“This place is an old storage unit. Checked it out myself,” I lie. “Let’s go back to camp. We’ll deal with your father in the morning.”
I won’t be able to close my eyes because I don’t sleep.
There is one question on my mind.
If we aren’t real, is our love?
11
Kalxor
I close my eyes and see nothing. I open my eyes and see a false reality, a mirage in a desert, and I’m fucking thirsty.
It doesn’t matter what I do, what I see, or how I react. My senses were designed, made by Elon for no reason other than human curiosity. I don't have to like it, but I sure as hell have to accept it.
The air is brisk, the wind, sweet and salty. I close my eyes again, and I picture myself floating in a sea, arms wading through the calm waters. I think of the home I left behind. Only Ava is with me, floating by my side.
This is a fantasy, of course. A way to calm my nerves because the truth is so much more complex, so much worse than I ever could have imagined. Both of us are tied to our lies, our false histories that were fabricated to keep us complacent. As much as we want to deny it, the truth is staring us in the face.
But I don’t know how to tell her.
Even worse, her father knows it. The way he stares at me through the bonfire’s flames tells me he knows I met Elon. He’s quiet and cunning, a bit like I was before I met her. But I’m sure he has all of this laid out. Elon thinks we can win this fight, but he didn’t give me any clues to help me on that journey.
I have nowhere to go, and that terrifies me. I have to follow that bastard and trust he won’t kill us when we reach the end of this simulation.
We have made a camp, far off from the hellish cityscapes, far away from the forest within. We rest on a long plain of grass, watching the sun peak its head over the horizon, peaceful if I didn’t know what that sun stood for. There are miles and miles of this endless pastoral beauty, and the sound of a nearby stream makes my heart feel at ease, momentary but needed.
I look at Ava. She’s staring into the distance, the glow of the incoming light radiating her cheeks and strawberry lips. I smile to myself, wondering if I will ever have her again. There’s nothing happy about this, but I’m still near her. She hasn’t slipped past me yet.
Under any other circumstances, I’d be celebrating her body. Driving into her pussy like a wild, savage beast. Worshipping her womb as I did so fondly before.
But we were both wrong about everything, both served an enormous dish of illusion. The heat of the campfire is also a delusion, and, yet, we still try to figure out a world that can’t be squared with.
I should have listened to her from the start.
Her father cooks a thin piece of meat over the fire with his knife. Gently, he turns the blade, but he never looks to see if it’s cooked all the way through. It’s like he knows too much, like he’s mastered this place.
He just keeps staring at me, grinning with that evil grin.
“Where’d you run off to last night, Kalxor?” he asks.
I'm just a dog to him, no better than a useless mutt. He's our vicious owner, a role he feels emboldened to take on. But I'll find his weakness. I’ll exploit it and burn this world to the ground.
“Went for a walk,” I mutter.
He lifts the blade and inhales the aroma of the meat. “A midnight stroll, huh?”
“Sure. You could call it that,” I say.
His smile has faded. He bites into the meat, sharp canines sinking through the flesh. He's determined, no doubt about it.
Eyes narrowed, he watches me.
He swallows before taking another bite. “And who did you find out there?” he asks, mouth stuffed.
Ava glances at me peculiarly, but she keeps her mouth closed. It’s at this moment I realize I’m going to have to tell her everything. Maybe not now, with her father staring at me like I’m his next dinner, but sometime very soon.
“There’s nothing here I haven’t seen,” I lie. “After what you told me, I needed to clear my head. The forest wind is soothing.”