The Letter

      The crawling echo of the television flowed through all the rooms of the house. The vintage film was playing, blue lights flickered across the walls as Aimee stared at the desk in front of her.

           She sat on the crimson plaid sofa, her leg shaking beneath her as she picked on a hang nail. She hadn’t checked the letter today for whatever reason, only that it felt off. The overcast sky that had lingered throughout the day had cast a shadowed hue to her home. Everything seemed darker; the framed pictures on the walls or the polaroids strung up with tape, the withering plants with crippling leaves and the last of the decaying flowers on the table, the two clocks that had not told time correctly in a while.

           It was desolate, just as the world had turned.

           The television crunched with static for a few seconds as the last thunder rumbled across the hostile sky. Aimee put her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her skin as she held herself. The eeriness of storms had always brought a sort of comfort to her, letting her mind fall asleep to the distant rain, though now it was a creeping edge. She couldn't tell why this sudden feeling of restlessness clung to her.

The motion of the screen came back to life as her eyes averted to the picture box, slowly drifting to the desk with the paper. It had been there all day, waiting for Aimee to finally pick it up.

           Inhaling a breath, her feet touched the cold wooden floor as she paced over to the desk. The letter looked the same as it always did—a half-folded piece of paper and a black fountain pen beside it. Pulling the rickety chair back, she took a seat and unfolded the letter, her hand hovering before the ink met the paper.

           “This is Aimee, who is this?”

           She looked down at her handwriting, the style of it mimicking her mother’s cursive that she was taught. Faint black marks arose as the other responded.

           “This is Mark. Nice to meet you, Aimee.”

           She hesitated before writing.

           “Where are you based?”

           Her handwriting was a distinct black before the words sunk into the paper, fading away back to white waiting for his reply. 

           “Outside Chicago. How about you?” Mark’s response was composed of wobbled letters like having written quickly and erratically.

           “Philadelphia.”

           “You’re near the project sight I see.”

           Aimee’s leg had stopped twitching as she looked at the paper, the last parts of the black ink appeared as Mark wrote. It was strange how it worked—a form of communication with others since the world had started to decay. Aimee only ever knew of her house having this odd phenomenon, and her mother hadn’t explained where it came from. She only knew that once she had put words to the paper, they disappeared and then someone else’s script would appear.

           Her eyes had drifted to the closed curtains at the window, not noticing the new sentence that had appeared.

           “Is Stella home?”

           Aimee blinked, reading the sentence over multiple times as the sight of her mother’s name shocked her. Before she could respond, the words continued.

           “I know who you are Aimee… I know what she’s done.”

           She dropped the pen, splats of ink clashing onto the desk and sending the chair backward as she stood up. At that moment the front door opened with a click, a rattling breath evaded Aimee. Walking in was a tall woman in a white lab coat. She placed down her black bag, proceeding to take off the hazard gas mask she wore due to the virus.

           “Hello darling, sorry I’m late.”

           A sigh of relief withdrew from Aimee as she ran over to the woman, “I’m glad you're home, Mom.”

           Stella smelled of clear air, not a trace of perfume or a specific scent. It was like a hospital, sterile and pure.

           “My god honey, couldn’t you have picked up the house?” Stella said as she peered around before walking away toward the kitchen. Aimee was left standing there as she looked at her home, the television fuzzy again with static and the blur of lightning between the dusty curtains. She looked over to the desk she had just sat at a moment ago to find the piece of paper gone.

~~~

           Aimee kissed her mother on the cheek goodbye as she left for the morning. Stella put on the familiar gas mask, leaving the house and would not be back till evening. Each day was the same, where Stella would go to work while Aimee stayed inside the quaint home of theirs.

           After a few moments had passed, Aimee graced to the living room, plopping down on the couch as her eyes closed on themselves from having none to little sleep during the night. When she woke up, she peered at the desk and on top of it was the letter. She dashed to it, feeling the sense of dizziness from rising too quickly. Unfolding it, she saw the blankness of the paper.

           “Who is this?”

           Her writing was sloppy and careless, too eager to see who it would be.

           “This is Mark, who is this?”

           Aimee’s lips parted in a silent gasp. It had never been the same person twice.

Once it was Mary, a nurse who had recently retired. The next was Patrick, a research intern who studied brain activity. It had been interesting for Aimee to talk to each one, but she couldn’t remember when or how it had started, rather why she talked to these strangers.

           She peered at the painting on the wall in front of her, a portrait of Stella and her from when she was younger. Her mother had looked the same, almost too perfect. The rain in the distance was a constant low hum of noise. She thought of the question she had never quite considered asking but felt it necessary to come out anyway.

           “What do you know about Stella Keller?”

           There was a minute without words before Mark’s handwriting began to show up vigorously with multiple sentences.

           “Dr. Keller is the head scientist of the project. I work within the same project, though in a different sector. I have tried to contact you multiple times…You need to leave before she comes back.”

           Aimee hesitated, not fully understanding the words. Confusion sprang forth in her as a single thunder erupted.

           “You have to believe me Aimee. It’s not real. Your life there in that house isn’t real. It’s a program she has created in order to control you.”

           Aimee picked up the pen urgently, “What you do mean it isn’t real? Stella is my mother. We live here, together. I’ve stayed here ever since the virus began.”

           Her heart went an erratic beat, eyes wide as she read what he wrote.

           “There is no virus. There isn’t a house with its darkly lit rooms or the tv that never seems to work properly…You are being programmed into a simulation.”

           Aimee’s leg began twitching as a single bead of sweat trickled down her forehead, peering at the clock that never told time. There isn’t time in a simulation, she thought.

           “Who are you? How am I supposed to believe you? I don’t even know how talking to you through this paper even works,” Aimee wrote, a range of emotions rushing through her.

           She frantically looked back and forth, from the sofa to the front door, trying so hard to remember what her life looked like before the virus, yet it was infeasible.

           Mark’s writing began to show up quickly, “Everyone you’ve talked to through the letter has worked for Stella, under her orders. They are testing on you and how you react to an apocalyptic virus in the version of a simulation. And Stella puts a projector of herself into the simulation to bring a sense of normality to your life.”

           Beneath Aimee’s chest she heard her heartbeat race for each second, a closeted sensation of worry and doubt. The joy she had whenever she saw Stella come home, though the woman always reacted the same, a bitter coldness to her and no warmth.

           “For me to believe you, you have to show me something, anything,” Aimee wrote.

           Mark responded, “Look at the dust on the piano lid.”

           Aimee stared to the left, seeing the closed piano and walking over to it. And then, slowly on the thick layer of dust, the word ‘Mark’ showed up.

           “That’s the best that I can do or otherwise they’d find out. You have to leave before she comes back.”

           There was a lump in her throat that made it difficult to swallow as she held back tears, trying to comprehend what her life was and wasn’t. 

           “What do I do? How do I get out?”

           The faint marks on the paper showed as the sentence continued while Mark wrote.

           “You need to leave the house. Run beyond the trees and as far as possible. You will feel the simulation trying to contain you, but you need to keep moving. Move until you see the blinding light…that’s how you know you’re breaking out of the simulation.”

           “What then?”

           “Then, you will be free.”

           Aimee bit her lip, looking around at what she thought was her home. The throw pillows scattered on the couch. The empty bottles on the coffee table. Each window covered with dark curtains and the same storm passing by. The more she thought of it the more sickened she felt. It had all been fake, the days seeming the same and nothing new ever happened. She couldn’t even remember what was before or ever leaving the house.

           “Why are you helping me?” Aimee wrote her final sentence.

           “I took an oath to help people in this world…not confine them in a false reality.”

           A tear slid down her cheek as she dropped the pen, she took a last look at the letter as the words faded back to the normal paper. She was at the door with a blink of an eye and as she opened it, a chill moved past her. Her head spun as she went into a sprint, her feet thudding the ground with each pace. Tree after tree it was all the same, repeating constantly and feeling like she wasn’t making any progress.

           She closed her eyes as a blaring ache filled her head. The further she got to leaving the simulation, the more her mind began playing tricks on her. Memories of distant past she couldn’t recall. Pictures of a man with black hair, the same as her own, swinging a baby in his arms. A little girl climbing up the steps at the playground before being dragged away. The bright lights of the laboratory as she realized she couldn’t move, restrained in a bed before the simulation began.

           Aimee’s eyes opened, feeling the odd sensation Mark had said as she kept moving on. She could see the light at the very end, coming closer and closer. She hadn’t known what had happened or how long she’d been in the program and longed to evade the nightmare sensation.

           Voices broke out in her mind, hearing them from all around her.

           “Blood pressure is rising!”

           “There’s a glitch in the simulation!”

           “Get this under control, now!”

           She closed her eyes, the light bleeding into her, as she faded out of the strange place she had been in for what were years. There was a buzzing ring in her ears, wrapping her arms tightly around herself shaking as someone held onto her tightly. The person’s voice spoke.

           “Welcome back Aimee.”