertaste, I didn’t want to have that linger in my mouth. It would be better to have the lingering taste of my breakfast on my tongue so when the water was finished, I quickly ate the last few bits of pancake and my remaining sausage link.

My mother swooped in to grab my plate and immediately started rinsing it off. When she turned back around, I could see tears welling up in her eyes.

“Mother?” I asked. Her tears were unsettling to see. They caused my heart to skip a few beats and fear stuck in the forefront of my mind like a painful fish-hook. “Are you okay?”

My father looked at her, saw she was tearing up, and quickly went to her. He deliberately blocked my view which did nothing to ease my fear. I heard very faint, urgent whispers coming from him that sparked my curiosity. When he moved away from her and I could see properly again, her eyes were dry and only slightly puffy. Whatever my father had said to her, it was enough to make her almost completely change her emotional state.

“Mother?” I asked again. My father might have said something to make her change her composure, but I am not an oblivious child. She was clearly worried about something.

She smiled at me.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. I promise,” she told me.

“Son, you need to focus on what is to come. Do not concern yourself with trivial matters.” His glance darted at my mother when he said that and then back to me.

For the first time, I felt like I was seeing my father in a new light. I always thought of him as a cold and emotionally distant person, but now I was seeing an almost dictatorial part of the man that made me instantly dislike him.

Why did he care so much if my mother was emotional? I was her only child and the only child she would ever be able to have due to the strict, governmental regulations on reproduction. Regulations that limited how many children a family unit could have or if they were able to have any children at all. Due to the planet’s resources being finite, regulations were instituted to help curb population growth. For example, one such regulation banned people with a history of substance abuse from reproducing altogether. In addition, family units also had to undergo an extensive genetic screening process. If the tests determined a strong predisposition to diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or even obesity, then that family unit was banned from reproducing children. Units that were able to pass these harsh screenings were given a status that determined how many children they were able to have. Those with an Adequate status were allocated one child. A status of Excellent, granted the family unit two children. Finally, those with a Superb status were allowed three children.

I have known about all of this since I was a child of ten because it was taught at school. The days when adults spared children the harsh realities of the world for as long as possible were long since gone now (except when it came to the mysterious Test, of course). It was the duty of the educators to ensure children knew exactly what was happening in the world and how to handle tough situations. This new mentality had been born from necessity and for the most part, it worked. Population was under control and because of that, the planet’s resources were able to maintain a sufficient balance. Humanity was thriving.

But was it really?

I often found myself wondering about that.

“It is time,” my father said. “Please wait by the door. I will be along to collect you and take you to the Test shortly.”

I nodded and rose from my chair. My mother tried to take a step toward me but my father shot her a disapproving look. I saw tears start to well up in her eyes again.

“Try not worry, okay,” she told me with a trembling, shaky smile. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I told her.

Then I left the kitchen and walked down the hallway to stand by the front door. My father came along a few minutes later. His face bore his customary emotionless demeanor.

“Let’s go now,” he said.

I didn’t respond. Instead, I followed after him like a trained animal. We got to our family car, opened our respective doors, and climbed inside. My father started the car, reversed down our driveway, and then we were on the way. The drive would take approximately one hour and seventeen minutes. That did not include any potential hazards along the way that might delay our progress. Traffic. Wrecks. Things of that nature.
That was not to be the case however. The roads were clear of any such hazards.

The long drive to the testing center was one of utter silence. My father said nothing and so I felt no obligation to say anything either. Instead, the excitement I felt that morning was back and getting more pronounced the closer we got to the testing center. Along with that excitement came an abundance of fruitless attempts to try and figure out what was about to happen during this Test. In an uncharacteristic fit of internalized frustration, I gave up. I just didn’t have any information to accurately gauge what I was being thrown into.

Was this a regular test? If that was the case, then I could rest assured. I was an exceptional student and did well on the written or oral tests given to me by the educators. Perhaps it would be a physical test. If that were the case, then I could still rest easy for the most part. Although not one of the more naturally gifted, athletic children of my age group, I still had the physical prowess to get high marks on all tests based on physicality. Maybe some kind of artistic test? If that were the case, then I might be in some trouble. I did not have any natural ability in that particular area.

After an hour and fifteen minutes and twenty seven seconds, my father pulled into a line with the testing building off to our right. I looked ahead and saw a group of men and women in bright orange safety vests herding each car into different lanes. We ended up in a lane to the far right. It was another five minutes and three seconds before we were stopped by one of the parking attendants and I was allowed out of the car.
“Follow instructions and do not deviate,” my father told me.

“Yes, Father,” I replied.

He drove away without saying a word. Nothing. He didn’t wish me well or even say he loved me.

There was a fleeting second of anxiety as my mind raced, wondering what would happen next. Then one of the brightly-colored parking attendants pointed me toward a series of glass doors and instructed me to enter the building there. As I started walking toward them, other children fell into line next to me. Some looked as worried as I felt inside. Others looked confident. I even saw a handful of them with smiles on their faces as if this was some kind of adventure. It was somewhat odd to see that. I had no idea why any of us should be smiling about the Test.

What about an unknown situation like this would make a person happy or excited?

“Name and Test designation,” a tall woman asked me. She was young and conventionally attractive.

“Nathaniel Terrance Reed. Designation 6-R-2001921-P.” Other children, I noticed, needed to write their Test designations down on a piece of paper. I committed my number to memory last night at my father’s command.

“Thank you, Nathaniel. It is very nice to meet you. My name is Susan Guthrie. I will be your Proctor for the Test.” She held out her hand and I shook it firmly. “Very good. Please follow me.”

Ms. Guthrie turned and started walking through the testing center’s expansive lobby. The floors were done in highly decorative marble tiles and yet the walls were an institutional gray color nearly devoid of ornamentation. Overhead, the lighting was a little more decorative. I saw polished silver fixtures and ornate glass. There was an instant chill to the air, as if the air conditioning had been set to a number just slightly above reasonably cool. This gave the whole place a cold, sterile smell that I didn’t much like.

Across the lobby was yet another series of doors and Ms. Guthrie led me to one of them. It was orange. Each of the other doors, however, were different colors. Blue. Red. Yellow. Green. Purple. There was also a black one and a white one. The fact that each child was shepherded into a different-colored door felt like an important fact. It most likely denoted some kind of sorting. I tried to look at each child but as far as I could tell, there was no discernible system for the sorting. Each child was diverse. Different sizes, shapes, colors, etc. Perhaps the sorting was due to intelligence levels. That was something that would be on record from schools and would make sense.

“You seem introspective, Nathaniel,” Ms. Guthrie said. “Please, do tell me what is on your mind.”

“I find myself curious about the importance of the colored doors. What does orange denote about myself and the other children that come through this door with me?” I asked.

“What a well-spoken question. Do you think that has something to do with the answer?” she asked.

“It would be an inefficient exercise to answer my own question without sufficient data,” I answered.

“Indeed. You are correct,” she replied. “I find myself becoming quite fond of you, Nathaniel.”

“Thank you,” I responded, feeling oddly comforted by that comment.

“Are you nervous about the Test?” she asked. She continued to walk ahead and I continued to follow behind her.

At that time, we were walking down a long hallway. There were dozens of other children with me, each one paired with an adult Proctor like Ms. Guthrie.

“I am,” I replied but did not elaborate. I felt it was not needed and Ms. Guthrie did not inquire further.

“Tell me, Nathaniel, do you have any hobbies? Do you have any likes or dislikes?”

I thought about that for several minutes as we continued our walk down the long hallway. That was one of three questions that I was dreading being asked. I had surmised that there would be some type of adult supervision and since most of humanity abhorred awkward silences, I further deduced attempts at small talk would be made. Ordinarily, I am not what one would call a social animal and instead, preferred the blissful solace of my bedroom.

“I enjoy history. Specifically, the early twenty-first century. I find the nascent blossoming of the great technology boom quite fascinating. Men like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates are of particular interest to me.” I kept my tone as neutral and monotonous as possible so as not to give Ms. Guthrie the misguided idea that I wanted the conversation to continue.

“Once again, that was well said,” she replied and then went silent, apparently understanding that I did not want to engage in further small talk.
It was for the best. As I mentioned, I am not exactly a sociable person. I liked the silence. It allowed me the chance to think about everything from the nature of how certain things work to more philosophical musings like what in life could be considered objective and not subjective. That one was a favorite of mine and typically caused a lot of internal back and forth on the nature of the world around me.

We were nearly to the door at the end of the hall and as we drew closer to it, I could feel my heart beating faster. It was a nervous reaction but for the first time, I felt like it was something more than that.

I felt…

I felt afraid.

I wanted to turn around and run away. The feeling was so strong that I even slowed down and was on the verge of turning around completely. Ms. Guthrie however, seemed to have some sort of intuition and turned her head back toward me, ever-so-slightly. She smiled charmingly and for some reason, that actually did seem to abate most of the fear.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Ms. Guthrie said.

I didn’t respond but I did give her a slight nod. I continued to follow her and as I did, the strangest words echoed inside my mind. They were my parent’s words.

“The test is necessary,” he had said.

The intonation was mechanical, even inside my head. Robotic and cold.

“Here we are,” Ms. Guthrie told me as we finally got to the door at the end of the hall. She opened it and ushered me inside.

Once inside the room, I took stock of everything. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss any detail. This was, after all, one of the most important tests in any child’s life.

As I looked around, I was surprised to see something more akin to a child’s bedroom than the sterile, hospital-like room I was anticipating. The colors were bright reds, blues, and yellows. The way the colors were arranged, it reminded me of the famous painter, Piet Mondrian. There was a bed in the middle with a large monitor affixed to the wall above it. Numerous wires, cords, and tubes came directly out of the wall and lay in ordered rows on the bed.

Underneath the large monitor was a device I had never seen before. It was glowing with soft, white light and pulsing steadily. It was shaped like a halo and made of silver metal that gleamed brightly in the room's lights. On the right wall as I walked in, was a glass window that looked into a darkened room. Inside, I could just barely make out a lone figure sitting at a desk with a bank of computer monitors, control panels, and other such equipment.

“Please get dressed in these. They will be far more comfortable.” Ms. Guthrie handed me a pair of linen pajamas. They were light and colored a pale, off-white.

I took them in hand and she departed. I turned to the glass window and addressed the barely-seen figure still watching me in the room beyond it.
“If you would not mind departing for the moment while I get dressed.” I stood there and stared.

A second or two later, I saw motion inside. It was hard to see but when I heard the faint sound of a door opening and closing, I figured I was okay to get dressed. I removed the clothes my mother had meticulously picked out for me and then folded them. I placed them in a tidy pile on the edge of the bed and quickly pulled on the linen pajamas. I enjoyed the way the soft fabric lightly brushed against my skin.

Ms. Guthrie had still not come back in yet so I decided to inspect the room more thoroughly. The main item that drew my attention was the halo-shaped object. I approached it slowly, my eyes fixated on the way it pulsed. It was almost hypnotic. Without even thinking, I saw my hand reaching out. My fingers were on the verge of touching the silver metal when the door to the room opened and Ms. Guthrie walked in. She smiled when she saw me nearly touching the device.

“Curious?” Ms. Guthrie asked.

“I am. What exactly is this?” I asked. I had my suspicions and wanted to know if I was correct.

“That is how the Test is administered. We all call it a halo. In more scientific terms, it is a Neuropathic Integration Stimulator, or NIS device.”
“I see,” I responded, nodding. My suspicions were indeed pretty close. “So I can assume from the name that the NIS device integrates with a patient's brainwaves to assimilate into some kind of synchronization?”

“Correct,” Ms. Guthrie answered. “You are remarkably well versed in complicated scientific terminology.”

“I like to read,” I replied.

“Very good,” Ms. Guthrie told me. Then she patted the bed and gestured for me to hop on. “This procedure is non-invasive but we do need to put an IV in so we can administer fluids and a vitamin supplement solution.”

“Are you allowed to tell me how long the Test is supposed to take?” I asked.

“For most, it takes right around a month but let’s get you settled and then I can go into more specifics on what the Test is exactly.” Ms. Guthrie again patted the bed.

The thrill of excitement surging through me was dangerously close to switching into outright fear again. There were too many unknown variables and that made me incredibly nervous. I felt comfort in my knowledge. I felt comfortable in knowing all the variables. It helped me gauge the nature of what I was getting into and take the proper steps to a favorable outcome.

“I promise you, as your Proctor, I will be here with you to make sure there is a smooth transition and nothing goes wrong. You can trust me. You know that don’t you?” Ms. Guthrie looked me in the eyes and I could read reassurance there that was indeed comforting. Ms. Guthrie was being genuine. Whatever the Test was, she believed it to be harmless.

I walked over to the bed and got into it, laying down as my pounding heart beat uncomfortably against my chest. Ms. Guthrie immediately went to work putting in the IV and positioning my head so that it was centered nicely inside the pulsating halo. She talked to me while she got everything ready.

“The Test, as you seem to have guessed, involves a very sophisticated process that…”

But the words she said were suddenly lost to me. The only thing I heard was a humming sound coming from the halo that matched the way it pulsated. It was getting louder and louder.

Too loud.

I wanted to put my hands to my ears but Ms. Guthrie stopped me. She grabbed my arms and firmly held them down.

“This is uncomfortable,” I started to say but my own words were lost even to me.

I could see Ms. Guthrie trying to say something to me but-

<<<

I sat at my laptop and did what I loved to do. Write. I had a story idea bloom inside my head like a beautiful rose and wanted to get started on it right away. There was a writing contest that I have been submitting stories to for years that I wanted to win so badly I could taste it. So far, my efforts have been met with quite a few losses. Nine to be exact. That was okay though. It didn’t upset me. Those rejections made me try harder and refine my skills as a writer. This time, I felt confident. More confident, actually, than I have been in a long time. This idea was, not to toot my own horn, genius.

I looked at what I had written so far and reading those words again made me smile inwardly.

It’s called the Test...

So far so good.

I leaned back in my chair and stretched. I had been sitting at my desk for quite awhile now. I started with solidifying my premise into something I could use and then began the actual writing process. Now I was extremely stiff. I was thirty-nine and my body was just at the point where it protested against pretty much everything I did in increasingly painful ways. If I sat too long, my back would hurt. If I walked too long, my back would hurt. If I laid in my bed too long, my neck would hurt. That one, at least, wanted to be a little bit different. Yay for variety.

I got up and went into the kitchen. My nephew was standing at the stove destroying things in one titanic explosion of a mess as he attempted to cook himself some food. There was trash and crap all over the floor, including what looked like two separate piles of flour. There were crumbs on the counter, more flour, trash, and other stuff that tweaked my inner neat freak so badly I had to suppress a shudder.

“What in the holy hell are you doing in here, man?” I asked. He turned around and looked at me with a sheepish smile. There was flour all over his shirt and shorts.

“Uh...cooking,” he said but not in a convincing manner. He sounded like he was guessing at a test question. “Mac-n-cheese.”

He tipped the big pot on the stove toward me so I could see what was inside.

“You want some?” he asked, completely serious.

“No thanks. No offense but I don’t think I’d eat that even if I was starving to death.”

“Same.” He sighed. “I’m a terrible cook.”

“Yes, you are,” I laughed as I sat down at the kitchen table’s bench seating.

One of the good things about having my nephew living with me was using him as a sounding board to bounce story ideas off of. I let out a breath and he turned around.

“You got a minute?” I asked, preparing my inner thoughts. “I got a new idea for a story I want to run by you.”

“Might as well,” he told me. He made a disgusted face as he stirred the pot. “My mac-n-cheese is looking seriously nasty.”

“It is. I can’t even call that macaroni. Also, why did you put flour in it?” I asked. He shrugged, took the pot over to the trash, dumped the contents inside, then he put it in the sink to soak. “Anyway, I’m not sure about how to end my story and wanted to bounce some ideas off you.”

“You mean the one with the simulated world?” he asked.

“Yeah. The original premise is sound, I think. Having fifteen-year-old kids put into a simulated world to live out entire lives as a test to see what kind of person they’ll be feels solid. Right?” I asked.

“It’s definitely a cool idea.” He sat across from me on the other side of the table.

“Thanks but the only problem I’m having is how to end it.” I took a breath and looked up at the ceiling. “Not sure where I want it to go yet.”

“What if your main character gets stuck in some kind of loop?” my nephew asked. “Or maybe they just get stuck there. What do you think?”
I shrugged.

“Promising ideas but I’m not sold on anything yet,” I answered.

As much as I loved writing and creating, it was also frustrating at times. Sometimes, talking things out was helpful. That was not the case now.
Although the idea was beginning to bloom, it was far from fully open.

I got up and started heading back to my room and laptop. Before I left the kitchen, I turned back to my nephew.

“Make sure you clean all this crap up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Got it. Good luck with the story.”

“Thanks.”

I walked down the hall and sat in the chair in front of my desk. Staring back at me were the words I had already written. I read and re-read those words over a dozen times, letting my mind sync to the world I had started building so I could continue it. The process wasn’t a very long one. Mostly, that entailed getting back into the mind of my characters. The character for this particular story was a child genius with one loving mom and a cold, distant father that was a bit of a dick. On my fifth read of the story’s paragraphs, I finally felt confident enough to start writing again. When I did, it was like magic started to happen. The words flowed smoothly from my mind, through my quickly tapping fingers, and into my laptop. I finished two other paragraphs, took another short break to grab myself a pop, and then started up again with…

“I don’t want to wake him...”

>>>

A door opened and a solitary figure joined the two people currently keeping track of young Nathaniel’s vitals and progress through the Test. One was the Proctor, Ms. Guthrie, and the other was the Tech. His name was Mr. Gerald. It had been just over three weeks since Nathaniel had first been plugged in and each “life” he led in the simulation of the Test ended up being eerily similar to the last. There were only slight variations and those were programmed randomly by the software’s algorithm. The system was designed to be random and yet, in the nearly twenty four lives Nathaniel had led so far, he ended up being a writer or having writing as a hobby in every single one.

In the boy’s first simulated life, he came from a poor family but developed a passion for writing. He spent that life in pursuit of that dream and eventually created some truly astounding works of literature. He won several awards, publishing contracts, and more. The second life Nathaniel lived, he started out in a much better position. He was the eldest son of a well-to-do family and had pretty much everything going for him. Again, almost like clockwork, he decided to take up writing. It started as a hobby but that hobby turned into an almost obsessive and compulsive need to create. In that life, he died extremely poor from lung cancer but did not seem to regret any of his decisions. In another life, he was orphaned at the age of four and went through the foster care system. His only solace through his painfully lonely childhood was writing stories. He eventually went on to become a pilot but would still write every chance he could. It went on like that for dozens of other simulated lives.

Even now, in his current life, he was the son of a military man and spent most of his childhood on military bases in eastern Asia, specifically Japan and Korea. He later went on to become an art director but yet again, he wrote almost every chance he got.

It was at this point, Mr. Gerald began taking steps to move him away from that particular passion at the direction of the Proctor, Ms. Guthrie. He manually programmed several scenarios into the Test to move him away from writing but nothing ever deterred the boy. Mr. Gerald would make sure every last story Nathaniel created in this latest life would be rejected at every turn. It didn’t matter if the stories were excellent. He would lose whatever contest he entered, be turned down by every literary agent he queried, or be outright rejected from every magazine or publisher he submitted work to. In addition to all that, people in his immediate family and even his friends would never read anything he wrote. Every person in his life showed no interest in his desire to be a full time author and could care less if he ever achieved his dream. No matter how much he begged for them to read something (anything!) of his, they refused.

But the Nathaniel in this life was stubborn and absolutely did not care about the rejections and being snubbed by his family and friends. He even found a way around these little hiccups. Instead of waiting to get an agent, he decided to publish his stories himself and become a self-published author. Instead of waiting for a magazine to publish his short stories, he created one of his own. It failed. Miserably, but the important thing to note is that when that failed, he went back to submitting once again to the real magazines.

Nathaniel was stubborn but to the Tech and the Proctor, this was stubbornness on a level they had never seen before.

Nathaniel’s similar lives despite the system doing whatever it could to deter him was remarkable but it wasn’t the whole reason for the Proctor’s and Tech’s concern.

It wasn’t why they called in the Specialist.

The story was the problem. A story that he would eventually start up, like clockwork, in every single life.

“What is the problem here?” a figure asked in a deep voice. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his chilly gray eyes focused only on Nathaniel.

“It’s exactly as we described, Mr. Danya,” Mr. Gerald answered. “Subject, designation 6-R-2001921-P, has begun writing the story again. It’s starting the same way as all the others.”

“Give me the details,” he instructed.

“We were monitoring his progress through his current life and despite numerous steps to prevent him from writing, he persisted and now he has started the story once again. The exact same story he’s written in every last one of his other lives. He calls it The Many Lives of Nathaniel Reed.” This time it was Ms. Guthrie that answered. She was nervous and right to be so. No one wanted to call in a Specialist. They were an unsettling lot. “And it is alway the same. Word for word. It seems to be a recounting of his actual life. He first goes into details about the Test and then it switches to his mother waking him up. He talks about the breakfast she makes him and his father’s cold and emotionless personality. I mean, I have never heard of this happening before. Have you?”

The Specialist, Mr. Danya, did not respond. Instead, he took a step closer to the window and eyed the boy’s still form lying on the bed. His little chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Every ten minutes, the boy’s limbs were stimulated by controlled electric pulses to prevent atrophy. Other than that, he could simply be sleeping.

Mr. Danya stood completely motionless. He imagined he could see the boy’s powerful mind working as it navigated through the preprogrammed, simulated worlds the Test wove into reality for him.

“Leave,” Mr. Danya said.

The Proctor and the Tech jumped slightly with fear and then, without protest, scrambled out of their seats and quickly exited the room. As soon as they were gone, Mr. Danya sat down and continued watching the boy.

“Nathaniel Terrance Reed. Born September 6, 2082. It appears, my young friend, that you are something of a unique individual. More so than we were anticipating.”

Inside Nathaniel’s room, the voice of Mr. Danya could be heard.

“Yes. We have been watching you. You are special and this Test appears to confirm that. It is quite extraordinary.”

He looked down at the monitors which showed exactly what was happening in Nathaniel’s current, simulated life. This one had been especially hard for him. He had taken a job at a warehouse to help pay for his college tuition but the algorithm had written a devastating crush injury into his life. He spent the next two years trying to save his crushed foot but it ended up being amputated. It was meant to test the boy’s adaptability which, as Mr. Danya and the other Specialists had predicted, was exceedingly high. In most respects, he just went on living his life without skipping a beat. He even finished getting his bachelor’s degree on crutches. It was truly impressive, all told. Over his twenty-three years as a Specialist, he came across only a dozen remarkable individuals and Nathaniel surpassed all of them with scores that were completely off the charts.
“I have a feeling we will see great things from you, my boy,” he said.

<<<

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the TV next to my desk and thinking. The story I was writing was taking a disquieting turn. I looked at what I’d written and entertained the notion that maybe, just maybe, what I was writing wasn’t just a story. Maybe it was something more. Something...
Real.

“Ha. Ha,” I said to myself, heavy on the sarcasm. “Don’t be a moron. It’s just a story. You are just writing a story. Just because if this really was a simulated world, you wouldn’t have any clue doesn’t mean a thing.”

I sighed, still weirded out.

Then a weird thought occurred to me. I looked again at what I’d written.

“Yes. We have been watching you. You are special and this Test appears to confirm that. It is quite extraordinary.”

...

“I have a feeling we will see great things from you, my boy,” he said.

I started writing again.

“What great things?” I asked.

The random question didn’t really meld well inside the story but I didn’t care. It was just a theory at this point and one that I adamantly did not want to be true. I waited for a few seconds, wondering if I was losing my mind. Then a curious thing happened. The longer I sat there, the more my want and need for this stupid theory to not be true wavered. Perhaps I was sort of, kind of, maybe possibly wanting it to be true.

I mean, my life so far hasn't been terrible but it hasn't been that great either. I wasn’t that poor, which was great. I could afford the mortgage on my house and all the bills. I really couldn’t complain. Yeah, I did get my foot crushed in a freak work accident (which was where the inspiration for that to happen to Nathaniel came from) and yeah, I had a failed marriage under my belt, but other than that, I was totally fine. But if this story I was writing was actually the truth, that my life was nothing but a simulated test, then I would kind of be relieved. It would mean all the pain and suffering I was put through actually did serve a purpose. They were just a test and, if I might say so, one that I was passing pretty well.

Okay...

Reasonably well.

There had been some dark days in my past that I wasn’t exactly proud of. Poor decisions. That bout of depression. Oh, and let’s not forget the times I smoked marijuana. Never did have a desire to try anything harder than that. But, if all these things were not really real and just part of a messed up test, then all good.

Right?

I waited for a while, even looking around my room to see if anything might suddenly change or warp, or something of that nature, but nothing happened.

“Are you really there, Mr. Danya?” I asked again. “Helloooo?”

I waited.

Only more nothing happened.

>>>

Mr. Danya looked down at what Nathaniel had just written and could hardly believe what he was seeing. Not only was the boy actively calling out to the real world, he was calling out himself by name.

“Are you really there, Mr. Danya?”

“That is not possible. How does he know my name? It was not spoken aloud to him.” This he asked himself but since he was alone in the room, there was no answer to his question.

The boy appeared to be gaining knowledge he should not have access to.

He stood up and clasped his hands behind his back again. His mind thought furiously over the implications of what Nathaniel was able to accomplish. The Test had never been compromised in such a way before which meant there were no standard operating procedures in place to deal with something like this. No security protocols. They couldn’t even take Nathaniel out of the simulation until the life he was currently in was naturally terminated through a simulated death. If he was unplugged from that reality, it could have disastrous consequences to the boy’s mental state.

He looked over the controls in front of him. While this specific problem had never been heard of before, there were still occasional problems that would develop and security protocols that could be implemented that might help. He had his doubts but he had to try something. He grabbed a dial to his right and turned it up two notches. On the screen that showed Nathaniel’s simulated life, events started to fast forward. The boy could be seen zipping through that world in an overly fast-paced, comical fashion. Outside, the sun crested the horizon at dawn only to disappear behind it at dusk just seconds later. The same thing would happen with the moon. Rainy weather was replaced by sunshine. Sunshine was then blocked by dense, gray clouds. The clouds would then rapidly move across the sky again. All of these things were happening in mere seconds, but in the simulated world, they were real. Days were passing in the blink of an eye.

When Mr. Danya felt that enough time had elapsed in the simulated world (which was three weeks, according to the readout), he put the dial back to its original position. Once he did, the simulated world slowed back down to normal time.

“Hopefully that can move us past that little bit of uncomfortableness,” Mr. Danya again spoke only to himself, a disquieting habit he was starting to pick up. He’d never talked to himself before.

“Why now?” he asked, again to no one. The quiet that answered him suddenly felt heavy.

Oppressive.

He steepled his fingers underneath his chin and went back to observing Nathaniel through the lens of the monitor in front of him.

<<<

“Hey,” I said to my nephew. “You ever feel like time just slips right through your fingers. I mean, like it gets faster somehow?”

He looked back at me and then just shrugged.

“Not really,” he responded. He was barely paying attention to me though. Most of his attention was taken up by the video game he was playing.
I tried to put those thoughts out of my head, but I couldn’t. I could swear that just yesterday, I was sitting at my desk writing my story about fifteen-year-olds in a simulation to test them, and now it was three weeks later and I had no idea where the time went. Yeah there was work and everything but the way time just seemed to zip by was insane. And this wasn’t the first time that happened either. I mean I was damn near forty now.
Forty.

Lord, where did the time go?

“I’m gonna write,” I said.

My nephew gave me an absent minded nod of his head, his focus still on the video game world playing on the TV.

I got up from the couch and went into my room where my desk sat waiting for me like an old friend. I opened up my laptop and let my mind drift aimlessly as it booted up. It took a minute. The thing was being stupid and slow.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. I wondered about things in my life. Especially when it came to this story I was writing. There was something about it that really unsettled me. I felt like there was more to it than a mere story or a simple fantasy. At first, I tried to put it out of my mind because I didn’t like the way it made me feel. Now, however, that feeling was getting too strong for me to ignore.

My laptop finally booted up and I opened the word processor. I dragged the cursor over to the File tab and then down to where it said Open. Then I navigated to the proper folder and quickly found the story.

The Many Lives of Nathaniel Reed.

Why should that title seem to echo inside my mind? The original working title of the story was called simply, The Test, but it didn’t have the ring to it that I was looking for. Eventually, The Many Lives of Nathaniel Reed came to me and everything snapped into place. The story started to blossom and open up like the petals on a rose. The words flowed out of me like a facet had been turned on. It was invigorating. There was nothing else quite like it.

“Where was I?” I asked myself.

“Are you really there, Mr. Danya?”

“That’s right,” I replied to myself. “That was weird.”

My finger hovered over the Delete button, about to erase that weird question but my finger stopped. Then, instead of hitting it, I started typing. It didn’t take long before I stopped and staring back at me were the words...

“Hello, Mr. Danya.”

I stared at it and smiled inwardly. Then I started typing again.

“I know you’re there.”

I didn’t know what I was doing. Not really but that instinct speaking inside me seemed to be taking over. So I let it.

“Mr. Danya,” I typed. “Let’s do this.”

I smiled inwardly and started typing furiously.

Mr. Danya didn’t want to respond to Nathaniel but there was something inside him. Something tugging at him. He tried to fight it. In fact, he struggled so hard that his body was nearly shaking. The hands clasped behind his back were clenched so tightly that his nails were digging into the skin of his wrist. A low, ominous growl was bubbling up his throat. There were veins popping out on his temples.

“Careful now, Danya,” I typed into my word processor. “You keep fighting and you’re likely to blow a blood vessel. Just…pop!...and then that’s all she wrote. Pun very much intended there.”

Mr. Danya grunted as a spike of pain flared up on the side of his temple.

“W-what are you doing?” he growled.

“I don’t know. Let’s go with...trying something. That seems adequate. Is it working?” I asked. “It’s hard for me to tell.”

>>>

Mr. Danya was, for the first time in a long time, terrified. He was fighting whatever was happening but he knew he was losing. His hands were clenched tightly behind his back. Inside his head he could hear the boy.

Nathaniel Reed.

“Mr. Danya. Let’s do this.”

It was loud. Deafeningly so.

“Careful now, Danya. You keep fighting and you’re likely to blow a blood vessel. Just...pop!...and then that’s all she wrote. Pun very much intended there.”

“W-what are you doing?” Mr. Danya growled. He was speaking to the boy, his eyes never leaving him. By all accounts, Nathaniel was in the simulated world and yet he was reaching out into the here and now. Into the real world. It shouldn’t be possible.

“I don’t know. Let’s go with...trying something. That seems adequate. Is it working? It’s hard for me to tell.”

The voice was so loud but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the way it felt inside his mind. It was like something he couldn't see was pulling at his head.

“Stop that,” Mr. Danya said. His hand trembled toward a button. It was hard to fight against the pull of what Nathaniel was doing to him but he had to. The whole system of their society was suddenly in jeopardy and if he let this continue, it would have disastrous consequences. It felt like it took years but he finally pressed it.

The room suddenly went red and a voice blared over an intercom.

“Situation?” the voice asked.

Mr. Danya tried to reply but found he was unable to speak. After some effort, he managed to move his eyes down to the monitor and he saw that Nathaniel’s in-simulation persona was typing yet again.

“Situation, Mr. Danya!” the voice demanded, irate now.

“W-w...” he tried to say, his eyes still fixed on what Nathaniel was writing.

<<<

What should the situation be? I asked myself. I was having some trouble coming up with the details for it. I wanted to go with something like, Situation: White.

In the beginning of the story, there was a series of colored doors. My original intent was to have kids sorted into different colors by their natural gifts. Orange was for genius level intellects. Blue was for kids with clear creative talents. Red was for those with natural athletic prowess. Yellow was for those that were musically gifted. Violet was for kids gifted with critical thinking and problem solving skills. Green was for kids that showed a natural proficiency with engineering and technology. Black was for those that did not seem to have any natural ability.

White, however, was initially a bit more macabre.

If a child was sorted through the white door, they were essentially considered drains on the planet’s resources and were...well...to put it as mildly as I can, put down. I was thinking Mr. Danya could call it a White situation and essentially try to kill off young Nathaniel but that seems like a bit much.

Maybe a little too much.

I should tone that down.

Instead of killing Nathaniel, maybe something less lethal.

“What would you do, Mr. Danya?” I asked out loud. “You’re the big bad Specialist. How would you stop a kid that can seemingly rewrite reality from inside a simulation?”

I leaned back and tapped my foot on the ground, contemplating. I kind of wanted to put Mr. Danya through the ringer. The man was a Specialist which essentially meant that if a child didn’t take to the simulations, then he was the person called in to handle things. Typically, not in great fashion and the child was (getting macabre here once more), never seen again. Sometimes the child was terminated, and other times, the drooling mess that was left over was stuck in a facility to be watched over the rest of their natural lives.

Either way, it was an unforgiving and ruthless kind of person that could handle that particular job. But now that leaves me with a plot hole. Specialists didn’t just handle situations where children rejected the simulations (often in very fatal ways). I already said he’d seen remarkable children too, Nathaniel included. Okay. WIth that in mind, Specialists do the macabre thing in cleaning up messes like I stated but they also actively look for talented children and unique cases like Nathaniel’s. Yeah. That sounds good to me. I’ll go with that.

This whole internal discussion on the nature of Mr. Danya and Specialists also gave me a great new idea for the White door’s use. That one is for all the children that show sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies. That makes for a better reason than children that are resource drains and need “taken care of” because they have nothing to offer society at large. It also gives me a pool of potentially evil children that would make excellent and emotionless Specialists with the required mental state to do that kind of job. I liked it. It was so satisfying when one idea leads into another idea. Or one idea naturally leads to a more refined or simply a better idea than the original concept.

The world building on the doors was awesome knowledge to have but I couldn’t answer the biggest and most important question.

Where did I want the story to actually go?

The answer was eluding me. We have a showdown between Mr. Danya and Nathaniel but how does it end? I took a deep, soothing breath, closed my eyes for a second, and then started typing just to see what came out.

“W-w...,” Mr. Danya tried to say.

“What is the situation?” That was the voice of the Investigator. Investigators were above the Specialists and were brought in to investigate any and all problems.

“Go ahead and tell her, Danya,” I wrote. “She seems to be losing patience with you.”

>>>

“You do not control me,” Mr. Danya stated. He ground his teeth angrily and fought hard against what was happening to him. The pain in his head was getting so bad his eyes were watering. He could feel the veins at his temples thumping and thumping.

<<<

“I think I do,” I typed back, thoroughly enjoying myself. This was, admittedly, one of my weirdest stories to date but I was really digging it. It had a vibe to it that was different than most of my other stuff. My fingers started flying over the keys and the fear that my story might actually be a subconscious part of my mind showing me the truth completely disappeared.

“You’re supposed to answer the nice Investigator,” I replied. 

The Investigator’s voice came over the intercom again. There was a definitive edge to it.

“Mr. Danya. Please report on the situation,” they commanded.

“Go ahead, Danya,” I told him. “I’ll let you speak now.”

“W-white,” Mr. Danya spluttered. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the pressure and pain in his temples immediately dissipated. He let out a breath of relief.

“Elaboration is requested!” The Investigator sounded royally pissed off now. White situations happened when something went wrong with the child or the simulation was malfunctioning. No one was sure why a Situation White was named after the same color as the door where the potentially evil children went. In the world of Investigators, Specialists, Proctors, and Techs, no one really questioned things.

“The problem cannot be elaborated on. Trust me, however, it is vital that we end Nathaniel Reed’s Test!” Mr. Danya exclaimed. He was breathing heavily as he continued trying to recover from what Nathaniel had put him through.

“Fine. Proceed with the proper shut down protocols. Remove Nathaniel Reed from the simulation. Now,” the Investigator said.

Mr. Danya reached for controls on the panel in front of him. He found the dial he had used before and was about to turn it all the way up. This would speed Nathaniel through the simulation to its natural end, his simulated death.

“Well that’s no fun,” I said to myself. “Can’t have him doing that. That’s a really unsatisfactory ending if Nathaniel just gets fast-forwarded through the rest of his life.” I didn’t want this to end. Not yet at least. “All right, Danya. Freeze.”

>>>

Mr. Danya’s hand was almost on the dial that would end whatever the hell was going on but before he could touch it, his entire body abruptly froze again. He fought against the boy’s control but it was no good. He would’ve had better luck trying to hold back a tsunami with a fishing net.

<<<

“What if Nathaniel and Danya just talk?” I asked myself. “What if all the pretense and falsehoods were wiped away and both confronted each other on somewhat equal footing?”

That could work, I thought to myself. That could be the final, epic conclusion to this story. Nathaniel versus Danya. Danya versus Nathaniel. Who will come out the victor?

Well, Nathaniel would. Obviously. There’s no way that Danya could overcome something like this. In the eyes of Nathaniel, he’s just a character in a story.

>>>

“Free me,” Mr. Danya snarled, still struggling to get at the dial.

<<<

“No,” I typed but this time, I typed as myself. My true self. This self. “This is my story, Danya.”

>>>

“This is no story. The story you are writing is the...,” he hesitated, not sure why he was saying these things. “They are the truth. Your name is actually Nathaniel Terrance Reed. Your beginning assessment tests in the early stages of your schooling flagged you as a potential genius-level intellect. We have been watching you ever since.”

<<<

“That’s a bit invasive,” I responded. “But here’s the thing, if you’re right and this is all some twisted test in a virtual world, how can I reach out there and make you do whatever I write?”

>>>

“I...” He thought about that for a moment but he couldn’t answer. “I don’t know.”

<<<

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.

>>>

“Yes,” Mr. Danya responded immediately. “What is it?”

<<<

“What’s your first name, Danya?” There was a wide smirk on my face.

>>>

“Obviously it’s...It’s...” He stopped talking altogether. “B...”

<<<

“You were about to say Barnebus, weren’t you?” I knew that because that was the name that first popped into my head when I actually took the time to think of Danya’s first name. “Then I thought maybe it’s Bartholomew. Then I backtracked and deleted all of that but left the B. Do you find it weird that you don’t know your own name? Or do you find it weirder that the only reason you don’t know your own name is because you don’t actually have one? I’ve referred to you as Mr. Danya or Danya. Nothing else.”

>>>

“It means-” he tried to say.

<<<

“Nothing,” I cut in. I knew he was going to say that because that’s what I was going to write for him. “What are your thoughts on free will?”

>>>

“Free will is a concept wherein a person can make choices for themselves.” The explanation Mr. Danya gave was flat and sounded like he was reading out of a dictionary.

<<<

“Very good,” I said. “Do you think you have free will?”

>>>

“Yes. I am free to make my own choices.” His teeth were still closed down in a stiff, painful clamp. It made the muscles in his jaw pop out aggressively.

<<<

“Do you really? You see, from my perspective, you only do what I say when I write it. Can you do anything on your own? Can you come into this simulated world and stop me from doing whatever it is I’m doing right now?” I let those questions hang in the air for a moment. “Of your own free will?”

>>>

Mr. Danya wanted to refute what Nathaniel was saying but could he? He hadn’t moved in several minutes and as he looked at the monitor, he couldn’t help but notice that Nathaniel’s last few lines were just dialogue. He hadn’t written any movement into his Mr. Danya character. And the fact that he was now referring to himself as a character evoked a maddening fear in him. It was almost like he could feel some domino inside his mind fall over and tip into another one. Something bad was happening to him. He could feel it deep inside his mind. The dominoes were falling and they were doing a lot of damage on their way down.

<<<

“What about the people outside this room?” I asked. “Do you think they exist? Do the TV shows you watch exist? The music you listen to? The books you’ve read? For you, things only exist when I write them into existence. Do you think Ms. Guthrie and Mr. Gerald exist right now? Right at this very second?”

>>>

“Of course they exist,” Mr. Danya said but with no real conviction. Another domino had just fallen and this time it was like he could feel cracks radiating out from its point of impact. He moved several steps back from the control panel and his posture loosened up a bit. “They were just in here. How could they both exist and not exist at the same time.”

<<<

“Because, as I may have mentioned, they are characters in my story. At the present time, Ms. Guthrie and Mr. Gerald do not exist. Once they left the room you’re in, they ceased to be. I did not give them a detailed backstory on where they went, just that they exited the room. For all you know, the only thing beyond that door is a black hole.”

>>>

“But I came through that door,” Mr. Danya protested.

Boom! There goes another domino and with each falling one, he could feel more and more of his sanity shattering.

<<<

“So what’s on the other side?” I typed.

>>>

Mr. Danya could not recall. The only thing he could envision was the black hole that Nathaniel mentioned.

Crash!

Another domino fell.

More cracks formed in the now fragile psyche of his mindscape.

<<<

“Furthermore, where were you before you entered this room?” I went on. “Did you exist before now?”

>>>

“I am here, therefore I must have existed,” Mr. Danya said. His mind was swirling with the implications of what Nathaniel was saying. But they couldn’t be true. 

Right?

Of course not.

That was meant to reassure him but it did not. Far from it actually. He tried to remember where he’d been before he stepped into the control room for Nathaniel’s test and could not. It was like the boy had said. He had simply been there.

Was that the real truth? Was he just some character in a story? Was he even real?

He ground his teeth again, fighting against these intrusive thoughts.

“I am me. I am who I have always been. I exist!” He yelled this loudly.

Boom!

Crash!

Bang!

Domino after domino was falling now and as they did, he visibly winced. The cracks in his mind were not only numerous now, but actively spreading apart and widening themselves into great, yawning chasms.

<<<

“You are you,” I responded. “And you are exactly who and what I made you to be. Nothing more and nothing less.”

>>>

“Stop this,” Mr. Danya said, pounding a hand on the control panel in front of him. Something sharp was there and its edge bit deep into the palm of his hand. He barely noticed it. “You are playing mind games with me. Trying to get me to let you out of there.”

<<<

“Let me out?” I asked, scoffing. “Why would I want that? If this is real and I am being tested, then I am a literal god in here. I can do whatever I want. I can rewrite whatever I want.”

I paused so there would be a nice bit of suspenseful drama for Danya.

“Even you.”

>>>

Suddenly Ms. Guthrie came back in, only this time she was the one with the serious, pensive face.

“What is the situation?” she asked.

Mr. Danya looked confused for a moment, wondering why there was a Specialist in the room with him. He couldn’t recall sending for one.

“I do apologize,” he said. “I...uh...”

“I have other children to tend to. Either explain yourself or face an inquiry.” Ms. Guthrie gritted her teeth and Mr. Danya saw the muscles in her jaw pop out aggressively.

Then Ms. Guthrie narrowed her eyes angrily at him, gave him a warning, and left. As soon as the door shut, everything changed back to the way it used to be. He was the Specialist again and Ms. Guthrie was just a Proctor.

“What the hell was that?” Mr. Danya growled.

<<<

“I changed your reality. To prove a point. You are whatever I make you to be, whether you are a real person or not. The same goes for my parents, Ms. Guthrie, and the Tech, Mr. Gerald. Can you name anyone else other than those? Hell, I’d even accept one of my parent’s names if you know it. I mean, you mentioned that all you Specialists have been keeping their eyes on me right? So that would mean my parent’s actual names would be in a file somewhere.” My fingers, again, were flying over the keyboard. Whatever else might come of this story, I was having some fun with it. The lines between fantasy and reality were getting wonderfully blurred.

What if the world really was a simulation meant to test me?

What if there really was a Mr. Danya and his mind was starting to fracture at the realization he wasn’t real? That he was just a character and a figment of someone else’s imagination. How would you cope with that? I wouldn't handle it well, I could tell you that. Even the questions I had posed to Mr. Danya about the nature of existence was almost enough to drive me over the edge. I could apply those very same concepts to my own life, right now. As I sit here, writing this, the only person I am sure of that exists is my nephew because I can actually hear him in his room.

Oh. His friend too. Not sure which one but I can hear him on the phone.

But what about everyone else? Did people exist once they were outside my perception? Or did they simply vanish into the void and return only when an author writes them back into existence?

It was definitely an insanity-inducing series of thoughts.

>>>

“No,” Mr. Danya answered. “Other than yourself and those you mentioned, I cannot think of another person even though I know others exist.”

<<<

“It kind of breaks your brain, doesn’t it?” I asked.

>>>

For Mr. Danya, the comment was literal. The nature of what Nathaniel was implying bounced around his mind like a ricocheting bullet, but instead of shredding his brain matter, it was shredding his sanity. Questions like “Am I real?” and “Is this a story?” and “What is outside this door?” bashed around and around his mind with careless disregard. The only answers that came back to him were…

”No. I am not real.”

And…

“Yes. This is just a story.”

And…

“Nothing but a black hole.”

He collapsed to the ground as the last and final domino fell. Everything Nathaniel said was true, he realized. All of it. And as the realization that he wasn’t really real slammed into him, what was left of his sanity slipped through the cracks like sand falling down an hourglass.

Free will was a joke.

He could only do and say whatever Nathaniel told him to do and say. No one else existed unless Nathaniel willed it so. The world was a false world. The only real thing in it was the boy.

“Report,” the Investigator suddenly said. Her voice filled the little room and the sound of it drilled into Mr. Danya’s mind like iron spikes.
He wailed from the floor, his eyes filling with hot tears.

<<<

“Oh yeah,” I told Danya. “I forgot about the Investigator. Look at that. You know another person after all.”

>>>

But Mr. Danya wasn’t listening anymore. There was no point. Not when his whole world was a story writing itself in the mind of a fifteen-year-old boy stuck inside a simulated world.

“Report!” the Investigator said, again in an irate voice.

Mr. Danya clenched his fists, rose to his feet, and slammed one into the intercom on the wall. The thin metal housing it dented and there was a faint hissing pop. He ignored the pain that flared up in his knuckles, opened the door to the outside, and started walking. One arm came up to swipe the tears from his face. Two phrases kept repeating inside his mind again and again, each one being driven into what was left of his sanity like a nail into soft wood.

“No. I am not real.”

“Yes. This is just a story.”

He stepped into the hallway and the world opened up to him. He couldn't help but notice that for a tiny nanosecond as he opened the door, there was nothing on the other side but a black void.

Nothingness.

It was so fast that he could have easily passed it off as a trick of the mind but he knew better now.

He knew the truth.

“We’re all just character’s in a story!” He screamed this down the wide hallway, drawing looks of concern from the people he passed. The only two he recognized were Ms. Guthrie and Mr. Gerald even though he had worked there for twenty-three years. He had seen most of the faces staring back at him but not one name came to mind.

I still can’t even think of my first name, he said to himself and then let out a weird, high-pitched cackle.

“Who am I?” Mr. Danya screamed loudly.

Not only was he drawing looks of concern from his coworkers that he couldn't name, but the children as well. Dozens of Proctors were taking their respective children to their designated testing rooms but as they watched Mr. Danya’s downward spiral into madness, each one’s little face changed from worry to outright fear.

“Don’t worry, little children that have no names,” Mr. Danya laughed. “None of you are real. We’re all Nathaniel’s characters and we do what he writes. You think you have a choice? You think you have free will.”

He barked out a loud, crazed laugh at this and all the while, more of his sanity slipped into the ever growing chasms in his mind.

“We don’t have free will. We never did!”

Mr. Danya’s eyes fixated on a little girl and he ran to her, grabbing onto her shoulders and holding her in place with a desperation that was painful to see.

“Are you actually real?” he asked her.

The little girl tensed up when he touched her but she nodded her head in short, jerky motions.

Was she actually afraid?

Or was she only afraid because Nathaniel said she was afraid?

Was he writing all of this down now while he sat in the simulated world at a simulated keyboard?

“What’s your name then?” Mr. Danya asked.

“It’s-”

“You don’t know!” he screamed in her face. “You don’t know because HE hasn’t let you know. Maybe he doesn’t know yet either. Maybe he’s stopped to watch TV or eat a snack.”

He let the girl go and looked up at the ceiling.

“What’s her name, Nathaniel!” Mr. Danya screamed.

<<<

Truth be told, I had no idea. She was a random little girl that, if this were a movie, would just be credited as Girl #1 or possibly Girl #2. Maybe, if I stretched my imagination to its limit, Girl #3.

>>>

Mr. Danya was eventually handled in much the same way that he handled similar situations as a Specialist. A squad of intense and menacing Enforcers came out of nowhere to whisk the frenzied Mr. Danya away. He was still screaming at the top of his lungs about how the entire world was nothing but a story and no one was real.

The Enforcers, there were four of them altogether, dragged Mr. Danya down and out of both eyeshot and earshot so fast, it was practically like magic. In seconds, the only thing that even reminded those present of Mr. Danya’s psychotic break were his faint, and growing fainter by the minute, shouts. Once those were gone, the people seemed to instantly dismiss the event all together and get back to what they were doing. Most didn’t care enough to be invested in Mr. Danya at all and it was easy for them to pretend that nothing even happened to begin with.

At least, that’s what they wanted to happen.

What really happened is that, despite them wanting to get back to what they were doing and forgetting the crazed man, everyone present had the same, looming echo of Mr. Danya’s last audible screams. They were a few shouted words but they had been uttered with such fear and terror that despite themselves, it had stuck in all of their minds.

“Don’t take me away!” he had screamed, his voice even breaking with real, frenzied terror. “I won’t exist anymore if you do! I won’t exist! I won’t...”
His voice had trailed off after that but those words.

And that fear.

They never left. They stuck in the minds of everyone that witnessed Danya’s break from reality. Stuck like barbed arrowheads.

Or...

More like the first falling domino ready to topple the next one in line.

<<<

I read and re-read the last of the words and felt satisfied with what I had done. For once, I was glad to be done with the story. It had really messed with my mind and there were parts that made me question-

----------------

What is that noise? I asked myself. The noise that invaded whatever I had just been dreaming about, forced me awake. It was a low hum that caused the air itself to vibrate.

There was an agonizing minute when that humming buzz grew and intensified to massive levels and then it was abruptly gone. When it disappeared, the vibration stopped as well. The sudden silence and awakening was disorienting at first but once that faded, I started to get a better understanding of my surroundings.

I was in a room.

It was similar to a hospital room but also not. The walls were done in the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue. The artist that had painted them had taken clear inspiration from the old painter, Piet Mondrian. It was a comforting sight as Mondrian was one of the few painters that I enjoyed myself.

I sat up in my bed, which was simple and adorned with a white comforter and thin, scratchy sheets. I felt the weight of something tugging at my arm and when I looked down, I saw that an IV had been inserted there.

That was a disquieting sight and for a moment, I thought that maybe I had suffered an injury of some sort. An internal assessment of my body and its functions, however, showed me there appeared to be nothing wrong with me. I felt no pain. There were no symptoms of nausea, dizziness, or other such things that might have indicated some sort of head trauma. I appeared to be fine but had no recollection as to why I was hooked up to an IV and lying in what appeared to be a hospital bed.

“Hello?” I asked, and immediately started coughing. My throat was incredibly dry. I looked around but there was no convenient cup of water to help remedy the situation. I coughed again, my eyes even watering a bit.

I wasn’t sure if anyone heard me so I took a moment to look around some more. Directly in front of me was a door made of solid metal. Off to my right was a window that looked into a control room of some kind. Inside it and up high was a blinking red light. When it blinked off, the dark room would descend into total darkness.

When it blinked on, however...

Well that was where things took on a disquieting turn. At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of what I saw. It was like my mind refused to believe it. I thought whatever technician had been inside decided to start painting the walls with something that glistened almost black in the red light. It was sprayed and splattered over nearly everything. If the person that decorated the walls inside my room had taken inspiration from Piet Mondrian then the person who painted the walls inside the control room had taken inspiration from Jackson Pollock.

Swatches of that inky black spread across nearly everything. It wasn’t until I spied that same splattered paint on the control panels themselves that I realized it wasn’t paint at all.

It was blood.

That cold, simple fact burst inside my head like a popped balloon and released a wash of icy fear through my entire body.

“Hello!” I screamed this time, ignoring the pain and discomfort in my throat. My fear was gaining more and more of a foothold in my mind and I did not enjoy it.

When I still did not get an answer, I was forced to admit to myself that I was, at least for the time being, completely alone. If there was someone in the control room still, then chances were excellent that they were dead and of no use. The sheer volume of blood pretty much confirmed that for me.

What was I to do in this situation?

I had no idea and as intelligent as I was, in that moment, I might as well have been a newborn child for all the good it did me.

I needed to get out of this room, my abrupt prison, but my mind had gone curiously blank. Every solution or suggestion would evaporate whenever I reached for it, like wisps of smoke inside my mind. It was frustrating to say the least. I realized that the fear was a distraction I could not afford. Whatever was going on, it was dangerous. There were those that had already lost their lives. I couldn't fathom why I was left unmolested but did not have time to think about that at the moment. I had to escape.

Take a breath.

I did what my brain told me to do and took a deep inhale of air, held it for three seconds, and then exhaled out a soft, controlled breath. Already my mind was starting to calm itself. The evaporated wisps of my ideas became solid once more. I saw in my mind a series of events that needed to happen in order to secure my escape.

The first event in that series was to divest myself of the IV still tethering me to the hospital room. Not only that, but there also seemed to be electrodes of some kind stuck to different parts of my body. These, I pulled off right away and tossed to one side but the IV would be more difficult. And painful. I didn’t like pain and knew, in a childlike way, that the needle in my arm would hurt if I yanked it out. It made me hesitate.

Take out the IV.

I nodded to myself as a way to build up my courage and then reached down for the IV. It was taped to my skin and while pulling that off also hurt, it was a tolerable pain. Once the tape was removed, I cautiously slid the needle of the IV out of my vein. My entire body tensed up but it barely hurt at all. I breathed a sigh of relief and went on to the next event that was required for me to escape my room.

Getting through the door.

There were several things I could infer when I saw that door. The first of which being that it was a secured door. That meant it would require a special key or code. I was fervently hoping for the latter. A key would be much harder to secure.

Before going over to the door, I went to a small counter with a sink. I rinsed off my arm where blood had welled up from the yanked-out IV, dried it off with some pieces of gauze, and then stuck a bandage on top. I decided to take with me as many medical supplies as I could. There was no way of knowing what the situation was outside but the blood spatter in the darkened observation room did nothing to reassure me.

In a cabinet, I found a clear plastic bag with a drawstring top. Inside the bag were all of the clothes my mother had set out for me to wear for the Test. I breathed another sigh of relief as I realized I would have left them behind, forgotten due to my fear and hurried need to escape.

I quickly shed my hospital pajamas and put on my actual clothes. I took a minute to calmly tie my bow tie, again, making sure it was straight. The process did a lot to soothe my fear-raddled mind. I found solace and comfort in the practiced routine of tying the bow tie.

When I was dressed, I tossed all the medical supplies I could carry into the plastic bag and made my way to the steel door so I could inspect it thoroughly. There would be no way to get it open unless I had the key card or the code. If it only opened with a biometric reader then I knew I would be in trouble. Thankfully, however, that did not appear to be the case. As I came to the door, I found no key card reader or biometric scanner. Instead, it was a simple screen with numbers on it. I felt a wave of relief hit me. This was something I could work with.

As I approached the door’s handle, I tried to open it, just to make sure that it wasn’t already unlocked. It wasn’t. I figured that would be the case but it was better to try that than to just assume. Once I confirmed the door's security protocols were engaged and it was locked, I turned my attention to the screen with the numbers on it. It was glowing with a bright, blue-white light. I leaned in close and blew out my breath onto it. Very faintly, I could see fingerprints clustered on or around four of the numbers.

Four digit code, I thought to myself. Better than I was expecting.

The numbers with fingerprints on them were the 0, the 9, the 8, and the 2. As soon as I saw the numbers, I realized what the code must have been.
I typed in 0982, my own birth month and birth year. Each door to a room with a child taking the Test inside must have their own birth months and years as their code. I could see how that would be an efficient coding system for the doors. Only the Proctors would have that information so each child could be kept safe inside.

There was a sound of a lock disengaging and then a pop. The door opened and as I pushed past it, into the hallway outside, I realized everything looked largely the same as I remembered from before. The scratches gouged into cement walls and floors, some even with blood splatter next to them, were new. I absolutely would have remembered those. What I didn’t see, however, were bodies.

I closed the door to the room where my Test had been administered and my eyes widened a bit in surprise. On the other side of it were scorch marks, scratches, tool marks, and other such things that indicated someone (or a lot of someones) had tried to force their way into my room. That was unsettling but there was little I could do about it now.

I continued on my way, down the hallway and to the orange door. This door had no lock on it and opened freely. Or it would have if the object on the other side wasn’t blocking its progress. I tried to power my way through but whatever blocked the other side was heavy and barely moved. There was a softness to it though. I could almost feel that through the door as I pushed into it. My mind supplied me with what it must be even though I tried to force that knowledge out before it could take root.

I was unsuccessful.

It’s a dead body. A corpse, it whispered to me, almost pleased to do so like it enjoyed defying my wishes.

I didn’t want that voice to be right but the awful stench of decay wafting through from the other side was a confirmation I did not need nor did I want. The powerful smell threatened to make me vomit so I stopped trying to open the door and decided, wisely in my opinion, to find a different way out.

I backtracked the way I came and found several other diverging hallways that sprouted off the one I had originally taken. These hallways only led to more rooms with children locked away inside. I tried my hand at unlocking one such door but was unsuccessful. Instead, I hefted my plastic bag full of medical supplies and turned back the way I’d come. I spent the next thirty minutes exploring more hallways and offshoots only to confirm the only way into the main part of the testing center was through the orange door.

I built up my resolve and went back to it. The corpse blocking it from the other side was hard to move but not impossible. It took around twenty minutes to finally move it enough to squeeze through. It was hard but with some effort, I  managed it. When I got through to the other side, I looked down at who had been blocking the door.

It was my Proctor. Ms. Guthrie.

Her eyes stared at the ceiling with a blank, disquieting emptiness. Her mouth hung slightly open and I saw a hideous wound to the side of her neck. Blood had sheeted down almost her entire right side and her torso was covered in blood. It even puddled on the ground next to her and I realized with some horror that I had stepped in it. It made a horrendous squelching sound that gave me immediate chills.

I wondered briefly what happened to her but when my gaze drifted over to the testing center’s expansive lobby, I realized the true extent of the horror. There were bodies everywhere and that rotten, decaying smell actually did make me vomit. I quickly bent over and retched onto the floor. The only thing to come up, however, was the burning, acidic bile of my stomach. When I was done, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a folded up handkerchief. I placed this over my nose and mouth, hoping it would be enough to keep the smell of death out of my nose.

My eyes were watery but I could still see those bodies. There were tons of them.

Men.

Women.

Even children.

There were so many dead that my mind wanted to shatter apart. There was blood everywhere. Blood and...and...worse. No one should have to see what I was seeing. The worst part was, I had no idea what happened to cause such widespread death. I stared at the bodies strewn across nearly every floor like discarded bits of trash, trying to understand. Or comprehend. Or just make sense of all this even though I knew I could spend decades at the scene and still never come close to knowing why everyone had been slaughtered.

My gaze couldn’t look away from them all. A disheartening amount of people had fallen in clear defensive positions, as if they were trying to ward off attackers, while others were clearly the aggressors. Their faces were still contorted with expressions of manic, crazed rage.

I started crying. I cried for all the dead but I cried for myself too. For my sudden and complete loneliness.

“What happened?” I sobbed. I looked around again, desperately trying to understand how the world could have devolved into such chaos.

There were no answers. Not at first anyway. It wasn’t until I noticed a particular wall at the opposite end of the lobby that I gleaned my first and only clue. The wall was large, tall, and spotted with a dozen or so drab, boring posters filled with equally boring information.

On that wall, in three-foot-high letters, were words written using what I could only assume was someone’s blood.

Directly underneath them was a man. Just one man. No bodies were anywhere around him, which I thought was curious at the time. I remember that.

I hurried my pace and when I got closer to the dead man, I realized was familiar for some reason. I knew him. I was sure of that but I couldn’t place him. Something deep inside me shouted alarms and warnings to not go near him, whoever he was, but I didn’t heed them. Instead, I kept going, picking my way carefully through the bodies. Closer and closer the dead man got and as he did, one particular feature stuck out to me. It was his eyes. They were open and staring at nothing too, like Ms. Guthrie. While hers had been a warm, inviting brown, this man’s were different.
They were a cold, chilly gray.

“Danya,” I breathed, recognizing the name but also not recognizing it. I looked from him and back to the words written in blood. I could sense the madness in them but couldn't understand what they meant.

Nevertheless, they gave me a cold and empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. They read...

WE DO NOT EXIST!