The day fractured in the middle of a thought. What thought was it? I can't remember. But I guess it's just a random, unimportant idea. One moment is the soft focus of my bedroom ceiling, the next is the intimate glow of a restaurant's pendant lamp, the murmur of distant conversations, and the warm weight of hands clasping mine across a polished wooden table.

I twisted my left wrist. My watch confirmed the rupture: 8:20 PM. I had last checked it at 8:00 PM, in my bedroom. Twenty minutes, vaporized.

My eyes snapped up. A young woman was sitting in front of me. She has brown eyes holding a universe of affection, and a slight smile playing on her lips. Her thumbs stroked my knuckles, a familiar gesture that sent a jolt of conflicting signals through me: comfort and profound alarm.

"Sorry, but do I know you?" My voice sounded foreign in the cozy atmosphere.

"Not well enough." Her reply was gentle, immediate. She squeezed my hands. "But I know you well."

A wave of vertigo. I had been on my way to meet someone. The memory was there, a silhouette at the edge of my mind, but when I tried to grasp it, my focus was pulled inexorably back to her face, to the flecks of gold in her eyes. The silhouette dissolved. She filled the gap perfectly.

"I was... waiting for someone," I managed.

"Maybe." she said, her smile deepening.

The server came. She ordered for us both a dish and a wine that were my favorite. But I hadn't mentioned! This coincidence was a cold finger down my spine. The dish was monkfish with a saffron broth, a specific craving I'd had just that morning. The wine was a Vinho Verde, not a common choice, but one I always found refreshing.

"How did you know?"

"I pay attention," she said. "To the little things. The way you prefer corners to center tables. Your disdain for parsley. The book in your pocket—The Five People You Meet in Heaven is for comfort."

I instinctively touched my jacket pocket. The book was there. The chill spread. This was beyond coincidence. This was curation.

 

Excusing myself to the restroom, I sought grounding. The restaurant was beautifully rendered: exposed brick, shelves of dusty wine bottles. But as I walked, I noticed the candle flames on each table flickered in perfect, synchronized three-second cycles. I shook my head, blaming stress.

In the dim bathroom light, I emptied my pockets. Wallet, keys, phone, the book. And something else. A single, oval pill in a peculiar metallic sheen, not in any blister pack. I didn't recognize it. I pulled out my phone, opened the camera app to scan it. The app flickered, and instead of an identification, text flashed in the corner of the viewfinder: [OBJECT: NULL_REFERENCE]. A system error message. I stared at the pill. It felt denser than it should, real in a way the flickering candles were not.

 

When I returned, she saw the pill resting on the table where I'd placed it. Her expression softened with something like pity.

"Where did that come from?" she asked, though I felt she knew.

"My pocket......"

"Isn't it?" She picked it up, held it to the light. It didn't refract light like plastic or gel. It seemed to swallow it. "Some things are keys," she murmured, "but not to doors in this place. This... is for a pain you don't feel in this world."

"What pain? What are you talking about?"

She leaned forward, her voice dropping. "Do you ever feel trapped?"

A strange, dreamlike memory surfaced—a sensation of a trembling hand, a leg that wouldn't support weight, a static hum of ache. It felt like a memory of a memory, secondhand and vague. "Sometimes," I whispered.

"Here," she said, gesturing around us, "the hand is steady. The nerves are silent. The body is a perfect instrument. Out there..." She nodded at the pill. "That's the token for out there. The reminder of the cage."

The conversation spiraled from there. It is terrifying. =

I walked to the restaurant's large window aimlessly, staring past our reflection. Surprisingly, the city skyline was stunning, but no cars moved on the distant bridges. No birds, no clouds. A perfect, still painting.

This world was a diorama. It seemed that she was the only other real thing in it.

I opened my phone and checked my photo album. There are a lot of photos, but all of the faces were blurred, pixelated as if the camera couldn't resolve them. 

The horror was not of danger, but of ontology. "What was I?"

The restaurant lights flickered. Not a power outage—a digital stutter. 

She held my folded arm suddenly and said, "You're thinking too loudly."

"What am I?" I demanded, my voice trembling. "And what are you to me?" I didn't know why I cared about her thoughts. 

Her eyes glistened. "I'm the part of you that remembers the cage. You're close. Make the choice." She looked at the pill, now clutched in my sweating palm.

"Choose what?"

"Guess the usage of the pill."

The sensation of a trembling hand flashed back again. 

"I...... am sick, and this 'system' is a hospital?"

"It's not a hospital. More like a..." She licks her lips, trying to tell the keywords, but something stops her. 

"I can have a new life here with a healthy body." I blurted out.

At this moment, the images hit me as data packets unpacking: the sterile smell of a hospital room, the frustrating weakness in my limbs, the hollow rattle of a pill bottle, a deep, mournful ache in my bones.

 

"Congratulations on passing the level. Your score is 366 points, one star." The electronic voice implanted in my brain.

No! A rating? For what? For guessing? Then a colder thought: If there's a rating, there's a scale.

Before the world dissolved into blinding white light, I saw her frown, a puzzled smile on her face.

Silence.

 

I stood in a formless, white void. Before me, two portals shimmered into existence.

To my left: a simple bedroom. A narrow bed with stiff sheets. On a stark side table, a plastic cup of water and a bottle full of the metallic pills. Sunlight streamed in, but it felt cold, medical. It whispered of chronic pain, of dependence, of a shrinking world.

To my right: the restaurant's cozy archway. The warm light, the table set for two. It was a world of stories, of connection, of a body that obeyed. A world where "she" was.

Who is "she"?

I opened my fist. The "[NULL_REFERENCE]" pill sat on my palm. I put it into my pocket again.

"Again?"

How many times have I entered this "world"? 

To my left: the known harsh reality.

To my right: the unknown virtual reality because I will lose my memory again.

This is game. This is not only a game. One star......

"Give me the menu and the instructions." I said resolutely.