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Life at the Cost of Drinking a Cup of Time: The Simulated Dream
Part Four: Next Experiment: Time Trap The next experiment lasts two hours and is considered the final stage before the main experiment. However, things don’t go as expected in this trial. Alex suddenly falls into a time loop and is sent back to his childhood. Professor Darcy, noticing the changes with concern, says to his team in a voice filled with anxiety: "He’s trapped at a point far from his past, in a trap of his childhood trauma." He instructs his team: "Adjust the signals so that specific memories are triggered for him, and prevent his mind from deciding where it wants to go. We must ensure this doesn’t get out of our control." Despite the team’s efforts to prevent Alex from returning to his childhood, Alex unintentionally goes back to age five, sitting in his room, drawing. But suddenly, his stepmother, Monica, enters the room and harshly says, "Why haven’t you cleaned your room?" Alex, shocked by the harshness and crying, leaves his drawing unfinished to obey Monica. As he cleans his room, his focus seems scattered due to his distress and anxiety. After tidying up, he returns to complete his drawing. The drawing depicts a strange, unknown place—an unfamiliar location that he’s never seen before. The drawing seems like it’s from a future time, but not a future he recognizes. As night falls, Alex, tearfully, shows his drawing to his father. However, his father, with a saddened and upset expression, tells him, "You need to listen to Monica, Alex." This statement deeply affects Alex, and he goes to bed, crying himself to sleep. Meanwhile, Professor Darcy and his team are doing everything they can to pull Alex out of this state. They try to modify the signals to wake him up and bring him out of this nightmarish state. But when Alex finally wakes up, his cries echo in the air, and he shouts that, in the last moment, he heard Sarah screaming. Professor Darcy, with concern, tells his team: "This is getting out of control. This situation is far more complicated than we thought." That night, Rosalyn, who is reviewing the recorded tape of the experiment, tells Alex that, at the beginning of the tape, she heard a childish voice from Alex asking for help. The voice came from a time full of emotions, pain, and trauma. But when they listened to the tape again, there was no new voice. This occurrence deeply worries Rosalind, raising the question of what might happen to Alex in the future and whether these signals are affecting Alex's mind in an unpredictable way. This experiment and its complexities have trapped Alex in an unknown world from his past. The question arises whether he will be able to break free from this time trap and his childhood trauma, or if this is just the beginning of the nightmares that will emerge for him in the future. And most importantly, will Alex change the past, or will the past change him?
By Vafa Abbasiabout a year ago in Fiction
Life at the Cost of Drinking a Cup of Time: The Simulated Dream
Part Three: The Nightmarish Dream -One Day Before the Next Phase of the Experiment- Alex lay in his room, but sleep eluded him. Thoughts swirled endlessly in his mind, and he felt as though something deep inside was pulling him. Suddenly, a physical pain settled in his chest, and before he could react, the world around him began to spin. A sharp dizziness overtook him, as if his entire body was being sucked into an endless whirlpool. He opened his eyes and found himself in a dark, endless corridor. All around him were tall, narrow walls that seemed to stretch forever. At the beginning of the hallway, a small, faint light illuminated the space, casting deep shadows that made the surroundings even darker. His legs felt heavy, and with every step he took, the sound of scraping against the ground echoed in his ears. His breath became labored, as if the air around him was thinning. Suddenly, a loud laugh broke the silence of the night. The sound, coming from an unknown depth, was not only strange but seemed to be coming from all directions. Trembling with fear, Alex began to run, but the corridor still appeared endless. The further he ran, the louder and more terrifying the laughter became. The sounds pierced his mind in a way that was both unsettling and maddening. In the midst of this darkness, a faint light caught his eye. He stepped toward it, and gradually, the light transformed into a large wooden door at the end of the hallway. It seemed as though everything was within his grasp—the door called to him in a magical way. But as he drew closer to the door, the laughter grew louder. Alex placed his hand on the door, and as his heart raced, he opened it. Inside the room stood Sara, but something had changed in her face. Her gaze was cold and emotionless, not the loving, serene look Alex remembered. She looked at him with a ruthless expression, just as she had in the nightmares. "Alex..." Sara’s voice cast a cruel shadow over him. "You shouldn’t enter this game... this isn’t just a game. It’s a game with time, a game with fate." Alex responded with a trembling voice, "Sara... what are you saying? What happened here?" Sara smiled, a smile that lacked any warmth. "You’re just a pawn in this game, Alex. Nothing is real. This is just a dream." Before Alex could say anything more, the terrifying laughter returned, echoing through the room like deadly gunshots in his ears. He tried to approach Sara, but his legs felt heavy, as if he was trapped in a swamp of fear and despair. With every step he took, he seemed to get more and more trapped, caught in a never-ending loop. Suddenly, the ground beneath him began to tremble, and the space around him twisted. The walls shook, and withered trees and strange shadows passed by him. It felt as though everything he came near began to vanish, as if the world around him was collapsing from within. Alex looked around in utter horror. He couldn’t understand what was happening. Everything was changing too fast, and he felt like he was caught in a digital, simulated world—a matrix, or perhaps an endless nightmare. He gasped for breath, shouting at himself to wake up. The more he shouted, the more he felt trapped in this deceptive world. "I need to wake up..." he repeated to himself, as the world around him began to disintegrate. Then, everything fell silent. When Alex opened his eyes, he was met with a cold, snowy landscape. Immediately, he realized that nothing in his surroundings was real. It had all been a nightmare. He was lying in his bed, still heavy with sleep. With a deep breath, Alex found a sense of calm and finally understood that what he had experienced was only a nightmare. But he still felt that deep inside that dream, something more than what he had seen was hidden. Something that reminded him that fate and time couldn’t simply be manipulated.
By Vafa Abbasiabout a year ago in Fiction
Guardians and Angels | Chapter Three (Part 10)
We headed into the night together, two boys on the cusp of forever, heading west, chasing a sun settled just over the horizon onto the Pacific Ocean. Backpacks on, baseball hats backward, sweaters pulled over our tee shirts, stepping out in unison, choreographed in our marching.
By Christopher Dubbsabout a year ago in Fiction
A Silent Language
The first time Lena saw him, he was sitting alone on the park bench with a sketchpad in his lap. She passed by that bench every afternoon on her walk home, but that day something slowed her steps. Maybe it was the way the sun hit his dark curls, or how still he sat, like the world around him didn’t touch him at all.
By Alpha Cortexabout a year ago in Fiction
Broken Dreams and Pony Screams. Content Warning.
It was Sunday and raining. It was April, 1822. My father was teaching me how to ride a horse through the mud. He said it was dangerous in New York for a young lady such as myself, being both beautiful and wealthy, not to know how to ride a horse. I might need to escape aggressive, or worse, peasant suitors.
By Alex H Mittelman about a year ago in Fiction
Buldumêch Drank Their Love. Content Warning. AI-Generated.
The first thing Clara noticed was the silence. Not the absence of sound—no, the house still creaked, the wind still hissed through the cracked bedroom window, and Daniel’s breath still came in slow, sleeping rasps beside her. It was the *other* silence. The one that had settled between them like a third presence in their bed. The silence of a word left unsaid, a touch ungiven, a kiss withheld.
By Chinonso Ogbonnaabout a year ago in Fiction
Lamia. Top Story - April 2025. Content Warning.
“She’s the first?” Mona asked the Doctor. “She is,” Dr. Brody nodded with a smile. “And it’s safe?” Mona asked, wringing her hands together. Judith Brody M.D. had dreamed of this day since she was a child. Finally, something good could come from her obsession. The obsession she’d had ever since that monster had destroyed her family and had nearly taken her life.
By Raine Fielderabout a year ago in Fiction
