Enigma

A soft wind brushes against a teenage boy sitting on the edge of a bridge. His eyes fixated on a book of blank pages.

"Enigma," an elderly voice appears.

"What do you mean?" the boy replies confusedly, lowering the book into his lap.

The lady steps into his sight and warmly smiles, wearing a thick, white woollen coat.

"Enigma, a person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand," she leans forward, "You look rather complexed on that book of yours."

His eyes shift to the book, "Oh this?" he flips through the empty pages, "This isn't my book, I found it lying on the ground. I thought it would be a good read."

"Do you think it was by chance that you found it?" the lady questions.

"Well, I mean of course. I didn't intend to steal it," he replies.

She chuckles, "You haven't stolen anything young boy, the book is yours."

The boy pauses wearing a confused look, as his eyes gaze at the flowing river in front of him.

He pauses, "For some odd reason, I feel like I've heard you say those words before."

The boy quickly turns around, to the disappearance of the lady. She had fled. A harsh wind brushes against the pages of the book, leading to the first few pages. The boy carefully observes the pages, full of words. The words of the pages read the conversation he had just had with the elderly lady. The rest of the pages are left empty. He turns around once again, in hope of hearing the lady's voice. No one is there. He walks away from the edge of the bridge and closes his book tightly.

"I must be losing it," he mumbles to himself.

He begins to walk away, into a quiet town surrounded by colossal mountains during the peak of wintery snow. A town that had seemed to be his home.

He walks into a bakery store, his usual cafè. The bell by the door jingles, the warm heat rushes through his skin. He steps towards the counter.

"Hey Roger, just the usual," the boy speaks, handing the man a handful of coins from his pocket.

"No worries. One breakfast roll coming right up," the baker grins.

The boy slips his shivering hands in his pocket, his eyes gaze around the store. He notices a couple laughing together, they're the only other people in the càfe besides himself.

The man speaks again, "Here is your breakfast roll."

His eyes shift back to the baker, handing him his breakfast on a tiny plate. He willingly takes it and sits in a booth by himself, slowly taking a bite into the bread. The couple laughs once again, similiarly to how they did before.

"Déjà vu," the boy mumbles. The baker appears from the kitchen, handing the boy a white umbrella.

"An umbrella? What for?" the boy questions with his mouth half full.

"For the storm that's coming," the baker explains.

"What storm?" the boy chuckles.

The boy jolts to the sound of striking thunder, pelting rain falls from the sky with howling, ghostly wind. He turns around, the baker had fled, just like the lady he had spoken to on the bridge.

"Roger?" the boy asks, standing up from his seat, "Roger!" the boy continues.

The couple look at him with a worried look. The boy bolts out the door, soaking himself in the pouring rain.

"This can't be real, it doesn't feel real," he talks to himself.

The thunder continues to rumble from above. Lightning continues to strike only at the peaka of the mountains that surround the town. It's coming from all directions, from every peak.

The boy whispers to himself, "There's something in the mountains."

He begins to sprint through the streets. They seem to be flooding at an unusual speed. He runs over the bridge.

He quickly opens his book, his hands quivering from the cold. The rain soaks itself through the first few pages of the book. He flips to the next few pages, reading his exact conversation he had with the baker. Though the rain begins to quickly soak into the other pages as well.

A bundle of words appear the next few pages, though the ink is smudged. The words become hard to read. The boy shuts the book, holding it tightly against his chest. He continues to run through the open road, leading up to the top of the mountains. The sound of the crackling lightning becomes closer and closer. He reaches the thick snow, making it hard to run through.

His eyes shift back to the town's centre. It seems so far away but so close.

"I've been here before," he mumbles, "I've been here before more than once."

He sees an opening to a cave in the distance, hoping to unfold the answers to his questions. The lightning strikes again, striking in front of the cave's entrance. He waits for an open opportunity and sprints into the cave breathlessly. He shivers, wrapping his arms around himself to keep him warm. He takes a good look around, the place seems familiar. The walls of the cave are damp yet so perfectly shaped. As he had told himself before, he had been here more than once.

He wanders deeper into the cave, leaving himself in the dark with no torch to guide his way. He can see a dim reflection of light ahead of him, a shade of blue. He carefully walks towards it, leading himself through another opening deeper inside the cave. He raises his eyes to see a large cave room. What surrounds him seems to be the shells of crystal pods, shining their glaring lights at his eyes. He takes a step closer to one of the pods, covered with frost and ice. He wipes the pod's surface, and sees a boy's face with his eyes closed shut. He stumbles in fear and nearly loses his balance, realizing that the boy that lies within the pod in front of him is himself. He looks around him, all of the crystal pods are the same, filled with more naked bodies, unborn like fetuses stuck in their wombs. Each of them have umbilical cords, attached to the surface of every pod, as if they were living from the oxygen beyond the pod's shell. The boy observes them carefully, as if he had knew what they were, once before in his lifetime. One of the bodies raise their hands to the surface gently. The boy slowly reaches out to it willingly, having the feeling of being connected to it, one with it. His hand touches the other hand.

A sudden soft wind harshly appears, brushing against a teenage boy that finds himself sitting on the edge of a bridge. His steady eyes are fixated on a book of empty pages in front of him as his legs dangle above the flowing river beneath him.

"You shouldn't have touched the hand," an elderly lady appears with a cold frown, wearing a thick, white woollen coat.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" the boy replies.

She lightly chuckles and turns her back to walk away, "No, but you will soon."

The boy laughs back, "Sure, whatever you say-" he stutters as he witnesses her sudden disappearance.

He pauses, as a familiar gush of wind brushes past his face, "I've been here before."

He takes a good look around himself. A couple walks past him, happily laughing together. He observes them, their perfect appearance. They begin to disappear, pixels of their bodies rupture into the air, like a glitch in the matrix. A burst of laughter appears behind him, his eyes shift to see the couple, once again walking over the bridge, as if they had repeated their appearance. The boy realizes that they are walking towards something, a door to a nearby building in the distance. He quickly stands up and rushes over to open it. The door is locked. He searches around him for a spare key or a way of getting inside. He stares back at the couple, disappearing again and again in a pattern. He closes his eyes, and places his hand against the door. A soft wind brushes against his face. He opens his eyes to see that the door has disappeared, just like the woman, just like the couple. It had been as if the door had never existed in the first place, with no screws or no punctures in the wall. He takes a brave step inside of the building, entering a dark room with a bright display of light in the corner. What seems to be in the corner is a mobile phone, lit up by its bright screen. He kneels down to observe it. The screen shows a question, with two small objects below it.

He reads the question, "Choose one?"

Below the words are two objects; a bird and a hand.

He mumbles, "A woman... or an apple. Not much of a choice, is it?"

He stares around the room to look for any clues or any answers, but the room is left empty.

"The woman told me that I shouldn't have touched the hand, does that mean the image translates to the image of a woman?" he questions.

The boy enters a cloud of thoughts, pondering about the woman's sudden disappearance, "I do not trust the woman, so I must choose the apple."

His finger lingers over the object of an apple. He taps on the apple image. A white screen appears on the phone.

A woman sighs, "Well, it seems that you aren't fit for the job. You failed the simulation."

A man takes his headset off and rushes to the garbage bin. He vomits in the bin violently, coughing up drops of his own blood. The man is in a black room, with a black desk the lies in front of an elderly lady, dressed in a white, woollen coat. He turns his head to the woman, his body shivering, "No, let me redo it. I promise, I won't disappoint you this time. Please, I beg you."

The woman sighs, "The drug should be out of your system in twenty-four hours. You may experience mild effects such as hallucinations of the simulation but it will all wear out eventually. Now please, leave the room. There are other applications waiting."

"Please, give me a second chance. I need this job, I need it for my family and my two baby girls. I'll do anything," he stutters.

She sighs, "In that case, I am sorry, but you failed your application. You chose the apple, you chose Eve. You are not fit for our company. Now, for the last time, leave the room."

The man deadly glares at the woman, and stomps out the door. He enters a hallway, with a long line of men and women in front of him, patiently waiting to enter the room he had just been in. He hesitates from speaking to the others, because he knows nothing from the Holy Christ would spit from his mouth. He walks down the hallway, into a reception area. He stomps out of the building's exit. He opens the company flyer he had received before his application. The cover of the flyer reads the answer to an enigma, the reality of a new world.