5 A dream or A Reality

In a certain place, where it is filled with many cryptic deceased creatures.

The place looks dead; with not a sign of life found anywhere. An endless silence is brought about from this place; the place ambience is unnerving and it constantly giving off dreadful discomforts and eerie looks from the deceased creatures found all over.

The terrestrial land in the place stretches afar – like a dimension that builds on a flat surface; far-off in distance. The land not only vastly spreads out in volume, but also immense as there are myriad of highlands and murky valleys –bigger than any realm that humanity could ever have established a kingdom.

The ghastly land soil coloured in greyish variety; mixing among the blackened stones and translucent - opaque gravels. The small white bits that appear on the land surface look as if they have been burned into ashes. The sky looks empty; with no bank of clouds or rays of sunlight; yet the entire sky glows in brilliant scarlets. There is a lack of change in the daylight and night time that resembling an unnatural phenomenon that nobody is qualified to explain.

The remains of the dead reckon to piles of rotten bodies of countless unknown creatures and various humanoid-alike. The bodies strand on the vast land without another life feeding on the flesh. Some of the remains are roughly smaller than the average human-size. The largest of them, however, is greater than tallest mountain on Earth. Piling up upon another, the bodies significantly surpass the deepest trench of the Ocean. Everywhere in the place, countless flesh and bones scattered all over. Nothing is seen alive across the land.

Countless flesh and bone scatter; while many of the bodies are incomplete, there are even more of them that widely spread from one another; in many large pieces and crude sizes. The flesh and bones have been ripped into fragments. The fragments separate from each other and disappear from the gruesome main bodies. The gore sights of blood-like stains have completely fused into the soil. Every single one of these remains could make everyone immediately feel an outmost disgust at sight. The nauseating foul scent can entangle whoever that smells.

Amid all these bodies, there is a single incomplete humanoid flesh that stood out the most.

All the limbs are in one piece and its physical form is well in shape; although the volume of muscles is greatly diminished – barely holding the humanoid flesh together. It almost physically looks like the body is entirely made up of bones; resembling a frame of a human skeleton. Noticeably, there are many small fractures found the exposed skull.

____

Inside the same room where Prinz and his 44 colleagues gather.

He stands straight while absentmindedly looking in a direction. His face is blank – with no expression whatsoever. His eyes fill with tears as his vision earnestly looks at everyone that gathers. However, his iris turns out to be opaque; resembling the eyes of a deceased.

"Everyone" Prinz softly mumbles.

His lips do not stop there and he slowly continues to mumble without a sound:

Diana, Loci, Phil, Mat, Chris, Yuki, Grid, Hikki, Derrick, Akeno, Michelle, Jessi, Serene, Schwarz, Patrick, Soo Hwan, Lucy, Syaza, TK, Furuya, Azim, Michael, Jerry, Paul, Graham, Pete, Daniel, Azlan, Luke, Gray, Tsuya, Deus, Lucas, Lim, Rain, Josef, Gustav, Leonard, Fermi, Don, Manny, Nick, Tom, Hinata.

All of these names are Prinz's former precious colleagues. Their first acquaintance instigated 800 hundred years ago. Since then, they are always together. All of them, have been united with one mission:

'To uncover all mysteries in the universe'.

His mind recalls a recollection of memories from his mind:

Everything began from the research. At that time, Prinz's thirst for knowledge drove him with strong passions to uncover the secret of the human brain. He was particularly fascinated by how human consciousness works. He put everything behind him and focused into solely experimenting – Prinz enthusiastically exerted himself in the human brain research. He, however, was not alone. His research colleagues started from a small circle of four, before immediately expanded into a large circle; made up of 44 of others who fixated with the same passion. Ultimately, their relentless pursuits uncovered the whole secrets in the human brain, while at the same time it signified the beginning of a revolution in human existence. Assisted by his trusted colleagues, Prinz's ardent labours intensified and embarked on a new precipitous goal – the creation of Virtual Dimension. The world then rapidly transformed; allowing humanity to live in this world in perpetuity.

Prinz remains still for the entire time until shortly after, His eyes shine with a sign of life. His breaths become ragged and he is sweating all over. At this moment, his original brown iris transforms into silvery golden. At that point, the colour of his iris permanently changes. It is not the eyes that entirely changed. There is something that takes place at the back of his eyes; triggers the transformation.

Prinz eventually regains his consciousness. Noticing the familiar scene around him, he becomes self-conscious. He now realizes that he is standing alone in the Assembly Room. Quickly, his mind remembers the promised day. The day, on once every century, that all of them would gather in this room and perform a system upgrade to the Virtual Dimension.

He then declares:

"It's time everyone."

However, there is not any response from everyone. All his colleagues remain still and quiet.

The irresponsive robots lead to his confusion. He is taken aback by the situation. Nothing is happening and the 44 silent robots are not responding whatsoever.

"It's time everyone." He repeats the same words:

Again, nothing, in particular, is happening. Even Sheyla is staying impassive; though she is standing next to him. She is supposed to monitor the upgrade process at all times; yet not she is irresponsive as well.

Prinz is thrown into disarray. His mind turns blank – he could not comprehend that everyone is paying no heed to him.

"Sheyla, immediately inspect the current upgrade status of Virtual Dimension. Report to me of any anomaly found."

Sheyla, the Head-Quarter overseers stays irresponsive. Despite that, he calls her a few more times, but nothing change. The female android remains immobile.

"Good freaking nature! What's going on?" Prinz shouted in confusion.

Thump!

Prinz hits the wooden table hard in frustration. The table budges slightly. The fist-sized cube that rests on the table shifts. He hurriedly grabs the cube before it falls to the floor and inspects its condition.

"That was close. I didn't realize the cube is on the table!"

The fist-sized cube stores all the analysis of from various human consciousnesses that now have integrated into Virtual Dimension. There is also a version of full original information of his of 'Tree of Life' system.

"I must stay calm. I almost hit the cube with a slam to this table just now."

Prinz attempts to calm his mind by taking a deep breath. He also massages his temple to soothe his frustration. He then picks the cube and spins it on the table. He repeated the process a few times.

"Huh, why is it not functioning?" Prinz exclaims.

The non-functioning state of the cube is making him anxious.

"I'll try one more time."

This time instead of spinning alone, he first carefully inspects the cube on the table.

"No, it's impossible! The cube is broken?"

The cube is made from various composite materials that make up the basic building block of quantum processors. The cube itself is a powerful device that integrates all the processors into one logical-unit. The electrons in the materials behave as waves inside the quantum waves and create interference patterns which set in motion to the quantum effects. The composite materials activate as such, without the need for a supercooling condition to exactly give rise to zero electrical resistance and recurrent expulsion of magnetic flux fields. Even in a small size, the cube has the capacity to store almost infinite information. Because of that, Prinz could easily bring the processing cube with him – anyplace, anytime.

"The cube could not easily fail to activate! Something is not right."

He has correspondingly overlaid the cube with many defensive fortifications and lock all the information stored in the cube; hence it could not break easily and no one else, but Prinz could use it. Despite how fragile its exterior looks like, the interior material plays the essential role of dampening any forceful impacts; while retaining all the regular internal processes – the cube could not simply break down unless it got smashes to bits.

"Everyone is not responding and the robot that represented 44 others has failed to activate. Sheyla does not respond to any of my call and this cube in my hand is now not working. What is going on? The entire thing that happens is unlikely due to power failure. The room is still well lit, and the energy that sustains the Virtual Dimension is in effect. The ball of energy that Sheyla holds is also still functioning "

He then mulls over the whole peculiarities that have transpired until now.

"It is impossible, unless.."

Without warning, the Assembly Room trembles for a never-ending period.

"There is a sudden seismic activity from the ground!?" Prinz exclaims in suspicion.

He does not receive any prior warning; not from Sheyla – the Head-quarter overseer.

Gradually, the tremors escalate to its highest potency that destroys the floor. A sinking hole appears and crashing the wooden table entirely; as the table falls into the hole. The reinforced walls that have always held the room strong, fracture with many indistinguishable cracks before almost the whole structure collapse. Immediately after, a massive dome that shelters everything underneath it falls down.

During the moment when the dome descending, a memory flashes in his mind:

'Not anything or anyone could escape all the tragedy brought by the disastrous nature. Even if something or someone did, the loss that the nature caused; bringing about to everything that implicated is none other than pure miseries.'

The memory comes from an enlightening saying; which is articulated by his colleagues, Hikki, an acclaimed philanthropist who dwells in absolute pessimism.

Prinz sees with his own eyes, the terror brings by strong tremors that utterly destroys the Assembly Room. At presents, the massive dome above is about to descend and flatten everything on the floor, including him. He stares intently above; watching the dome descends. His lips; at the same time, mumbles of words; that probably would be his last:

"So, this is what it feels like when one is about to suffer the loss of everything."

He becomes helpless by his inability to do something.

'Misery'.

It is exactly what Prinz is going through right now; as he watches the massive dome descending. There is also nothing he could do to stop the tremors that rapidly destroying the floor.

"Pardon me, everyone."

Drops of tears stream from his eyes. He despairs at his powerlessness. Prinz realizes that he can never be able to keep his promise to the people that he cherished the most.

"You are dead!"

The charming little voice that indicates Prinz of his status has returned. He remembers the voice. Momentarily, his mind sets sight on the strange dark place where he is taken into.

"What a strange dream".

He remembers about the dark place where the same voice has told him about how the world has evolved. The first news that he heard is that he had died; along with all other intelligent beings from various worlds; during an evolution process.

"What a pointless thing to remember!"

Prinz then closes his eyes. Believing that he is about to depart to the afterlife, he relinquishes everything – waiting for the next life. But, his heart remains unrest. His repeatedly remembers what that the voice told him:

'An opportunity to start life over'

"I have always desired to immortalize humanity; believing that it would be best for us to be everlasting on this Earth. Perhaps, it isn't, in actual, my true wish. Over time, my desire becomes a front that strips me of my true wish. My one and true wish is to make myself bereaved; from the loss of my precious one. I have failed!"

The unshakable heart that he possesses has broken to pieces; as he reminisces from his memories; of everyone, who has treated him with great care and affections.

"If 'True God' out there is listening, could you give me one more chance? Just one, please, let me have the chance."

'The only time when humans show their true self, would be when they are scared to death. When this time comes, if humanity is given a choice to eliminate one another, they would not even hesitate to make the sacrifice and save their own ass.'

Another memory comes from an enlightening saying; that Hikki once articulates in details to him; flashes on his mind.

"Really, it's not the time to ponder on pessimism thoughts."

Prinz is a person who has been always acting on his own rational self-interest; rather than living up to other people's expectations or trying to please anyone. This is who he truly is – an Egoist.

"A revival is given to me; not as a choice. If it's true I would just gladly take the opportunity and leave everything behind."

Despite that, Prinz again feels unrest. He is conflicted upon saying those words. If he truly believes that he is an Egoist, everything that he has accomplished until now; alongside his colleagues; is then accepted as trivial and meaningless. After all, he is doing it only due to his own self-interest and he has simply thrown all them away at this moment.

"I've only wanted to realize my wish. I meet everyone' for my selfish reason, but it is not what I truly wish for."

Prinz tries to deny everything, yet something inside him seethes at his denial.

"My heart hurts. What is this feeling right now? Am I contradicting myself?"

His heart hurts from overwhelming sorrows and his mind overflows with melancholic thoughts. In the end, Prinz realizes:

"I don't want to lose everything precious in my life. Please, everyone, come back. I will not give up on this life!"

Before long, he loses his vision. All the while, he is not aware of what is happening around him.