There was a time when I was as naive and ignorant as most people. But that was a long time ago.
You see, my whole world view shattered on that fateful day, and now I finally understand why and what happened.
There are many unexplained and forgotten encounters in this world that everybody seems to forget randomly as time moves forward. From a few thousands to a few hundred who remember.
I know why that is and I've become one of those encounters.
The issue is that not even I recognized myself on that fateful day.
I remember everything now though, and if you're interested I'll tell you my story.
Well grab a snack and a drink cause we're going to be starting from the beginning.
No not birth, but the day I met the person who changed my life.
(*Lightning Flash followed by a fade to darkness*)
It was a stormy night. After a series of misfortunate events. I was walking down the street, head slumped forward, staring at the ground. I had just left the house and was making my way towards a certain place.
What happened? It's a little difficult to explain so I guess we'll go a little further back.
(*Fade to darkness*)
It was around 2 weeks earlier.
I was around 29 at the time. Had a wife, 2 sons and a daughter. Life was perfect, or so I thought.
I had just suffered possibly the greatest shock I've ever experienced, up to that point anyways, and was trying my best to leave the area. My mind was clouded and my heart was aching.
Not only was I fired that day after years of hard work and dedication, but I also found out nothing in my life was real.
"Jak!" A voice called from the distance. I ignored them and continued walking. I couldn't help it after all. I was very emotional back then.
You see I had just started accepting that my life would be a bit different from others, but the reason wasn't as majestic or tragic as some others. I was just a normal slightly wealthy man who didn't understand what love was, I thought I did seeing as I had a family, but I now know that I thought too highly of myself and the true way of the world.
"Jak! Will you answer me?! Please!" The voice begged. And as naive as I was I listened. I shouldn't have but I did. I hoped that maybe I was just imagining it all. After all it's not every day you pour everything you have into making the life of someone else better.
"What do you want me to say!? I forgive you? You lied to me! For 7 years you have manipulated me! Turned me into nothing. Then I was thrown to the side the moment I was no longer important!" I yelled back at them. Which was what led to today's events. It might not seem like much yet, so just bear with me for a bit. You'll understand soon enough what I understand now, if you try to of course.
I turned around and looked at them.
"Jak it was my job! I had no choice!" the voice replied. She was obviously upset too, but I was in too much shock to notice at the time.
"I trusted you, and now you tell me you were just doing your job? Do the past 7 years mean nothing to you?" I yelled.
"You know it's not li-" She tried to argue.
But my younger self wasn't having it, and left before she could finish.
I know I know, a generic love story turned sour... but that's not quite accurate...
There's a machine, one I only learned about as I died.
This machine makes predictions of the future and the best way to keep them from happening or ensuring it happens. But it also has limits, it can't predict unnatural situations, nor the consequences of those unnatural events occuring until it makes a different prediction, if it's able to that is.
The way it works involves daily personality assessments, and countless surveillance devices set up to where there's only few places in a city where you can escape detection. This is different for rural areas though as it'd be a waste of resources.
This machine predicted something troublesome about myself however. It predicted that when I reached a certain age, I'd likely commit mass murder and many different things. Why not kill me then and there? They had no reason to, after all they had a solution. Give me a reason not to. That reason being what I thought was my family. What the machine did not predict however was that I'd be fired too. And when the officials heard how I reacted, they rushed to their little machine. Apparently the small issue of me losing my job triggered a mental switch in me, which changed how I should've reacted, to the way I did react. But that's not important, what's important is what happens in 2 weeks from then. let's get back to that now that you understand what happened to lead me to that certain place.
(*Flash of bright light*)
Walking down the road I pull out my phone, and start looking at various images of random people I thought were friends, thinking to myself if any of them were real. Even now I don't really have an answer to that thought.
The place I was heading towards was a bar. Though it wasn't just any bar... this bar was outside of the area covered by the city's surveillance system. Which makes sense seeing as it's a place where lots of big shots make their livings. This was the heart of the corrupt. And at this point I didn't care who or what was there. I just knew I wanted away from it all. Which was another mistake. Apparently I continued on the original path of slowly becoming a mass murderer by going there. After all I was never told why I was 'betrayed', just that it needed to happen for the sake of many other lives. And that sent me here.
Although it was a different place, the events that would happen were what would solidify the ending. Or as I call it... The beginning.