Super Simulator

Chapter 38- Flying Spinach Monster

I look out of the window, seeing Jason and Stacie out in the pool. Jason seemed to be making little water steps, and Stacie gracefully stepping on each one, doing some sort of ballet. Even I had to admit, they seemed to be the perfect couple. Two talented, beautiful people. Charming and always able to get what they want because everyone is willing to break their back to be of help.

I sighed, looking away from their moment. Moments are always ruined when they aren't private. I wonder if Stacie loved Jason since I do know he is partially head over heels for her. If it weren't for me. Sometimes I feel like all I want in the world is for someone to love me. To think I'm perfect, even though I have so many flaws.

Silly Emera, do you not remember the boy in the real world?

Spencer. I feel guilt and bile rising up in my throat. This isn't fair to him, or Jason. I need to let one go if I really care for either of them. And whatever that boy chooses, I'll just have to live with it.

"Finally, you realize that." I heard someone say to me.

I turn around, to see the youngest and shortest of our group, Carlyn.

"Caryln..." I start. Oh shit, wait, did she . . . ?

"You catch on quick, you might have a very high IQ. Though I have already estimated everyone. But you do seem bright," Carlyn said. I looked away.

"I know everything," she whispered. She walked beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder. She was one inch shorter than I, and her dark and blue hair seemed to be spiking out in different directions.

"The question is, for how long?" I murmured. "Since you first arrived, you constantly dreamed of the place," she said.

She pushed against the window ledge and began tugging at her hair.

"I should've known! All of the signs in my face, that we aren't in reality, we're experiments, weapons!"  she hissed. "I had to let out the fact I was a genius trying to figure out where you went! And-and it was killing me! I let out a secret, and last time it got me into deep crap! You wanna know why? I'll say why! Once I was tested, my mother figured she could make money off of me. After dad had to leave her drunk arse, she became sober enough to realize I could hack into accounts to support our family! If I didn't, she would drop whatever was left in whatever bottle was in her head and smash it against my head! I was helpless! I had to study every word in the dictionary, do everything I could to ensure I would get into a good college, and finally, leave that hellhound!" She pounded her small fists against a wall, a stern, calm expression contradicting the crack in her voice that threatened to have her cry.

I had no idea what to do. I froze in place. The genius, the baby, the composed one was breaking her shit. She sighed, and turned to face me. Her eyes were wet with fat tears, but she wouldn't let them fall. She must've learned from me.

"I guess it doesn't matter anymore; I'm out. And now I won't have a choice to go back, not that I would choose to go back in the first place. But none of us have a future anymore, we can't get jobs or go to college. All because we were brought here, but now we can never have futures. We were never supposed to alert the people we were alive. We were supposed to be missing, dead even. They wanted the public to forget about us. They weren't going to bring us back. But most of us didn't care, we were plenty happy to get out, most of us at least," she laughed.

I hadn't thought about that. I guess we won't go to college or jobs or anything. Who would want weird kids- or adults when we're of age- with powers or highlights who were missing? The lab now had our futures.

"They aren't bad. We volunteered everything. We were that helpless I believe. We chose. This was our choice, to escape. It's all any of us ever wanted," she mumbled. I snapped my head in her direction, my hair flying about my face. "What do you mean?" I questioned her.

She stared at me, her wide blue eyes boring into mine. "I remembered. When they took me. They said that they could get me a better future; an escape. They said it would be for the good of science, the universe, me. That I'd be happier, which, I am . My drunk mom  walked in and demanded me to go back to her, and I realized I didn't care for the woman anymore. So I took the hand of one of the men, and they drove me off. It was a long journey, and I slept most of the time. I never even knew where we were going, I was that broken that I didn't care. I woke up, in those white clothes and put into a room to wait to be drugged. Of course, then I hadn't known I was going to be drugged or put into a simulator. All I knew was that I was waiting for my better future. And with 9 other kids who were probably doing the same. I suppose when they drugged me also with something to make me forget about what happened because I didn't know how I got there in the field, with the other kids and clothes and everything. It was only a few days after you left I remembered," she said. 

The news surprised me so much, I had to lean against the wall for support. We all decided to come? They've been watching us our whole lives, knowing we had what it took, knowing we would accept. I don't think I would have volunteered to go, even with all the bullying. What happened so suddenly for me to decide to come with strangers to escape reality? How did they convince me? Did they threaten me? Did they take me by force? Or was I just like Carlyn, not giving a damn about what could happen.

"Oh by the flying spinach monster, do the others remember?" I asked. She shook her head. "I don't know how I found out. Someone must've done something in the lab. Or I must've glitched. It doesn't matter."

She turned to leave the room, which I suddenly realized had complex equations from the floor to the ceiling, COVERED in it. I could only see so many, some calculus, come trigonometry, some algebra, some physics some quantum mechanics, some of everything. I could only understand a few of the equations and abbreviations. Carlyn must've been working on something BIG.

"I was trying to figure out the stuff about the simulator. And it's more real than I could've dreamed," she chuckled in the doorway. "Did you know that Somnium is Latin for dream? It took me a while to figure out, even though I'm fluent in Latin." She said. I nodded, not knowing what else to do.

"You speak fluent Latin?" I asked. She shrugged, "Well, mostly. And French. Though Tyler speaks fluent Spanish. We've all got our secrets, I'm just the keeper of them. I just can't help but know everything about everyone. There's so much THINKING. I've realized I could also use telepathy, like send messages to other people. I've only been practicing on Marcus, though I can't read his mind whenever he doesn't want me to know something. Just because partners can't use their powers against each other once their highlights match."

Without thinking, I hugged her. I hugged her for the sake of it, for being a good friend. I needed a hug for learning some truth, and she needed it for keeping the truth for all of our sake. I bet no one else even knew of what she told me.

"I know your secret too, Emera," she whispered. "I know everyone's stories. You don't know all of theirs, you just know the main thing. What started it all. You're the only one where no one else knows a smidgen of what happened." Her voice quiet and parched.

"Struggling to find smaller words for me to understand huh?" I chuckled, letting go of her. She grinned, "In a simple term, duh."

I grinned back.