He woke in a double bed. Under a thick blanket that kept him warm but not warm enough. At first glance, he seemed to be in a room with no window. But it didn't take long to find the window buried under the heavy curtain that was the same yellowish white as the walls. The 15 x 15 room had the bed, a table with a chair, and a cupboard. So little and yet it didn't seem bare.
His eyes saw but what struck him first was the emptiness. Not the emptiness outside, but the emptiness inside of him. It birthed the questions. What was happening? Where was he? Who was he?
He sat up. The blanket fell away and the cold leaped onto him. As he shivered, he was truly awake. He saw the blinking red light on the table. He didn't leave the bed immediately. He was in a pair of thin pyjama pants of a light grey colour and a t-shirt that was even thinner. Not the clothes for a cold night. He could see the chill on the floor. And he was barefooted. He sat looking at the blinking light for a long while, before finally walking over.
He curled into himself on the chair. Looked closely at the blinking red light that seemed to be calling him. He took a deep breath and pressed on the red light.
A faint screen opened up over the table, and a video played. It was a message he recorded and left for himself.
**
I know you're confused. And scared. And lost. And all sorts of complicated.
Hear me out. And trust me. I promise, it was absolutely necessary.
You're name is Min. You're in your dorm at Pshi Academy. You're a student of the research program, which is actually the nickname for the program, Modern Evolution. You were a Beta Tester for Gaia.
For the last nine months, you've been living with Gaia. You've been living the future. It should have been a dream come true. But it was more. So much more.
As a Beta Tester, you were supposed to test the limits. Which was why you were given Super User access. Maybe they weren't expecting you to find anything. Maybe they were convinced you would be no different from the other Beta Testers. Unfortunately for them, different was exactly what you were.
You found a bug. A bug that granted Gaia access to users' consciousness. To all of the recorded memories of the users. The possibilities afforded by such a bug are endless. The utopia promised by Gaia would actually turn into a dystopia.
Realising this, you tried to tell on the bug. But you learned that the bug might be intentional. You learned that you might be in grave danger. You had to disappear. And you only knew one way.
So, here you are.
Knowing of the bug, you cannot be silent. You cannot allow for the possibilities to be realised. You must stop the release of Gaia. You must stop them.
You must survive.
**
At the end of the message, a window with a prompt appeared. With a line of text was on top.
Rewriting in process…
Underneath was a progress bar showing the rapid progress of the execution of the program.
Before he realised what was happening, the program completed execution. The video message was overwritten with the log of the final day of beta testing Gaia. And the log was uploaded to the testers' server. Another window appeared, with a message from Gaia. All local data was being erased. It was a longer process, but it too only allowed for him to keep watching in inaction. Ten minutes later, the screen disappeared. It was all over.
Min hadn't moved in the chair. His eyes had a glazed look. His face was frozen in disbelief. All of him was frozen stiff. He didn't have time to process everything and it was all gone. He only had his memory to rely on, and he wasn't sure he could trust in his memory right now.
It all felt unreal. He was certain this was a dream. Any moment now he would wake. Maybe forget the whole dream. If not, laugh at how scared he was. He sat waiting, and the wait stretched on endlessly, forcing him to come to face the reality of it all.
He had only one question left.
What was happening?