The Answers

Introduction

When I was little, I was vibrant. Energetic. Charismatic. And naturally, extremely imaginative. I would curate things that I never could now. I wouldn’t say I was naive at all. A lot of kids aren’t, but regardless, adults continue to underestimate them. Have they never seen the movie Orphan? Poltergeist? The Exorcist? They should fear us and be more cautious of us. We’re smarter and stronger than adults like to presume. I’ve never liked any of the adults in my life. Even now, I don’t feel like an adult or relate to them whatsoever. Thankfully, though, I’ve still maintained a lot of my curiosity and I really don’t think I’ll ever be rid of the childlike aura within me.

Still, I constantly long to go back in time and relive my childhood...when my perception was, in many words, the same when it comes to thinking thoroughly into everything, but completely different when it came to how I perceived the world around me. Everything and everyone around me was different. I know longer saw the world with the childlike glasses I once had. I saw people and the evil in this world for the things they really were...common and all around us. The world lost its color on that cloudy, cold night in November and everything was revealed. It all started at what once was a pristine, rustic barn—fast forward to present day and its interior and exterior are now older and lifeless. I still think it’s beautiful and I remember the first day my friends and I saw it come alive while everything we knew about the world around us died.

1987

“Ivy, we really need to get home. You know that our parents aren’t chill like yours,” Ava said before shuffling her feet to a stop at the entrance of the huge white barn in front of us.

“Yeah,” Ava’s twin brother Mason added, pulling the brim of his beanie down over his ears. “Plus, it’s getting dark. It’s not like we're exactly that close to home. This creepy ass place is in the middle of nowhere, dude.” It was the night before our freshman year in high school and we had been inseparable since diapers.

I peered up at the high, grandiose ceiling in the barn we had just discovered, aiming my flashlight every which way. “First of all, my parents aren’t chill; they’re just uninvolved. Secondly, where’s your sense of adventure? We did way scarier stuff when we were kids. Remember when we stayed the night at the local cemetery? Also,” I said before swiveling my hips to face them and crossing my arms. “This place isn’t creepy—I think it’s cool. It could be our hideout from our parents, bullies or just plain bullshit that happens in life. You guys don’t think there’s something special about this place? It’s dark as hell in here, but I’m sure it’ll probably just need some redecorating or something.”

They exchanged glances and shrugged, finally taking a step inside. It was a twin thing, I guess. Suddenly, the lights gradually turned on. The three of us looked up silently, in complete awe.

“You’re right, it isn’t creepy,” Mason said. “It’s actually—”

I interrupted him before he even finished his sentence. “Amazing.”

Ava stepped forward, her steps echoing throughout the air around us. “It’s actually freaking beautiful. I definitely don’t think it’ll need any redecorating.” She was right. The walls were painted a bright shade of white and their were fancy decorations adorned throughout it. Everything in the barn looked as if it were glittery.

I smiled as I spun around slowly with my arms outstretched. “I knew this place was special. I told you guys. I just get a feeling about it.”

The air filled with a resounding silence and before I knew it, the barn came alive. The wind picked up and I felt my hair lift off my shoulders. I looked over at Ava and Mason and saw that their jackets were blowing behind them. Time felt as if it were sped up and the colors around us were so much brighter.

“What the?—'' Before Ava could finish, the windows on the second floor closed and a Main Menu tab was projected onto each of them. It read:

Where would you like to start?

The Past

Secrets in Your Town

Society is Lying to You

The Future

State your answer clearly.

“What is this?” Ava asked.

My eyes gleamed. “It looks like it has the answers to everything.”

Mason walked up the stairs and touched his hand to one of the screens. It just fuzzed up and became clear again, displaying the same message.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. The only ‘technology’ like thing we have in our house is our little brother’s radio-controlled car,” Ava said.

“My friend Dan’s dad has an Apple IIGS, but that’s all I’ve ever really seen. He never lets Dan go on it ‘cause I guess it was real expensive.”

I ignored them, my eyes glued to the screens all around me, completely blown away at what I was seeing in front of me. My eyes skimmed the four options repeatedly.

“I guess we should start...from the start?” I finally said out loud.

And after I said that, nothing was ever the same again. In fact, I think it may have changed the path of this world forever.

2021

I stood at the exact same extraordinary barn that I had been to so many times before. The last time I stood at these doors was during my senior year of college. The barn taught my friends and I uncovered truths, solutions to problems in our lives and what the next step was in order to get everything we could out of it. And it worked. The barn was always right and, because of it, I have absolutely everything in life that I could ever ask for. It taught my friends and I everything and it showed us everything. It knew what happened and what was going to happen, without skipping a beat. It helped shape and benefit our entire lives. This barn was in all of our lives from our freshman year of highschool to our senior year of college. Unfortunately, I haven’t spoken to Ava or Mason since. I guess maybe the barn thought of everything except for how to stay friends with each other. The thing is, the barn had some rules.

The barn’s ‘system’, I guess I should call it, required three things of us and they were the following:

1. You must never question anything and you should always trust the process.

2. Sometimes you will have individual sessions. You must not discuss it with each other.

3. You must not share any of this with anyone outside of the group.

To this day, I still remember those rules word for word. It’s kind of hard to forget them when we had to memorize them when they were first introduced. I struggled to open the rusted door for a few seconds before swinging it open and taking a step inside. It still had the same vastness and airiness about it. It was a little—okay, a lot run-down. It looked like a fire had burned down only the inside. The outside was intact, though, and it didn’t feel hopeless. The magical barn that had changed Ava, Mason and I’s lives in 1987 didn’t feel gone. In fact, this barn is one of the only things that felt infinite to me. Indestructible. Suddenly, the lights came on, the colors grew brighter and the wind picked up. My heart fills with relief. Here we go again.