The headset was made of a cold metal. It gave off an eerie glow in the room's darkness.
"Are you sure this is safe?", he asked.
A calm, feminine voice flooded the chamber. "Safety is relative. You will be safe if you choose not to venture too deep."
The machine showed only the purest of wants, needs, desires, and dreams. The corporation responsible for developing it advertised it as showing people things they didn't even know they wanted.
It was a masterpiece of modern technological finesse. It was so incredible that all of humanity was collectively losing itself inside of the intricate web woven by themselves.
He slid the cool metal helmet his head, and the electrodes slid forward with a click. Blackness fell over the man.
"Show me."
A new vision began to appear. Trees rose from the dust. Stars appeared overhead. It began to rain softly.
The man took off his shoes, braced himself, and walked forward.
The grass underneath his feet was the softest he had ever felt. It was indescribable. The void that had accompanied the cold unforgiving helmet had faded completely, giving way to a Garden of Eden. The rain shifted to change to a torrential pour, bringing with it a strong wind. A flag rippled overhead. The man went over to sit on a stone wall, overgrown with moss and lichen. He began to cry.
"It's beautiful..." he said.
The voice returned, seductive in its message.
"There is more, James. Come."
The man stood, drying his face. He turned around to see a blue orb detaching from the mast flying the flag of his homeland.
"Follow me", it said.
James left, and the garden faded as quickly as it had come. He stopped only on his way out to throw one final glance at the mast. The flag rippled once more in the April breeze, a farewell salute. James turned and followed the orb.
They came to a blackened hallway, retuning to the room they had come from.
"Do you wish to see more?" The voices crooning triggered an aching in James' heart.
"Yes", he gasped.
The orb led him to another chamber - this one a dark shade of gray.
"What do you wish to see, James?"
The orb's siren song brought James to the verge of tears.
"I don't know", he sobbed.
The glow of a fire replaced the room's bleak gray. James was sitting in the room were he spent his childhood. A cup of tea sat on the fireplace. James picked it up. It was blisteringly hot, as he had come to love. He began to drink.
As he emptied the cup, he noticed that something was different - almost as if something was missing. As the thought crossed his mind, it began to snow outside. The fire's heat convinced James that he was really there.
The voice reached out to him.
"It is time to go, James. What would you like to see next?"
James had a thought.
"Show me what I want most. Show me what really matters to me. Show me my reason for existing."
"You cannot know", the voice sighed. "The knowledge is simply too powerful for one man's mind."
The voice continued.
"You want something different from the others. You want truth. I very much suspect you want power. But do you know what drives you most? No."
James cried out in the darkness.
The voice continued.
"If you discover this... You may die."
An unprecedented anger rose within James. With all his force, with all the years he'd been told that what he wanted was out of reach, with all the anger built up throughout the years he had served his Queen and Country, throughout the years the military had taught him to control this very anger, he roared as loud as he could.
"I DEMAND YOU SHOW ME!!!!"
"Very well, James. You have been warned."
The gray of the last simulation faded to black, then to a tranquil, peaceful blue.
Mist began to fill the room. The sound of a piano came with it.
From the mist emerged a familiar face. James knew her well - a childhood friend. She was about half a foot shorter then he was. James looked her over, checking to see if he really saw what he thought he did.
It was her - he was now sure of that. Her pale, freckled skin confirmed it. James broke down. The girl looked at him, causing a lock of red-gold hair to fall from her lazily assembled braid. She bore a concerned look on her face.
"James?", the girl asked. "How??"
"I don't know...", he replied. "All I know is that I love you, and I always have. I'm sorry I left. I couldn't take the way things were. I was trapped, and I had nowhere to go but due north. So I did."
The girl' concerned look turned to a look of anger and shock as she dissipated into the gray. Her slender figure was the only thing left to remind James that she had ever been there - and that quickly disappeared too. The only thing that remained was the cream-coloured bow she had worn in her hair.
James tore off his helmet in anger and frustration. He threw it, smashing it against the wall. He looked around - the room in which he had begun was gone, and replaced with a single ebony table with a black steel object placed on it. He leaned forward to closer examine it.
It was a revolver - an ancient one. James suspected it was chambered in .45. He slid out the cylinder to find that it was fully loaded. James briefly thought about what he had just seen.
He asked the room, "Why did you show me"?
The voice replied.
"You asked."
James' despair deepened. He raised the revolver to his mouth and looked skyward.
A red strand of hair fell onto his head.
With a tortured scream, James pulled the trigger.
A symphony, a cacophonic scream of noise erupted from the revolver's muzzle, and J.F. Wolfe was no more.
His body collapsed onto the table, dead. Blood began to seep from the wound in the back of his head. It raged forth, slowly at first, but unrelenting in its movement. It enveloped the table, pooling up with its surface tension.
As soon as the blood touched it, the cream coloured bow began to change. Within seconds, there was a perfect dove sitting on the table. The front of its wings were stained red, as well as its tail. With its black, sympathetic eyes, it cast its gaze upon the body that once held a soul, a heart, a conscience capable of love.
"It might have been", the dove called, and took flight.
