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The Reset Virus

Go back to square one

By Emma FisherPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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Image by Markus Spiske at Unsplash

A heart shaped locket appeared on my hand, my own heart sank, the picturesque world around me started to pixelate and the sweet hum of bird song which filled my mind crackled into a deafening buzz of static. I clamped my hands over my ears but the noise was inside my head, unescapable, my virtual reality was disappearing. It would take only one minute and I would be another victim of the reset virus.

After an agonising minute my natural human senses began to tune into the world around me. The sky was no longer blue, it was green, the sun was a pale blue circle behind a thick haze of gasses. The smell was choking, and my eyes stung like they had been washed in a bath of chlorine. Hunger and thirst hit me like a blow to the stomach I had never felt before. “Water, please where is the water?” I croaked the words out of a voice box I had never used before.

A figure dressed head to toe in a protective suit ran over to me, pushed a mask over my head and yanked my body with such force I fell to my knees. “Where are we going? Who are you?” My words were muffled and I knew the figure who was dragging me across the ground could not hear what I said.

Two loud thuds and a vibration shook through my bones, a huge door had been opened, a vault of sorts, I fell into the structure and the mask was removed from my head painfully catching strands of my hair in the process. “Oouchh! Take me back, pleaasseee put me back!!” I screeched the words out till my voice cracked painfully. A woman dressed in white brought me a glass of liquid, was it water? I brought the substance to my lips and gulped it down greedily as I realised that whatever it was had a neutral Ph and was safe for my consumption.

I looked up at her, my eyes starting to cool and focus now I was sheltered from the harsh gasses, a huge heart was etched onto her hand. It wasn’t a tattoo but was more like a scar. She stared at me with soft, smiling eyes, I felt safe as she laid me onto what seemed to be a recovery bed.

“Hello. Welcome to the end of the world” she spoke in a warm, comforting voice. “What do you mean, the end of the world? What’s happened and where am I?” My words were muted by violent splutters and coughs. “Stay quiet, your voice is not yet strong enough. Listen to me, that is all you need to do”. I realised it was futile speaking, all I could do was accept the information I was about to receive.

“You have been living in a dream world, a computer simulation. Your body is half synthetic, your biological processes have always been dormant. The synthetic nano dust making up the atmosphere provided you with sustenance for life. You will remember a heart shaped locket appearing in your view only a few minutes ago.” I nodded solemnly. She was right, the locket had appeared on my hand then it appeared everywhere in my minds eye. I had forgotten it already but she was jogging my memory softly. “The locket opened and a text was displayed on your retina screen”. How could I forget those words? Each word appeared in my memory like lights switching on around a darkened room, each light illuminating another secret revelation.

Welcome to the end of the world in which you have lived every moment of your life. You have been infected by a virus released into the nano dust particle atmosphere which has been facilitating yours and every other living creature’s illusionary existence for over two hundred years. The Reset Virus is shutting down and disabling all the synthetic components in your body, in one minute you will be left with purely organic functions. You are about to see the real world through your own eyes for the first time.

The atmosphere is strictly hazardous to your biology and if you are unlucky and not brought to shelter within thirty seconds you will die. But better to die a human being than a computerised droid living in a fake world designed to keep you from your true self. You will thank us in the next life.

The virus is spreading across this plane of existence which is planet Earth, we are releasing each and every synthetically modified being from their dream. If you are saved within thirty seconds you have one responsibility which you will dedicate yourself to wholly and without objection. Save those who are released and create the foundations for the new world.

I gasped, eyes wide open, head spinning, the reality hit me so hard I couldn’t sit up in the bed, the strange room tilted and slid from one end to another before my eyes. “Rest lucky one, rest. We will speak when you awaken.”

After awakening from what could have been a couple of days sleep or only a couple of hours, I heard the gentle hum of voices. Life was all around, possibly a hundred people were here. I removed the soft blanket from my body and noticed I was wearing a white lounge suit, the material cocooned me and for the first time I knew what it meant to really feel something physical. My nerve endings were alive for the first time and the friction of the material on my skin felt surreal. I stood up and walked towards the life. A man in a violet coloured lounge suit took my hand and said, “Welcome my dear, welcome to the end of the world and the start of the next!” His eyes were dancing with joy as he spoke. “Come, sit, eat, you must eat”. We are the lucky ones, we were saved within thirty seconds. We must stay alive and aid the transition”.

We walked together through the crowds of equally lucky people, some had just been released from the simulation, some had been here a lot longer. But all had one thing in common, happiness and gratitude. There was a feeling of intense excitement at being part of a select few, the founders and creators of the new reality. We reached a dome shaped space, trays of rice and grains were piled up on the floor, I could see large water dispensers with numerous cups and jars containing brightly coloured sauces. We sat and ate at a circular wooden table with six other people who were also eating and drinking. I ran my fingers over the heart that was engraved into the wood of the table.

A woman with mousy coloured hair and dressed in blue offered me some crackers, she welcomed me as everyone else had done and placed a hand on mine. She had a large heart deeply etched onto her skin, she smiled knowingly as I stared at it. She traced the outline of the faint heart shaped scar etched onto my own hand with her fingers. “This is the symbol of the new Earth. We all have it, the longer you have been awake, the deeper and more clearly the heart will appear on you”. She sounded like the wisest woman in the world. “Can you tell me more, I have so many questions?” There was a subtle retort of laughter from the others at the table. “Dear, of course you have questions, we all do, but only the one who released the virus has all the answers. We learn more each day, but you must be patient.” She closed her eyes as if she were summoning up all the knowledge insider herself and began.

“You remember the words which came out of the locket when you first awoke. That was the message the beating heart gave to us all. It’s the same message for everyone, dating right back to the first. Everything will be marked by the heart once it has been awakened. More than two hundred years ago there was a darkness that gripped humanity. It captured each and every heart and eventually humans sought to become the object of their obsession.”

A man dressed in bright green began to speak in a low voice.

“The year 2000 saw the emergence and acceptance of the computer, a primitive machine with all the promise of a new world, most households had one and despite their slowness and glitches the computer evolved faster than any other thing in the history of the planet. (As far as we know). In the space of only twenty years the computer had adapted to technology no larger than a pin head, everyone relied on the technology. Without the internet you knew nothing, books were outdated, encyclopaedias gathered dust, libraries around the world closed as their computer sections outgrew their book sections. Physical reality was fast becoming useless and unwanted.”

“By the time the year 2100 arrived humans had developed computer technology which was so advanced it could interact with the human body itself, we became computers in a sense. Our bodies began to evolve at the same rate as the technology, we were updated constantly, altered and modified until our biological processes became obsolete and fell into a state of dormancy. Humans moulded themselves into synthetic organisms without the hindrances of an organic body. As time went by, we grew tired of the world around us and created a digital reality for ourselves, one where it was always sunny, always peaceful and beautiful. But there was a terrible price to pay, we lost who we were, and we fell out of tune with our planet, the atmosphere became thick with nano gasses and the planet started to die.

“Then somewhere, somehow the reset virus was released. It has been working relentlessly and spreading, it’s one motive is to destroy the synthetic and awaken the organic.”

A young girl of about 14 years old with big sparkling eyes giggled and spoke in a happy voice. “Some people say the virus was created by the earth itself to rescue us, they say the virus was manufactured by the beating heart within the Earths’ core!”

The wise woman in blue nodded and said “There are theories, but we cannot know for sure. There are some who say the virus was delivered to us by concerned extra-terrestrials who were witnessing our self-destruction. They were benevolent and gifted us the heart locket as a form of rescue. There are rumours that the first one to be dragged out of the toxic atmosphere was brought into a building not unlike the one we are living in and was told the secrets of the virus.”

I thanked them all and vowed I would be eternally grateful for my awakening and would dedicate the rest of my life to spreading any knowledge I received and rescuing as many as I could from the toxic atmosphere. I became the figure in the haze, the first face some would ever see for real with their eyes.

This is my account of the end of the world, pass it on in the hope it will give clarity to those who come after us in the new world. Let it also be a warning so that we never fall into such a mess as we did before.

science fiction
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