The Unknown World

I don’t know how I got here. I just woke up one day and I was here. Everything is black, white and gray. It’s dull. Yet, perfect. No one gets sick, no one gets hurt whether that be physically or emotionally, and you never hear of anyone dying. I’ve never heard of one bad thing. No one leaves, no one comes in. But if no one can come in, I don’t know I got here. When I woke up a nurse was watching me. She asked me if I was ok. I said yes, but I should’ve said no. I’m not ok. I miss my home. I miss the color and lively kids playing outside. I miss the food full of a different taste. I miss the emotion. I miss the colds. I miss the physical and emotional pain. I miss the imperfectness. I’ve tried to ask people if they ever miss stuff like that, but they don’t remember it. I try to help them remember, but then one of the many officers aggressively tells me to stop. They tell me that I could be arrested for talking about that type of stuff. I always questioned it because if they know what I’m talking about then they didn’t have whatever was done to these people. I always wondered what could be going on to make them forget everything good about life, so I asked someone. His name is Jasper. He’s one of my best friends. I always try to tell him about the amazing things that I used to do as a kid. I told him about the time I played in the snow with my family and the time that my dad died. He didn’t know what those emotions were. He didn’t know how to feel because he can’t remember those feelings. I promised him that I would figure it out. That’s what I’m doing now. I finally went to city hall. I’ve always been scared to come here. I’m not too sure if I’ll find anything here, but it’s worth a shot. I went to the front desk and the woman working there says, 

“Hi. I am Linda. How may I help you?”

I cringe at her words. She says it as if she’s an android. 

“I was wondering if I could take a look in the library?”

“Of course honey! Right, this way.”

I follow her to the library. I’m not sure what I’m going to find, but I was hoping maybe I would find a book in the back that could show me some clues. 

“Do you have a library card sweetheart?” says Linda pulling me out of my thoughts. 

“No. Sorry. Do I need one?”

“Yes, dear. I can help you set one up right now.”

As I’m getting my library card set up, I feel eyes on me. I feel multiply eyes on me. It’s like everyone here is watching me. I look around to see who it is. I see someone hiding behind a bookshelf staring at me. I put my head down as I don’t want to make direct eye contact. I begin to feel more uncomfortable as I feel their eyes pierce through me. But where are the others? I know more than one person is looking at me, but where are they? I finish setting up my card and start walking to the very back. I started to panic as I hear footsteps behind me. I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around in panic and see three people standing behind me. The one in the middle says,

“No, it’s okay. Don’t be scared. We’re here to help you.”

“What do you mean ‘you’re here to help me?”

“We know that you’re not from here. We’re not from here either. We can remember everything that they try to get rid of in this society. Just like you, we won't figure out what happened to our friends. We want to figure out what happened in this screwed-up world. We want to know what they did to these people. Please let us help you.”

As I consider if I should trust them or not, I look at the one who spoke to me. There’s this fire in his eyes. It’s as if he’s saying I’m going to kill whoever did this. 

“Ok. I’ll let you help me,” I respond. 

He smiles at me, walks over to me, and shakes my hand. I take this as a sign of trust. I’m glad that I have people who can do this with me now. We make our way further in the sea of boos. We get to the historical sections. 

“Alright, guys. Let’s divide and conquer. Hopefully, we’ll find some clues,” I say enthusiastically. 

“Let’s do this,” says the one I was talking to before, “I wanted to say that I’m sorry for scaring you early. I didn’t know how to get your attention. My name is Cole by the way.”

“It’s all good. I’m Sapphire.”

“Cool name.”

“Thanks.”

We smile at each other and go our separate ways. We all look through the books. We looked for about 4 hours and found nothing. I went over and pulled a random book out. It was a book about utopias. I open the book immediately and see a map. 

“Hey, Cole. I found a map. I’m not sure if this can help us, but maybe it will.”

Cole comes running over and says, 

“What does the map say?”

“I’m not sure there’s a bunch of states here on the left including where I grew up, but then there’s a strip of water and a body of land that says ‘the unknown world’. I’m not sure what that means though.”

“You’re hometown is North Carolina too?”

“Yeah.”

“That's where those two are from too.”

I’m starting to understand where Cole is getting at. 

‘They must be taking people from nearby states. This body of land on the right has to be where we are now. The question is why can’t anyone but us remember anything?” Cole questions.

“Maybe we can find more in this book,” I answer.

“You take the left page I take the right.”

I nod and start reading. We go through about half of the book and find nothing, but there was one specific paragraph that just gave us the biggest clue of all.

“Here it says ‘There’s always someone in power that is causing all of this. They are usually in hiding. They create shots for people to take that wipe their memory of anything that ever happened before their life in this world. I guess that they are somewhere in the restricted area of the cliffside. If you could get there I’m sure you could find them and put an end to all this madness.’ That has to be where we go,” I say to Cole. 

“I mean yeah, but how are we gonna get past all those guards?” he answers.

“We’ll distract them,” says one of the two that haven’t said a word, “We want to help in some way. We’re not very strong or smart, but we know how to create a decent distraction. We know how to lure the guards away. There’s only two of them there, so if we split up you two should be able to get up the mountain in no time.”

That’s not a bad idea. I would just hate to have someone get hurt. 

“We’ll be ok,” he speaks again, “We’re willing to risk our lives to save everyone else’s.”

It’s like he read my mind.

“Ok. Let’s do it.”

We leave the library and start making our way over to the mountain. I hope that we can find who is causing all of this. I want them to be able to feel real emotions again. We get to the start of the mountain and the two whose names I don’t know to walk in front of Cole and me. They give us a signal to wait here as they would lure the guards away. I see them start running in separate directions away from the mountain. Cole and I start making our way up the mountain. Cole stops abruptly. He says, 

“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

“I promise.”

Cole starts walking again and I trail behind him. As we get closer to the top, we see an opening somewhere. That has to be where this person is hiding. We make our way there and see that there is an unlocked door. We walk in and it’s dark. We see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel so we go towards it. When we get there we see someone. They’re looking straight at us. 

“So, you finally found me. I always knew it would be you two. That shot never did work on either of you.”

I have no idea who this is, but it seems that he knows us. 

“Why are you doing this to those people out there?” says Cole taking the words right out of my mouth. 

“You wouldn’t understand. This is a screwed-up world. I wanted to make it perfect. This is how. This is where we start and then we expand.”

“But this isn’t making the world any better. You’re taking all the emotions all the things that make us human away from them,” I say angrily, “You shouldn’t be hurting them like this.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not hurting them. I’m making them stronger. I’m making their life better.” 

Just being in the presence of this man makes me mad. I look behind him and see a board full of writing behind him. There’s something that sticks out to me. It’s the part that says anything could trigger their memory. Things like snow, physical or mental pain, or experiencing a death. I get an idea from that last one. I lean over to Cole and whisper in his ear, 

“I’m going to jump off the cliff.”

“What?”

“His board that experiencing death could trigger their memories.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to jump off a roof.”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“And what if it doesn’t work.”

“Then you keep trying. You find out how to save them. Please just let me do this.”

He sighs. He continues, 

“I’m gonna miss you. If you decide to haunt me make sure to let me know it’s you.”

I chuckle. 

“Ok. I will.”

I look to the end of the tunnel and back at the man whom I don’t know. He narrows his eyes at me. I look to Cole and we nod at each other. Cole sprints at the man as I run towards the end. I run as fast as I can and make it to the end in no time. I see people down there. A lot. I take a deep breath, say goodbye to all the people I love, and jump. I hope that this works. I hope that their memories come flooding back in. I hope that we put an end to this. If it doesn’t work, Cole will figure it out I’m sure of it. As I  get ready for my fate I see Cole standing at the ledge. He waves goodbye to me. I wave back with a tear in my eye. I let the tears fall as I don’t want to leave him yet. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and feel myself getting close to the ground. Right as I reach the city I hear people gasp and everything goes black.