DataFields-It’s a weird day
The room was quiet. More quiet than usual. This was an asylum after all but it was not like these cliche horror movie asylums where patients were screaming in pain left and right. But usually there was always something going on. But not today. In fact, the only sound she could hear right now was the rain crashing against her window. It was a weird afternoon. It has been some weird months but today was particularly weird. Not even in a bad way. Just... weird. She looked out of the window into the grey sky. The dimmed light that coated the world in everlasting melancholia was strangely soothing to her. It reminded her of the rainy days at the coast. Wind in her hair, hands in the pockets of her big sweater as she stood at the beach with the little wodden house. The feeling of the ice cold water flowing around her ankles like a thousand needles poking her skin. She would always treasure this feeling, the feeling of being alive. And it pained her to know that the last time she got to experience it, it feeled different. Because it was not real. It was part of a simulation. It was part of her brain trying to make sense of the data fields that she spend almost her whole life in. But maybe she would in fact spend her whole life in here. Or maybe this room, this world was real after all. She didn't know. How was she supposed to know. Deep down in the depths of her brain was the aswer. But it was covered up by images of white masks, hanging corpses, the death cramps of her electricuted friends and all the sins she commited that led to her sitting in a white hospital room watching the raindrop's race on her window. She frowned. Today was one of these weird days where she felt to tired to try to kill herself in order to return to the real world, she did not want to ruin it by indulging herself in melancholic thoughts of wooden houses at the beach. Or maybe she was not tired after all. Maybe there was a small spark of hope in her heart that the images with the faces and the voices of her friends where real afterall and she was not trapped in a simulation made by her brain so that it woun't get fried by the sheer amount of information recieved by it through the data fields. But just as she thought she could forget about the crippling memories of stormy coasts, her past seemed to come back at her once more in the shape of a young man entering her room after a small knocking on her door. He was dressed in all black. Black jeans, black leather jacket with silver studs, black hoodie covering large parts of his face and a black face mask covering the other parts. But the silver sunglasses he would usually wear weren't there so she could see his eyes. It was undoubtedly him. But seeing him here was even weirder than anything she could have imagined. After all she never really met him. And still he was one of the closest friends she had. He knew things about her noone would ever know about her. "I could swear you look taller in the fields." Judging by the surprised expression on his face, he was definitely not expecting such a warm and heatfelt greeting. But then he started laughing and responded with: "Well, and I could swear your hair used to be blonder." She was looking at the mess on her head in her reflection in the window. "Well it definitely used to be cleaner..." After a small moment of silence, the two started laughing. It was definitely him. Weather this was the best imagination her brain could come up with or the real one. She did not care. Just for one moment she did not want to question him. Just for one moment she wanted to accept. He took seat in the small chair at the end of her bed and got rid of the face mask and the hood covering his face. His black hair was slicked back and his full lips where curved into a slight smile. "I'm glad to see you. I have to admit, I would have loved our first meeting to be under slightly less depressing circumstances but I figured we can not longer postpone it." "Depressing cicumstances?" He looked at her with a blank stare. "Oh yea, pardon me, that cut on your neck is a sign of pure happiness." She chuckled looking at the bandage around her throat in her reflection once again. She smiled at him: "I see what you mean." She continued smiling at him while he looked at her with an expression impossible for her to read. "It's not time for visitors right now. They don't know your here, do they?" He grinned at her so she could see his dimples. "You have been knowing me for a while now, do I seem like the type of guy to say hi at receptions?" The thought of him patiently sitting in a waiting room awaiting his name to be shouted by the overworked receptionist made her laugh out loud. "So you hacked yourself into the reception computer and found out about the time scedule and the room plans." His grin got even wider. "By the way, you dont have anyone checking up on you today anymore, apparently somebody already did that this morning." The silence returned as she looked out the window but it was more of a soothing silence rather than an akward one. "What now?" The question seemed a bit out of the blue but she immediately knew what he meant. "I don't know. If I would, I would probably not be here." He rose from his chair and started to inspect the window. "Don't bother. It's closed so people like me can not jump out of it in an attempt to fly. What are you trying to do anyway?" He turned around with a mischievous smile while taking a small leather case out of his pocket. "Please. You think so little of me?" He turned around and started to work on the small mechanism on the window that was supposed to prevent patients from opening it for more than a couple of centimeters. "We both know that you can not stay here for much longer. We need you. The fields got a litle bit...crazy over the last year." Her gaze followed his hands quickly changing between the small tools out of his leather case. "But what if I don't want to return? What if I just don't care?" With a small click he removed a small gear from the window. "Panther, I don't even know what's real anymore. Maybe I just want to pretend like nothing of all of this is concerning me. Everybody else is allowed to look away and pretend like everything is fine. Why am I not allowed to do that? Just because I'm not using Facebook? Just because I'm not selling my identity to every single social media and new world gadget out there? Just because I'm trying to be smarter than that? I'm not trying to change the world. I tried at some point. But I learned my lesson. We should not expect to much of our impact on this planet. We should all just not care. It would be better for us. The sweet ignorant bliss...I don't know who I am anymore, Panther. I don't know whats real or not. I don't know who to trust, hell, I don't even know who you are..." With a second click, Panther removed the second part of the mechanism and opened the window to let in a wave of cold and wet air. "You are right. You don't own them shit. Noone. You don't have to return to the fields. Over the years, I'm pretty sure you made enough money and collected enough blackmail material to disappear forever on a caribbean island and to never come back. And if I were you, I wouldn't think twice before leaving all of this behind and not giving a damn just like everybody else. But that's not your style. I've known you for a long time now and you are not the type of person to just run away like that. I would understand it, you have absolutely no duty to do any of this. Especially after being here. But you are to stubborn to take a break. The fields are a part of you. They are a part of me. Even if we would never enter them ever again, they would always stay this part of us that we can not deny. They would hunt us for the rest of our lives. This feeling of absolute control and no controll at all. This feeling of standing in the middle of absolute wisdom but not being able to catch even the slightest bit of it. We were the first to go that far, Sarah. We crossed the line. Our implants are just a sign of our addiction. Because that is just what it is. That is what we are. Junkies. Even if we could get away from it, our minds would always wander back to that place where humanity shows itself in it's absolute worst. And once seen, you can not forget about it and all of a sudden you find yourself standing in the middle of a crowd staring at it. Knowingly. And there is nothing bittersweeter than this kind of wisdom. And you know that." He climbed on the windowsill and for the first time in what felt like ages he turned aroud to face her. His black hair was now perfectly framing his angular features. His usual cool gaze was now completely honest and serious. She has only seen him like that once before. His eyes were piercing in an almost uncomfortable manner. "I don't care about all of this. If shit goes down, I'm long gone. And I'm also not here because of that. I care about you, that's why I'm here. When you were gone for so long, I knew something was up. And I was right, so here we are. And about me..." His gaze turned softer. "I'm the same as always. And even though that probably does not say a lot to most people, I know it does to you. And I want you to know that whatever you are planing on doing, no matter how you will decide, I will help you. If you decide to return to the fields, I will be by your side. If you decide to leave, I will personally be the one to carry your bags. I owe that to you. But before you decide anything, we should make you feel better first." He reached out for her hand in order to pull her onto the ledge. She looked at him confused. "You want me to climb out of the window of my hospitalroom into the rain to follow you, a person that I only know through the internet, to a place I don't know?" He laughed out loud and with a beaming smile he responded: "I never took you for the cautious type. I just want to take you on a small trip down memory lane, I swear this creepy dude from the internet here is not trying to get into your pants." The two chuckled a bit at his commentary but as he saw her still slightly unsure expression, he added: "Do you trust me Sarah?" For a moment she just looked at him and his hand and her mind began wandering. 'Today is a weird day' she thought to herself as she took his hand and was pulled out of the window into the cold rain.
