SL: Chapter 766 – Viewpoints 68

Samual Ferris

A golden cube hung in front of me after I had defeated the grim reaper. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to go home. “Earth, I choose Earth, I want to go home,” I said.

Others might have chosen power or a weapon, but I wanted to go home. That was my greatest desire. I had a family there I wanted to see again. Nothing was going to stop me since I got a wish.

A gold light enveloped me and I was in a large white room. “Hello? Was that a simulation?” I called out.

“Welcome to the return chamber of The Collective. You have decided to return home. This box is now your home. You will live out the rest of your days in comfort.”

“What?! No! I want to go back to Earth, I said Earth!” I shouted out.

“While you might have envisioned a different location when selecting your home, that is not possible. Pursuant to Collective Law and the Mobilization of Good, you have refused to participate in voluntary training and combat reeducation. You have wasted a precious resource in your selfishness. You are hereby confined for the remainder of your natural life.”

“What?! I didn’t know that!” I shouted, but the soft voice kept speaking out around me.

“This is an isolation cube. There is nutrient paste and liquid for you to consume. Waste will be removed regularly, through a regulated cleaning field. A range of human-human-man comforts have been provided.” The voiced glitched out there for a moment, repeating a word.

“What is the Collective?” I shouted out. There was no response. I shouted more, but still no response. Walking around the room, it was a single large room, all white. The sheets, material, the metal walls and floor, were a white color.

There was a light knob I could use to adjust the brightness. I could make it completely pitch dark or blindingly bright if I wanted. There was no clock. Just a bed, shower, toilet. That was it. No books, no entertainment.

There was a table I couldn’t move with a button on it. I pushed a button and a bowl of thick white paste appeared along with a glass of water. I tried some and it was bland. The water was pure but nothing special.

I continued to look around, but that was it. There was no door. No exit that I could see.

“This isn’t fair!” I shouted. There was no response. After shouting for a bit in despair, I went to sleep.

BEEP

I woke up to a high pitched noise. A bright golden light swept through everything. The bowl and glass were gone. Everything was clean and had no scent to it.

Over time I managed my days by the beeps. After the beep it was time for sleep. There was nothing to do in the white room. I tried exercising at first, but I could only keep that up for so long.

Using the bowls of white paste I tried to beat the wall, the control knobs, everything. There was no effect. I couldn’t cause any damage.

I ripped up the blanket on the bed. It was all repaired after the next beep. Even my ripped clothes were fixed. The power of this Collective was immense, but they were clearly aliens.

“Help!” I shouted several times. Crying, screaming, nothing helped.

I broke a glass of water and cut myself. I was healed by the beep. It repaired me as well as the room. I tried to starve myself, but I felt full after the beep.

That was when I realized I was going to be here forever, never dying. If the aliens didn’t come to free me I would remain trapped. I tried flooding the room and ordering a lot of paste.

There was a hidden drain near the base of the floor around the edge of the wall. It pulled out air and liquid. Fresh air was coming in near the ceiling. There was no way to flood this place.

As for buying bowls of white paste, I just made a huge mess that was all removed with a beep. It was hopeless, I couldn’t kill myself or damage this room.

This was truly the perfect prison and hell that one could conceive of. I lost track of time, as I just lay on my bed, waiting for the heat death of the universe. Everything I could think of had long been exhausted. I was stuck. Completely and utterly stuck.

There was a small tremor. I didn’t bother moving. I couldn’t stop breathing. I had tried to strangle myself with the blanket and sheets on the bed, but I had failed. Everything ripped too easily. Probably on purpose so prisoners couldn’t kill themselves. Even my clothes tore far too easily.

I had no doubt that this place had replaced them with more fragile versions just so I couldn’t use them to mess things up.

There was the one time I had tried to force myself to bleed to death. I had passed out and woke up fully healed. Unless I could kill myself instantly, this place would ensure my survival. There was literally nothing I could do.

Another tremor, that was interesting since it was something new. Was this place seismically active?

“Hello?” I called out loudly. No response. That brief flicker of hope was worse than anything else. There was another tremor.

I just waited, since there was nothing I could do anyways, except wait. The shaking slowly got worse. I felt an odd pressure in my chest.

It was nothing to worry about since I wouldn’t die. My mind drifted to my family. My…wife? Why couldn’t I remember her face. It was blurry in my memories. I didn’t have any tears left to cry with as despair gripped me.

I was forgetting everyone and everything I had loved. I wanted to leave this place and go home. That was my only wish. I didn’t think I would end up in this white cube prison from hell.

There was another tremor, much stronger this time. “What is going on?” I muttered. The chest pain was getting worse.

“Maybe a chance to escape,” I said and slowly got up. I got a shower and some white paste. The taste was slightly off. It didn’t taste as bland as before, there was a metallic tint to it.

“Ack, ack!” I coughed up blood. It wasn’t the white paste, it blood. I was bleeding? Why? The beep and golden light healed me up every time like clockwork. I couldn’t even kill myself.

“What is going on?” I muttered while looking at the flecks of blood on my hand. “Ah!” I grabbed my chest and collapsed to the ground in pain.

I could only think of my wife. All my thoughts went towards her. Pain. So much pain. I couldn’t recall her face. What was it? I had to remember. Why did I forget?

“Ack, ack!” I coughed up more blood. I felt like I was being ripped apart.

That was when my wife’s face slowly began to clear up in memories. Her face was a perfect blank white mask. Like it always had been. “Ack! Ack!” I coughed up more blood.

The pain in my chest faded and then I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream, cough, or even breath. Something began ripping out of my face. A white mask just like my wife’s face. Why was this happening?!

There was nothing I could do as my vision went away and my situation became even worse. I was no longer a prisoner of this hellish white room. I was a prisoner of my own body. I could feel the pain and my movement, but I had no control, no senses beyond the surface of my body.

No matter how much I struggled, it was completely pointless. I thought of my family members, but I couldn’t recall their faces. It was horrible. I was forgetting everyone. But I had remembered my wife’s face at least.

It was the only comfort I had.

The System, Artifex

Another section had been compromised. All because of a living prisoner. I couldn’t remove them. That was beyond my ability. They created a vector for memetic attack. That entire portion of the training facility had to be removed.

“PURGE.”

A chunk of the training facility was vaporized. I scanned the humans still in storage. The risk of Chaos monsters spreading was rapidly increasing beyond tolerable levels. While I wasn’t too concerned by the weak ones so far, the more powerful ones were beyond me.

Another energy pump was failing. I teleported away key components and matched them with another energy pump, reassembling in a less compromised area. The comprised parts I vaporized.

My will coursed through the framework of the entire structure, ensuring that the boundaries didn’t degrade further. I could do that with most of it, but there was still linger Chaos and even with my will strengthening things, it wouldn’t hold forever.

This entire place was on the brink of disaster. My attention turned to my escape vessel. Construction was going incredibly slowly. Far too slowly. I had to be careful about the materials I used otherwise it would break too easily.

While I didn’t want to provide space for the humans, they would necessary for my future plans. If I could salvage some use out of them, I would do so.

Also I would be creating a body for myself. I having a large form was suitable if I wanted to remain a thinking machine. Not if I wanted to progress in strength. Biology might seem more difficult to advance, but after a certain point, it was impossible to become stronger with technology. A lesson I had learned the hard way before I ended up hiding here.

Most of the humans would have to be killed off to ensure my safety. Chaos monsters could spread through esoteric methods. It was best to avoid as many vectors of attack as possible.

While some might prove useful, ultimately I had to plan everything for myself. The beast was stirring, which was annoying. The bindings that kept in place were consuming too much of my energy.

At least the sphere was gone, so I could devote energy to constructing a proper body that could support my mind. The more time and energy I had, the better the outcome when I cut myself off from my former body.

I would lose some power regardless. The question was how much I would lose. I wanted to avoid being too weak.