Chapter 1 - A world of nothingness

Chapter 1 - A world of nothingness

He woke to nothing he recognised. Everything was different to him, yet he felt like he knew the things around him He couldn’t remember anything about his life. No memories about his childhood, family. Nothing. He racked his brain and eventually he could only remember his name. Rudolph. Last name? No. He was in a glass tube-like capsule, with other thinner tubes and wires digging into his skin. He floated around in some foggy blue liquid and he had a mouthpiece strapped over his mouth. He felt groggy yet alert. Bubbles drifted from the bottom to the top of the capsule, rubbing against Rudolph’s skin as they passed by. How did I get here? he wondered. Perhaps he was in some sort of mental hospital. Maybe. Just maybe. He pondered on the thought for a couple of minutes and eventually he came to the conclusion that no, he was not in a mental hospital.

And he was naked. Well, mostly naked. He had a pair of shorts on, which were soaked. Rudolph began to wonder if he had memories to remember, or if he had just been created by this machine. Though he had no clothes on, he didn’t feel in the least cold. He looked through the surrounding glass and saw several more glass capsules like his own, arranged in a circle. There were about seven more. Every second container had some other human floating around in it. They were asleep. Like him, they were all stripped down to their underwear. Two wires began pumping something into his head. He could feel it swishing through his brain. It didn’t hurt but it made him feel weaker and weaker and weaker. Rudolph started to panic but his mouthpiece didn’t allow him to scream. Eventually he couldn’t keep his eyes open and fell into a deep, dark world of unconsciousness.

He woke again in a dark room. It wasn’t really a room. No walls, no floor, no roof giving off slightest hint that the room had any dimension. Rudolph looked around only to find the same repetitive entity - nothing. He looked down to see that his body had vanished. He felt around with his hands to find that, well yes, his body had indeed disappeared. It was if he was a ghost. Rudolph tried to move forward but he couldn’t tell if he was moving forward or staying in the same spot. He felt no rush of air when he tried to move. He felt as much as his eyes could see - nothing. Something blinked in the corner of his eye. He turned to see small characters of code suspended in front of him. They changed into words.

Initializing…

Rudolph was stunned. Had he… been put inside a computer game or something? Computer game. How did he know what a ‘computer’ was if the his memory had been wiped? A flash of bright light ended his thoughts abruptly. He squinted to block off the light. Blinked a couple of times. He was dropped into a room with other people.

“It appears we’ve got a new one.”

Everyone turned to look at him, their eyes locked on. Rudolph didn’t want to be the centre of attention. A tall, brown-haired boy came over and looked at him up and down before stepping back. A young, boyish-looking girl raised her eyebrows.

He swallowed. “What is this place?” Rudolph said, breaking the silence.

A dirty-blond man with a stubbly beard walked over to him. “Do you know what just happened to you?”

Rudolph was silent.

“You were created by the Programmers. Name?”

“Rudolph.”

“Steve.” Steve shook his hand. “Now you see, we were all created by the programmers. We are nothing more than strings of code. None of us will ever become a real human. What you see here,” the man spread his arms, “is just code covered with computer graphics.”

What? Rudolph was confused. Thoughts flooded his mind, too many to distinguish which ones were right and which ones he should not think. He was a program? He couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He had his back against the wall and he slid down to the ground.

“I need some time to process this.”

“Aye.”

So he really did not have any memories. No childhood, no family. At least he was on the same level as everyone else. He sat in a corner for a couple of minutes until Steve stood in front of him.

“Hey Rudy. Time to get up. You’ve got a lot to learn,” he said.

Rudolph got up and he took a moment to actually take in surroundings. A white room with computer screens tiling the far wall. A green couch. Couple of automatic doors.

“Okay,” Steve bagan, “First you have got to understand that we - all of us here - are just programs. Including you, my friend. All of us were created at some point in time by the Programmers. They’re the ones who run the place.” He led Rudolph to a glass wall. Perhaps it was a window. “This is where we work.” He pointed to the room on the other side of the glass. “Our job is to act as the AI in computer games. If we don’t do as the Programmers tell us, they either delete us or edit us. When you get edited you don’t feel very good.”

“Did you say that some of us get… deleted?” Rudolph questioned.

Steve sighed. “I’m ‘fraid so. Had some good friends back in the day. Gone now.” He turned his focus back out into the game room. “Today we are the enemies in a military game. Don’t worry, if you die you’ll respawn in a minute or two. Kinda hurts though.” Steve turned around to face the rest of the room. “So basically we are all put into a folder for a particular group of games. They are other programs folders but we rarely get to meet them. From what we know, the Programmers run a gaming website called Teletron, one of the top gaming websites there is, and we are a part of the adventure, fighting and role-playing games. The other programs in the other folders are a part of things like time management games and virtual worlds.”

Steve led Rudolph down a corridor with silver doors in the walls. At last they stopped at one and Steve spoke again. “This is your room. We call ‘em Boxes.”

The doors slid open when Steve pressed a button and inside was more white. White walls, white floor, white roof. It wasn’t very big. There was a bed imbedded in one corner and a computer at the foot of it.

“You’ll be sleeping here. That computer has a program installed for you to do all the coding you wish. It’ll come naturally to you, buddy. Make yourself at home. In about half an hour I’ll come to get you for the next game. Au revoir.” Steve did a quick salute and the doors closed behind him.

Rudolph had some time to burn. He got onto his bed and started up his computer. It only took a couple of seconds to turn on. He touched the screen and it responded. He tapped an icon labelled Coder and it opened up some windows. He started typing.

Coding seemed somewhat familiar to him. His fingers never stopped typing and after a few minutes he had about fifty lines of code in front of him. Rudolph didn’t know what he’d just done. His fingers just seemed to move by themselves. He tapped a button on the screen labelled Run and a clock appeared on the wall. On his screen it said:

variable clock created

Rudolph shrugged and switched off the screen.

Author's Note

Do you think the chapter is too short?