Title: Every game you play
Sep. 29th, 2024 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swirlsofpurple“Would you like to quit the simulation?”
“Why do you keep saying that? What the fuck are you talking about?!” Lia immediately regrets snapping at her husband. It’s just that, ever since her father passed away last week, he keeps asking the same question. And surely, if anyone is going to lose their mind over the loss, it should be her.
Evan sighs, sitting down opposite her. “You remember how we met?”
“Of course. You had that dumb, broken, machine that was supposed to provide virtual reality experiences.”
“It wasn’t broken.”
Lia laughs. “Well it sure as fuck didn’t do anything.”
“Lia… that whole thing: you getting out of the machine, thinking nothing had happened, that was part of the simulation. Everything since then has been part of the simulation.”
“No. You’re kidding right? This isn’t funny.”
“It’s true.”
She rises hurriedly, backing away. Her heart pounding. “Let me out! Let me out NOW!”
Evan lifts his hands, placating. “Okay, okay.”
*
Lia wakes. The machine has left spots of pain on her. The room holds the barely-there familiarity of a place she only saw once three years ago, yet remembers because she met someone important there. She’s sitting in the machine. Evan is climbing out of an identical machine beside her.
She’s been in a simulation for three years. It’s dizzying. What happened in the last three years and what was before that? What’s real and what’s imagined? Is she considered missing, is anyone looking for her? Her entire marriage, her entire relationship, is fake. Tears begin to form, she blinks to stop them. Pushes her hurt into anger.
“You stole three years of my life. Why?”
Gesturing at the machine, Evan says, “It makes it seem like longer. It’s only been three hours.”
“Why did you do this to me?”
“It’s one of the services we provide: we help people out of bad situations. Your friend, who got you the tickets, she paid me to get you away from your abusive boyfriend.”
“And pretending to be married to me was part of that?”
“No. I fell in love with you.”
Lia rests her face in her hands. “I can’t deal with this right now. I need to be alone. I need to get some sleep. And think.”
“Alaistair is outside. He’s waiting for you.”
Her entire insides clench. Fuck. It’s only been three hours. Fuck. The pain isn’t from the machine. It’s from the bruises that are yet to fade. “Get rid of him. Tell him to leave.”
*
“What do you mean she’s not coming out? What have you done to her?” Alaistair yells.
She can’t hear what Evan’s saying, but can clearly hear every word of protest from her ex.
“Let me back there.”
He’s not going to leave. Lia stands, grits her teeth, and walks through the door. And, regressing instantly, finds herself staring at the floor. She forces her head up, even though it feels like staring into the sun. “Listen, this is over, we’re over.”
Alaistair frowns. “What are you talking about babe? Has he been filling your head with nonsense shit? Remember, you can’t be listening to other people; you’re so gullible, you know you can only trust me.”
“I’m hearing your words and I cannot believe this used to work on me.”
“Come on, you know how much I love you, more than anyone has ever loved you.”
Lia rolls up her left sleeve, holding up her bruise-addled arm. “This. Is. Not. Love.”
“You know I’m only trying to make you better. Once you’re better, it will all be good and I won’t have to hurt you anymore.”
“We’re done. I’m not going with you. Leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He moves to grab her.
A security guard she hadn’t even noticed steps between them. “Sir, you can leave of your own volition, or we can drag you. It’s up to you.”
Alaistair snarls, but walks out.
*
A sudden revelation. “Dad’s alive.”
“Yes.”
Heady, joyful, relief fills her. “I need to see him.”
She should probably get a cab, but lets Evan drive her. The distance feels eternal. And suffocating. She starts looking for a hotel on her phone.
“You can stay with me,” Evan says.
“Our whole relationship is a lie.”
“No it isn’t. I love you and you love me. That’s real.”
“You lied to me the entire time and you were in control the entire time.”
“I was in no more control than you were. You had all the freedom you have in the real world.”
“If that was true, then I would’ve left Alaistair in the real world and putting me through all this was unnecessary.”
“That’s not how it works, it’s kind of like lucid dreaming, some part of your subconscious is aware that it’s not real and it gives people the chance to explore things they wouldn’t in the real world.”
“I might have left. You don’t know.”
“Yeah. You might have. But you stayed four years, and he broke your bones, and you never so much as filed a police report.”
“Fuck you. You knew nothing you did in there would have any consequences.”
“Quite the opposite actually. Every single thing I did mattered, because it determined whether the greatest love of my life would love me back, would stay, in spite of all this.”
She shakes her head. “If you really loved me, you would have told me the truth. You would’ve ended the simulation.”
“Generally, if people are in the simulation for fewer ‘years’ than the bad relationship, they end up going back to the relationship. And I’d rather you hate me than risk you going back to that fucker.”
Lia can’t tell if the words are genuine or a manipulation tactic. She wonders at her propensity for men who like control. It’s entirely possible she’s still in the simulation.
*
Lia stands in front of her father, stares for an age: taking in the colour in his face, the wrinkles in motion, the animation. She wants to hug him, but he’ll just call her weak.
“I love you dad.”
“Ooh, what’s brought this on then?”
“Nothing.” She stares at him a moment longer, and then says, “Goodbye.”
She doesn’t want to stay and sour things again. She’s done what she came for.
*
She lays in her random hotel bed that night, thinking instead of sleeping. She’s alone. Alaistair isolated her. She hasn’t seen her friends in years. All the work she did to regain those friendships isn’t real. And all the new friendships she made, none of those people are even real. There’s a sharp ache of loss at that. Is it crazy to grieve people who never actually existed?
*
“I’m going to go to Alaistair’s while he’s at work and get my stuff. Will you come with me?”
“Of course,” Evan says.
“Don’t get any ideas about things being okay with us. I just don’t want to go alone. And I don’t have anyone.”
“You have me. You’ll always have me. Even if it’s just as a friend.”
“Hmm.”
*
It’s bizarre going back to a room she hasn’t been in for three years, but was in yesterday. Her make-up is all the muted tones Alaistair prefers. Her clothes: all long sleeves to hide bruises, no skirts, no dresses.
She breathes, in and out, just like her therapist taught her to. Another thought occurs.
“It was fake therapy! You had me going to a fake therapist! That is beyond–”
“She’s real. We have a therapist on staff, she enters simulations when needed.”
“Oh. Okay. Okay.” Breathing isn’t working. She falls to her knees. Large hiccup-sobs escape.
Evan wraps his arms around her. She lets him. She cries and cries and cries.
He keeps holding her long after she stops.
“I’m right back at square one. I have to rebuild everything. I can’t do this again. I can’t.”
“You’re the strongest person I know. And you’re not at square one. I remember at the beginning, you kept wanting to go back to Alaistair, can you even imagine doing that now? You’ve changed so much and you’ve seen what you can do.”
*
Lia finds a nice place to rent. She starts her overtures into friendship with Cami, the one who bought her the virtual reality experience tickets. It turns out all her old friends want to see her. The meet up is awkward: she has difficulty recalling which things she knows are true and which things were part of the simulation. But she agrees to a second meet up and a third, and things are slowly getting easier.
Applying for jobs is a mind-fuck. She has no favourite lie to avoid telling them that the gap is due to her abusive ex not wanting her to work.
And she goes on a first date with her husband.
*
“So, tell me about yourself?” Lia asks, the words are light; holding only a tinge of bitterness.
“The stuff you know, that’s the real me.”
“Except for your job.”
He nods, sheepish. “Yeah, except for my job.”
“So tell me about that, how does it work?”
“We give people a look at the possibilities: we help addicts, people in jobs they don’t want, or relationships they don’t want. Some clients want to have weeks to study for an exam they have the next day, or learn a language. And some just want to spend a month partying. Sometimes, it’s dying people who want a little more time.”
“Wow. It’s crazy that your place isn’t more well known.”
“We keep under the radar; wouldn’t want the government to take it to use as a weapon. Think of what they could do, the tortures they could create, with a hundred years in a night.”
“The machine can do more than a year an hour?”
“Yeah. The limit is more what the human brain can withstand. We estimate twenty years in an hour would kill. The highest we ever tested was fifteen years in an hour and the guy is still receiving rehabilitation from it.”
*
One day she looks out her bedroom window and sees Alistair standing below. He’s found her. Her chest is tight. Lia pauses before opening the window; struck with the irrational fear that he’ll somehow leap all the way up just to get to her.
“You need to leave. I don’t want to see you.”
“Come on baby, I just want to talk to you. You know you belong with me.”
“If you don’t leave I’ll call the police.”
“You are going to come down here right now and talk to me or you’re not going to like what I’ll do.”
She slams the window shut.
The police do nothing. Evan comes to stay with her so she’s not alone.
*
Loud banging startles her. Alaistair is at the door. Fuck. He must’ve followed someone to get into the building. Evan left for the first time in days, to run some errands. Alaistair must’ve been watching. Lia knows she shouldn’t still be here. But she didn’t want to move again, didn’t want to let her ex rob her of another home.
The pounding isn’t letting up. How long before the door breaks? She calls the emergency services. The lady tells her they’ll be there soon. She hides under the bed, clutching the phone like it will save her.
She hears the door slam open. Bites her lip to keep silent. Still as the dead.
“If you come out here now, we can talk about this like adults and your punishment won’t even be that bad.”
His steps are on the stairs, doors opening, clattering around. Closer and closer.
She wants to cry, bites down on a knuckle.
The bedroom door opens. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.
He looks under the bed. Eyes meet. Predator and prey. She scrambles out, away.
He catches her arm. He’s holding a knife.
“You’re mine. Only mine.”
Lia struggles. “Don’t. Don’t do this. Let’s talk, you wanted to talk.”
The knife presses against her throat. “Too late for that now. This is all your fault. I keep telling you. You need to learn how to behave.”
“Police. Hands up!”
*
“I’m going to kill him,” Evan says. The tone is wrong: not angry, words stated like a fact.”
“Are you serious?”
“They’ve already let him out. He’s not going to stop. Unless someone stops him.”
Lia stares. Alaistair is going to kill her. Be the predator or be the prey. “Okay.”
“I’ll figure out a plan.”
“Wait. He hurt me for so long. I don’t want him to die. I want him to suffer.”
“What do you have in mind?”
*
Alaistair wakes in a place of endless grey as far as the eye can see. “Where the fuck am I?”
Lia is suddenly in front of him. “This is a simulation. You’re going to be alone in here for a few centuries.”
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Date: 2024-09-29 12:21 pm (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 2024-09-30 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-29 08:35 pm (UTC)Dan
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Date: 2024-09-30 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-30 12:12 am (UTC)Very satisfying ending. This could be the plot outline for an entire book.
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Date: 2024-09-30 04:13 pm (UTC)Oh, I definitely have enough ideas for this to make an entire book ;)
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Date: 2024-09-30 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-01 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-01 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-01 05:53 pm (UTC)I definitely have ideas to make it into something bigger, maybe I will ;)
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Date: 2024-10-01 09:10 pm (UTC)I think I'm going to need Evan's number.
❤❤❤
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Date: 2024-10-02 04:40 pm (UTC)LOL. That machine certainly would be very useful!
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Date: 2024-10-04 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-06 10:49 am (UTC)