The Lost Experiment

Everything was fine at first. Normal. Almost too perfect. It was not until I slowly began noticing certain faults, or rather, glitches. First, the random switches to different locations. Then, it was the missing items that were right in front of me moments before. Gaps, changes, missing memories. One by one, I started noticing them all. I was living in a simulation. We all were. We were stuck and whoever was controlling this simulation had the upper hand. I needed to figure out an escape. I had to.

One day, I was out with my family. We were about to enter a room. Just then, another glitch took place. I tried getting out but was led back to another set of four walls leading to the original room. It felt like a nightmare. Like I was living in some paradox. Trapped. Helpless. Scared. I couldn’t take it anymore. That day, I saw a crack between the two shelves at the corner of the room, wide enough to go through sideways. A glitch! I thought. This was the opportunity I was looking for!

I went through that crack, and before I knew it, I was outside, behind a fence that chambered a big abandoned building. I just watched from afar for a while. Slowly, I began processing everything. My life was a lie and I had escaped it. Now, I was in the middle of nowhere, unable to trust anyone. How could I? Everything was just a mere theater play. Who did this?

A number called me on my phone. Unknown. I picked it up, immediately realizing who it was. It was my father. We didn’t talk for too long. “It’s over.” He said, his voice shaky. “We saved them.” Then he hung up. I was right. About the simulation part at least… Our lives belonged to a secret experiment based on human subjects in a world where the economy and governing functioned differently. The aim was primarily to stabilize the economic crisis in the real world and experiment with control over basic human lifestyles, including their way of thinking, memories, decision-making, etc. While this information was highly psychotic, it was not the most blood-freezing part of the truth. It wasn’t only about what the simulation was, but also who had designed it. In 1940, Adolf Hitler created a secret project. A lost experiment. This can’t be! I thought. I wasn’t in 1940 anymore. That’s just when the experimentation had begun. I was stuck in that simulation for over 80 years. Time was frozen there. Our minds remained as the only active identities of ourselves that were essentially drugged and manipulated. Hitler was dead. I was lost in time. Forgotten. Finally, a few figures appeared from afar. I recognized one of them in an instant. Dad! Next to him stood a shorter man, much older too. He had gray hair and was seemingly rounder than an average man. He had many bodyguards surrounding him. There was a big smile plastered on that man’s face. He looked proud.

I nervously approached them, watching their never-fading creepy smiles. My heart was throbbing in my chest again, in fear that this was yet another deception. The man who stood beside my father was the current president. He was there to personally congratulate me for revealing this secret, for putting an end to it. He said I had saved the world. From what? I felt something strange. How did my dad get out? Just then, I woke up…