The Reset
16th March, 2049
Sim reboot, 3650
I can be whoever I want. The old man sitting on a bench feeding a pigeon in your park? I could be him. That guy who skateboards with his friends on those railings down the graffitied broken stairs next to that alleyway? Me also. Emmanuel (my biological father) programs the simulation so I can be whoever I want. I can have as many friends as I want. Go to any school that I want. Be at any place, at any time. When I was younger, this was the best thing ever. The world was my oyster, and my playground. And whenever I remembered that I wasn’t human, I would run home to Dad, in our massive space-ship and remember who I really was.
Dad and I invaded earth when I was nine, I don’t remember much of it actually, just that the humans ran around like ants as we descended, and the tiny armies and tiny weapons didn’t affect us in the slightest. Dad likes it when civilisations are advanced. It gives him something to play with. So, using our limited technology, he built a simulation, wanting to see how long humans can live in paradise without realising they were never free.
But they never noticed. The simulation has been running for ten years, longer than Dad ever waits to kill a species and absorb their life force. But he says he wants me to have a planet to grow up in, and earth is plentiful. He also enjoys the power, and the control, at the press of a button he can erase the entire planet’s memory and reset the simulation. Different histories, different realities, people erased from existence and new human beings who come into existence because before, their parents were married to other people, had different lives.
When I was younger, I didn’t the unfairness of this exchange for the humans, this was all a game, I had a new family, new school, new friends, whenever I wanted. I could go whenever I wanted. My father thought he gave me the world.
But then I got older and the best friend I had spent so many years with suddenly didn’t know who I was or was on a different continent or didn’t exist. My favourite teachers didn’t recognise me, my room wasn’t my room anymore, I had different siblings…
It all became too much and at fourteen I begged my Dad to let us leave and leave the humans alone or just kill them and get it done with. All these half-lives I was living was torture. Dad refused and called me a spoiled brat, saying I was spitting in the face of everything he had provided me with. Everything he’d worked hard to achieve. But really he didn’t care about me. He didn’t care, he just loved playing the game, having a world of beings to control, to worship him. We were staying until I turned twenty in earth years and that was that.
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After that, the next five years were spent in despondent misery, hoping, praying to not get too attached to anyone around me, playing the part of a human being so no one would know what I really was. My Dad became so distant towards me, if the humans found out I wasn’t one of them, and decided to hurt me in some way, I knew my Dad wouldn’t come to my rescue. And I knew that humans could do some pretty despicable things.
But then I met you.
Despite everything, we fell in love. My Dad saw us and was furious. And I know this was the case because the SIM resets and the next time I see you you run past me and you don’t recognise me at all.
Sometimes I think that I shouldn’t approach you every time he resets the SIM. But I have to. I can’t be without you and every time I tell you that I love you, everything resets and he pulls me away from you. I know it’s hopeless. I know it’s pointless. But I run after you like I’m not running out of time. I run after you like the rest of my life awaits me in your arms, I run after you like your life and your existence isn’t slipping through my fingers every day for the rest of this life.
***
Sat on the rise of a grassy riverbank where we first met, speckled with glassy sunlight, her knees tucked up to her chest, holding out a small black notebook, is her. Her nose scrunches with concentration, and her wide almond eyes dart left and right, left and right as she reads.
Her long black glossy hair flies gently over her shoulder in the slight breeze. My chest is squeezing at the sight of her, and I bite back my lip, and press my back against the brick, struggling against the urge to run to her.
She knows me. She knows me.
But not right now, not when I need her most.
Every time this happens, I pray I’ll be able to do it, everything I did the first time made her fall in love with me. I begin to walk towards her.
