This short story of mine was awarded an honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest 92nd Annual Writing Competition.
It’s a little weird, which is a lot of me.
Enjoy!
In
“Please let me know if you experience any discomfort.”
Sandra nodded her head.
“There. Do you feel it?” Rebecca, the neurotechnician, asked.
Sandra opened her eyes. It was strange. Although Rebecca had placed a Wellness Quest Six over most of her face, her skin felt weightless. She wondered if it was the VR headset’s minimal design or just her typical dissociation.
“I don’t feel anything,” she said.
“Excellent. Do you have any questions before we begin the session?”
Sandra shook her head. She was tired of asking questions. She was tired of needing answers. That’s why she was there.
Rebecca gave Sandra a sad smile. Sandra saw the pity and wasn’t sure which urge was greater: the desire to spit in Rebecca’s face or beg her for mercy. She closed her eyes again.
“I’m sorry, but I need verbal confirmation of everything we do from this point forward. Do you have any questions before we begin the session?” she repeated.
“No.”
“Do you give New Horizon consent to conduct this neurofeedback therapy session until it is completed?”
“Yes.”
“Do you give New Horizon consent to bridge your session with Elias Mendez’s?”
“Yes.”
“Do you give New Horizon consent to contact Carmen Rodriguez in case of an emergency, disclosing to her the nature of this session if needed?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Sandra. In just a few moments, you will transition from this reality into a virtual world. When your consciousness enters the session, it will be like waking up from a long nap. The virtual world will be sensorially indistinguishable from this one. The shift will be painless. Are you ready to begin?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and count back from ten.”
Sandra awakened to blinding white light. After a few blinks, she noticed the blue expanse, the crash of waves, and the warmth blanketing her skin. She sat up to discover she was on a towel at an empty beach, her brown body half-dressed in a golden one-piece.
She took in her surroundings. Wonder swelled within her like the tide she could see – taste even. The cerulean water, the shimmering sand, the empty sky – this was the spot where they agreed they’d meet. They’d designed it together on the Wellcraft platform, Worldcraft’s mental health subsidiary, and called it “Indigo’s Lagoon.”
“Shit,” she whispered.
“I know,” a familiar voice said behind her.
“Elias.”
“Sandra.”
They smiled at each other, a once normal, now awkward event between two people who hadn’t exchanged so much as two seconds of sustained eye contact in several months.
“You look… like you,” Elias said.
Sandra laughed.
“Which is to say, gorgeous,” he finished.
“Mhm,” Sandra said, smiling and thinking the contrast between Elias’ pink lips and nutmeg skin was almost irresistible. Almost.
They stared at each other for a moment before letting their eyes wander around the setting of their making.
“So… we’re in each other’s minds?” Sandra wondered aloud.
“You’re asking me to explain this to you?” Elias asked incredulously.
Sandra chuckled. She was a lifelong gamer – part of two decentralized autonomous organization-managed Hidden Kingdom guilds – and proud owner of nearly $500K in NFTs. She was an early adopter of VR who bought Wellcraft stock years before she ever thought she’d need it. Still, this technology far exceeded her expectations.
“Honestly, if I think about it for too long, I think I’ll go crazy,” she said quietly.
“Yeah… I kind of wish there was something about this beach that proved we were in the metaverse. Or whatever we’re in. It’s too real.”
As if someone was listening in on their conversation, a bell reverberated from the sky, and a clear, warm voice filled the world with instructions.
“Welcome to your New Horizon,” the voice said. “Congratulations on clearing level one. You may now proceed to level two. Follow the arrows, and we will guide you into your next experience.”
Neon green arrows appeared in front of Sandra’s and Elias’ feet, leading them to a suddenly materialized mahogany door standing at the the shoreline.
Sandra began walking toward the door, but Elias didn’t move.
“Sandra – we don’t have–”
“Don’t do that.”
Elias hesitated, looking at the woman in gold before him, remembering the last time she wore a bathing suit like that. Too much had changed in too short a time. Was this insane experiment going to fix that or make it worse?
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Elias.”
Elias sighed. He didn’t want to do this, but he was losing her. Anyone who spent more than two minutes around them could see that. She was hardly the woman he’d met twenty years ago at the campus arcade, back when air hockey was a game you played without a headset (though a helmet would have been useful in a match against Sandra). He was grateful she wanted to do something, even though “virtual reality neurofeedback therapy” sounded like the worst way to spend a midsummer Friday night.
“Okay,” Elias said.
Sandra almost smiled. Elias almost smiled back. Then they walked onto the wet sand to open a door that wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Oh my God,” Sandra whispered.
“It’s too much. I’m sorry. This is horrifying. I’m such an idiot–”
“No, no. No–”
“I don’t know why I’m like this–”
“Shut up, Elias. I’m… excited.”
“Wait. What?”
Sandra rolled her eyes and chuckled.
“Babe, you have to know that men aren’t the only ones who fantasize about threesomes.”
“Wait. What?”
“Use new search terms, Elias.”
“You… you want to do this?”
“Fuck a virtual woman who looks like that?!” Sandra said pointing at the holographic rendering of Elias’ chosen fantasy. “Hell. Yes.”
Elias stared at his wife as if seeing her for the first time.
“Wait. What?!”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in–”
“It’s really not.”
“You’ve never mentioned fantasizing–”
“You never asked.”
“Fair,” Elias conceded.
He stared hard at Sandra.
“Yes, Elias?” she asked, eyebrow cocked.
“What do you mean you’re excited?”
“Women are gorgeous creations, Elias–”
“This is a trap. This is a trap. This. Is. A. Trap–”
“We’re in a virtual world that feels like the real world. Even if I wasn’t excited about having this threesome, I’d do it because… why not?”
“Because what if you like it?” Elias asked, suddenly much less eager to get started than he was when he realized level two was going to start with his fantasies.
“Are you worried I’m going to like your imaginary woman more than I like you, honey?”
Elias looked at the fantasy woman. She was thick, dark, and unreasonably well-breasted.
“She’s much, much better looking than me,” Elias concluded.
Elias and Sandra giggled. Then, a stillness fell on them. It was gentle, but it had weight.
“It’s been a while. If we’re gonna do this again, why not do something a little crazy?” Sandra asked, speaking more to herself than Elias.
“I don’t know if this is just ‘a little’ crazy, Sandy.”
“She’s not real, though,” Sandra said. “So I’m not worried. You don’t have to worry,” Sandra said, looking past the holograph into memories no one else could see.
“What? What is it?”
“I’m just… I’m ready to just… to… I don’t know…”
Her words dissolved into painful silence.
A bell chimed. Once again, the voice of reason filled the room.
“When you are ready to experience the fantasy, take each other’s hands. Physical contact will initiate the experience. The experience will end when any participant says ‘end experience.’”
Sandra looked at Elias.
“You ready?”
Elias stared at his wife. They hadn’t been sexually intimate in almost two years, and they were about to have a virtually realistic threesome with the woman of his unholiest fantasies. He couldn’t figure out if this was a dream or a nightmare.
“Sandra, we don’t have to do this. It’s already been fun. We’re talking more than we have in months. We don’t–”
“Elias. Let’s just do it. Okay?”
There was no bell. There was no imaginary door to walk through. Just a choice to make.
“No,” Elias said.
“What?”
“No. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want her.”
“For Christ’s sake, Elias, yes you do. Algorithms are incapable of lying. She–” Sandra pointed at the holograph – “is the manifestation of your deepest desires–”
“No, she isn’t–”
“Yes, she is. She is who you want–”
“No–”
“YES SHE IS! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!”
Broke isn’t the right word to describe what happened inside Sandra’s body.
The pain she’d held in a neatly packed ball for twenty-eight months cracked. A plume of shrapnel ruptured from that chasm, scraping her insides with the corners of pictures she’d never stop seeing.
Elias took her into his arms. His touch was as familiar and unreachable as her shadow.
“You’re the one I want,” he whispered into her ear.
Sandra moaned and shuddered.
“You’re the one I want, Sandra. I want you.”
“You fucking asshole,” she whimpered into his shoulder.
“I’m a fucking asshole. I’m such a fucking asshole.”
“I hate you so much.”
“I hate me, too. You have no idea how much I hate me,” Elias said, his voice cracking.
Sandra sat up and looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, placing her hand on his cheek. “Elias.”
He closed his eyes and shuddered.
“Sandra.”
“Let’s move on. I don’t want to be in this place anymore,” Sandra said after a moment of silence.
Elias nodded.
“End experience!” they yelled into oblivion.
“I’m not gonna lie… I’m low-key mad that we’re actually playing out your fantasy–”
“But at the same time–”
“But at the same time,” Elias said looking at the landscape around him. “This is dope, Sandra.”
Elias and Sandra stood on a clearing about halfway toward the summit, each wearing lightweight armor and testing out their new super-ability: telekinesis. So far, they’d discovered they could use their power to move small to mid-size objects telepathically. Sandra suspected they could carry much larger objects with practice – possibly even combine their powers to exceed their individual strength.
“You’re welcome,” Sandra said with a grin.
“Also, my fantasy seems really adolescent compared to this.”
“I wasn’t gonna say it, but…”
They laughed. Sandra spotted a boulder about as big as their labrador retriever a few hundred feet down. She poured her consciousness around it, squeezed, and began to lift.
“Holy shit, Sandra! That one’s huge!” Elias shouted proudly.
Sandra couldn’t respond – holding the rock took everything she had. She suspended the boulder in the air for thirty seconds, then gently placed it back where she’d found it.
“Huh. I thought you’d chuck it or something,” Elias said.
“Who knows what animals found shelter beneath that. I don’t want to disturb anyone’s home.”
“You know none of this is real, though, right?”
“Whatever. It’s the principle that counts. My principles are real.”
“Fair. So… what now?”
Sandra had been wondering the same thing. She had an idea of what was coming, but she wasn’t sure if New Horizon would allow that part of the fantasy to play out. She hoped they wouldn’t.
“Not sure,” Sandra said. “But I’m exhausted. And starving, damn.”
“Me too, actually. Which is weird.”
“I mean… I don’t think it’s that weird. Hunger is just a brain signal. There’s no reason why we wouldn’t experience it in this place. It’s basically a theme park for the brain.”
“True. But I don’t see food. This is your fantasy, babe. What do we do?”
Sandra smiled.
“We hunt.”
“Hello? Sandra? What do we do?! What are the instructions to stop this shit?” Elias asked, fear heightening his voice several octaves.
Sandra didn’t know what to say. This was her fault. Her fantasy. She’d meditated on the scenes nightly since her therapist had asked her to write them out months ago. Scene one: she and Elias awaken their suppressed telekinetic power. They play with it. Scene two: they use it to kill a deer. Elias cries. Sandra comforts. They build a fire. They feast. They fuck. Scene three: the whole thing turns into a nightmare.
She couldn’t believe New Horizon was playing scene three. They were supposed to filter Wellcraft renderings. That was why they were paying New Horizon thousands of dollars instead of doing this in their bedroom for free.
“There are no instructions to end it,” she whispered.
“What do you mean? We just have to say ‘end experience–’”
“Let’s try it, then.”
“End experience!” they shouted.
Nothing changed. The darkness advanced, the moaning continued, the tremors intensified.
“What the fuck?! What the actual fuck?!” Elias asked.
“There are no instructions,” Sandra repeated. “We just showed up here. And played around. And now we’re going to die. There is no way out.”
“Wait, wait. Wait. There’s no way Wellcraft would glitch like this–”
“Are you kidding me? This tech is exploratory! People die –”
“We can’t die in here – none of this is real–”
“Elias, are you stupid?! Pinch yourself.”
Elias glared.
“Pain is real here. Hunger is real here. If we die in here, we die out there. I don’t need to understand the technology to get that.”
“Okay, well I want to live. Don’t you?”
Sandra took too long to answer for Elias’ liking.
“Sandra? Do you – want to live?”
Tears flooded her eyes.
“I want to live,” she finally said.
“Okay. Okay. Jesus, thank you. Okay. Let’s think,” Elias said, rubbing his face the way he did at the end of a bad day.
“Let’s think,” he said again. “You’re the most brilliant woman I know, and this is your fantasy. It’s completely fucked up, by the way. Completely fucked up–”
“I know–”
“I don’t know what you think about in your free time–”
“I know–”
“Judging me for my threesome fantasy–”
“I know, Elias–”
“But whatever. This is your creation. You know what to do.”
Sandra closed her eyes. Yeah. She knew.
“We have to merge our powers. We have to connect our consciousnesses. If we can do that, we can destroy whatever that thing is. I’ve played this out so many times, but I didn’t think it would really show up here.”
“Merge our consciousnesses. Bet. Okay. Okay, I’m going to try.”
“Me too.”
Sandra sat on the grass. Elias followed. They both closed their eyes and reached for each other’s minds.
“Found you,” Sandra said with a smile. A blood-curdling scream from the encroaching darkness wiped the grin from her face, breaking her telepathic contact with Elias.
“It’s weird – I feel you, but I can’t hold you,” Elias said, frowning.
“Did you hear that?!” Sandra asked.
“Huh? What? No. I didn’t hear anything.”
Sandra wasn’t sure what that meant. Was she losing her mind in her mind? Or was Elias just focusing so hard on reaching her that he couldn’t hear anything else?
“Elias, try harder. Just –”
“Sandra, I am trying – I promise, I am trying. But it’s like there’s a wall or something. I can’t get past it. I feel it. My consciousness is touching it. And it’s like you’re just on the other side–”
“I know, I know. I know. Fuck, man. I know!” Sandra shouted.
The tremors and groaning grew stronger and louder by the second. Another scream. The forest shook.
“What was that?!” Elias yelled.
“Did you hear it that time?” Sandra asked.
“The scream? Who in this made-up hell you brought us to didn’t hear it? Sandra, I think there’s something you have to do on your end. I don’t know what to do. I can’t get to you.”
Tears streamed down Sandra’s face.
“Look at me, Elias,” she said.
Elias obeyed. Sandra shifted so that she was sitting directly in front of him. They stared into each other’s eyes in a way they hadn’t since it happened.
“Hold my hands,” Sandra whispered, her lips trembling.
Elias reached for her hands, maintaining eye contact. He started crying. He couldn’t help himself.
“I feel you, Sandra. My God, I feel you.”
The pain was excruciating. Elias suddenly understood why Sandra had hesitated when he asked her if she wanted to live. He’d held contact with her consciousness for only seconds and was already contemplating death.
It seemed a much gentler alternative to the relentless loop replaying the moment they discovered their twelve year old son’s dead body hanging from the ceiling fan in his room.
It seemed much safer than the inferno of her hatred. He burned in the reality of it. She hated Elias. She hated herself. But most of all, she hated Indigo.
She hated him for being born. For being all rolls and giggles and drool. For living long enough to make her need him. For taking his first steps to grab her lanyard. For curling up in her arms while she read him the Akata Witch series. For every single note he ever wrote her. For every single poem he shared with her. For every single game of chess he played with her.
She hated him for not telling her how bad it was.
She was right there, wasn’t she?
Wasn’t she?
Elias’ consciousness flooded hers, and the collective pain was smothering. She felt his shame. His guilt. He was the one who pushed Indigo to get better grades. To be more respectful. To help out more with the chores. To swim faster. To push back when those kids pushed him. To be fearless. Stronger. Better. Of course Indigo didn’t think he was enough. Elias was never satisfied.
They fell into each other’s grief, burned in it, screamed in it, thrashed in it. And then they held each other, feeding their misery with shared hope in the potential for a better tomorrow. In the reality of their lives, lived together, right now.
“We’re ready,” Sandra said, her face wet with tears. She and Elias stood up, breaking eye contact but keeping their fingers interlocked.
“You were there, Sandra,” Elias said.
Sandra let out another sob.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, squeezing Elias’ hand.
“But I–”
“It wasn’t.”
They turned toward the darkness, now only about half a mile away. It made no sense, and they hadn’t discussed it, but they knew what to do, and they knew it would work this time.
“Wait,” Sandra shouted over the roaring darkness.
“What?”
“What if we go back and things stay the same?”
“They won’t,” Elias said.
“How do you know?”
Elias smiled at his best friend. She smiled back. They squeezed each other’s hands one more time.
“End experience!” they shouted.
And then, as if from a long nap, Sandra woke up.
Dianna K Benjamin 