I Am Fictional Real

Prologue: The Sleepless Author (99.6 Years Ago)

          I rubbed my eyes as I guided my car where to go. Despite the heavy traffic that had gone across the silver roads. I wasn't worried to be late to this particular appointment. The sun filtered through the window for a while until the large skyscrapers of Latis had encroached upon the naturalness of it. I started taking notes in my APCA, eyes on my arm as the notes transferred from my head to the computer. I had no idea when describing the sun would ever be useful, but it was always a benefit to take notes on everything.
         My car slowed as it came to a stop in a parking lot. Other autonomous cars had surrounded my own, grey in color as they blended in with the silver ground. Exiting my car, I found myself staring into a pure white building I analyzed with my eye augments to be marble. An ancient material. My footsteps were guided by a tiny machine, leading a cleared path through the cold of January into the warmth of the marble-encased building. It must have belonged to it, I thought. Again, I started taking notes on it. Where in my fiction could marble-made buildings be used?
I entered the building with an immediate scanner taking over my every breath until it beeped and gave my name out to everything inside. Except... there was no human in sight. Only a machine, upright and sturdy, stood at a desk, fingers of metal clacking away at a keyboard levitated to fit their needs. I approached carefully. With a swift hand motion its finger guided me to a door with the label "Virtual Reality".
          I took it upon myself to just go. There was no use asking questions with a bot, and I would rather feel a human's touch before anything else. My hands encased in metal had opened the door with little effort. I was immediately greeted by a man, tall and thin, like he hadn't eaten in a long while. His large nose caught me off guard.
           "Esinna?" he asked much like a child would.
          I nodded. "Esinna Valunett. I'm here for the... experiment?"
        "Oh, yes. To fix your sleeping issue. I will say that this is merely a test. If you wish to continue using it after the trial, you must pay for one of these machines yourself."
          It was expensive, I knew, but I was sure to have enough royalties from my novels for such a purpose. I followed him to one of the many chairs, sitting down into the leather and situating myself to stare out of the large mirror. The city below was magnificent.
         "I am Doctor Kresh, by the way," the man told me while pressing buttons on the chair. "Mind telling me why you're here?"
           "The same as the rest of your patients," I said. "Sleepless. Tired. I have a job, and I'd rather sleep, you know."
          "Ah, well you're lucky to live in such a time where the virtual world helps the tired."
           Yes, I knew. I heard stories of it keeping the mind active, like you're playing a game. A question came to mind.
           "Is it true that you don't age while in this machine?" I asked him.
           He nodded. "Rightly so. We believe you should sleep and stop the clock on your life for a while." He pressed a few more buttons, and then he stepped away. "All right. You ready?"
            I nodded, though I couldn't say I was ever ready. A visor came down, clouding my vision to blackness, and loud sounds had pierced my eardrums like an obnoxious hum that continued on and on until... Nothing. I could no longer feel the chair or the restlessness. Everything seemed to disappear from my fingers. Then it all flashed to a grassy field. Empty. No trees. I could only hear the rustling of grass as I sat in between the blades, eyes focused on the realness of it. I tried taking notes on my APCA. Nothing. My arm augments, metal fingers and odd colored eyes were all gone.
              For a while, I sat there. I sat there. Dumbfounded. Lost. It didn't even occur to me that someone said something to me until their eyes had focused in. Beautiful greens eyes and brown hair. He had a tinier face that all seemed placed together in harmony. And he was bare. No metal on him or hidden within his clothes. He sat across from me, and he waved.
            "Hello!" he said brightly.
           I stared at my hands. "Am I...?"
           "Dreaming? Kind of, I guess." He scratched his head. "Virtual reality puts you in a simulation within your head while you're asleep. It makes you feel like REM sleep."
            "Don't people use it to feel, though?"
           "To play games. That's not the same as this. This is built specifically this way. Not going, not feeling around you." He paused for a minute and piped up. "I'm Rantorm, by the way."
          "Esinna."
          I could stare into his eyes forever, the green cusps of leaves on trees and mass overgrown. His hair was dark enough to be bark, I thought. As I thought this, he simply turned away. He stared at the sun as his back hit the overgrown grass.
         "We're sharing a dream, you know," he whispered.
         My body swayed until I sat next to his body. Maybe I could touch it. Him. To make sure he was real.
          "Oh?" I said, half-interested.
           "Yeah. Some people do when they come to that building. They pull the same strings, so to speak."
           I lied on my back, taking in needed breath. I needed this. I needed this more than anyone thought possible. With my nose stuffed into my drafts of novels, I hadn't realized how much time I had wasted. A hobby, a passion. I could no longer feel in this moment. My eyes closed, and his voice carried on. It sung to me, trapped me into the air like I was suspended by strings that were held by a puppeteer. When I thought about waking up, I imagined the dread of being human again, of augments again.
           "R-"
         "Warning, warning. Power has been temporarily shut down. Subjects are currently stuck in virtual reality. Time of power outage unknown."
          My sleepy eyes were wide awake. Rantorm had a similar reaction. The bright sun had turned dark, like a black hole encased i nothing but void. Every piece of grass had stopped motion, and it felt like crusted stone. My eyes darted to Rantorm, and he struggled to come to terms with what was going on.
          I gulped. "Can we call for help?"
         "No. It was an immediate answer.
          "So, we have to wait? How long will the power outage be?" I started pulling at my hair as Rantorm sat back on the stone-like grass. "I have books to write, and I can't be in a state of eternal slumber forever!"
         "I can't poof us out of here, Esinna!" he shouted. The fire in his eyes made me imagine the beautiful trees and moss burning to a crisp.
         "I..." I struggled to breathe almost. "I'm sorry. I just..."
        "Time... doesn't matter. It seems like we might be here forever. Or twenty minutes. Either way, it doesn't matter. We're stuck."
           I sighed. We were stuck. Forever.