Reincarnate

“I still don’t understand it, Stephen” Reggie said, leaning on the chunky beige computer console.

“I don’t really either. It was a dream that told me, then I thought of them and here they are” Stephen said, holding up the immense ring of keys that seemed to go on forever.

“Sure.”

Stephen frowned and put a hand in the pocket of his lab coat. The two walked over to a shadowy corner of their room, and as they got closer a door began materialising in front of them. As Stephen flicked through the ring and muttering to himself about “These fucking keys,” Reggie leaned against the wall and looked at their workspace. I.T., that’s all they do. They take an express elevator up to the thirty second floor and reset the computer when the need arises.

Both tried their best to mitigate the never-ending existential boredom. Stephen having brought a laptop to practice his programming and Reggie chucked a ball against the wall. They would alternate between silently about their own business, bantering with each other. This would be broken up by the occasional “ding” of an error sound and the two putting their fingers on their noses. Last one to do it would have to get up and reset it.

But finally Stephen had been told, in his sleep no less, why they were there and what the computer did. The formless person told him and gave him the tools he needed to create the door and the keys. Bastard didn’t tell him that it would make such an enormous ring of keys.

“It was a dream,” Stephen said, still not believing it himself, “I got approached and…we might finally figure out what our job is all about. I understand if you don’t wanna come with but—”

“I’m in,” Reggie interrupted. Stephen stopped cycling through the keys and looked at his colleague, “I’m tired of not knowing what this job is.” Stephen smiled and flicked to the last key, it was always the last key. He stuck the key roughly where the lock was, as it was still shrouded in darkness, and…the key disappeared. Just as soon as it had made contact, the key had become one with the nothingness of the walls. Stephen frowned, “Did we hit some kind of security thing?”

Reggie moved his hand past Stephen and toward where the wall, once door, was. And as soon as it had made contact he disappeared into the dark as well.

A few moments, no response. Stephen tentatively reached his hand to the same spot and that was it. Nothingness eternal.

At least that’s what it felt like, and in no time Stephen was falling and landed hard on something sharp, right onto his tailbone. After a few seconds of screaming, Stephen rolled over and saw a perfectly pristine key beside him. Before he could get a sense of his surroundings he was pulled up by Reggie.

“You okay?” He asked.

Stephen, still rubbing his ass, responded, “Sure.”

Stephen looked down and saw himself standing on a plane of windows stretching off in the distance. At one end the windows stretched off into the blinding white sky, making prolonged viewing impossible. Off in the other direction a thick fog blocked everything but the vague silhouette of a street. In fact, despite the fog, Stephen could see clear as day it was 250^th^ st. This was the Shimmering City, but somehow they were on the side of a skyscraper.

“Okay,” Stephen began, shaking as where they were standing was finally dawning on him, “We need to get off of here or I’m going to throw up.”

“I already did…it hit the street.”

Stephen winced and looked into the windows. The glossy reflection of the city’s skyscrapers and towers gave him no reprieve from the horror of the heights, it also made it impossible to see into the building.

Stephen’s mind was simultaneously working overtime and not producing thoughts of any kind. “W-what floor do we work on again?”

Reggie looked at Stephen confused, then realised himself how much effort it was to remember through the sheer terror, “Th-the…the thirty fir-SECOND. It’s the thirty second. Floor, that is.”

Stephen counted from the top, thirty fourth, thirty third, thirty second. And, fighting through his desire to stay firmly rooted to where he was, he crouched down and ever so slowly grabbed the key from the ground. Shuffling forward, Stephen crawled past each floor. Fiftieth, accounting, forty ninth, marketing. A brief pause to pull himself up with the help of Reggie, and on they both shuffled, not daring to go faster than their constricting fears would allow.

After a few eternities they reached their floor.

“We’ll have to get in through here,” shouted Stephen. The closer they had gotten to their stop the more the wind tried to sabotage their attempts at movement and communication.

“How do we get in?” Reggie shouted back.

Stephen didn’t respond, he was concentrating on the pane of glass. Its subtle imperfections were a lot more clear when you had your face pressed up against it. And finally Stephen found it, a single chip. Possibly from a small rock or a bird smacking into it, regardless it was time to use the key again.

Stephen, reached a shaky arm into his pocket and pulled out the key once again and dramatically began slamming the point into the chip. Each hit made the window softer, warp more, easier to hit. One final hit stuck the key in and made it impossible to pull out. Stephen attempted to haul himself up, but one slip of the foot forced him back to the ground.

“I’ve got it,” Reggie said, holding his arm out to nudge him back. He shakily rose to his feet and, summoning all of the strength he had, jumped. He landed on the point and the window took a moment to crack before launching the two down into the building.

The two woke up next to each other on a cold steel floor. There was no glass around them, and no evidence of there even being a window anywhere.

Stephen, still groggy, said, “Do you remember falling in here?”

Reggie was visibly racking his brain, but could only arrive at a simple, “No.”

The facility gave off even less of a human feel than The Shimmering City itself. Light grey steel slabs tiled the walls, roof and floor. A metal pipe wormed from the roof down to almost the floor level and out the wall. There was no evidence of any kind of welding, as if the pipe was always a part of the room. Concentric circular grooves adorned the walls, and each set were different in subtle but consistent ways. Reggie walked over to one of them and ran his hand over the circles.

“I think this is a language,” he said.

“What?” Stephen replied.

“These circles. It’s inexplicable but they have some kind of structure to them.”

Stephen walked over to join him, grabbing onto the pipe to swing him forward. As he did that, a flash of colours and sounds replaced his reality. He hit the ground with a thud, as if he had been thrown down. Reggie dropped on one knee and met Stephen’s eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked

Stephen batted his eyes a few times, until returning like a computer being rebooted. “Mm, give me a moment,” he replied hoarsely.

“What happened?” Reggie asked

“I have to go again,” Stephen replied with determination. He shot up to his feet, “Stand behind me, I’ll need someone to catch me.”

Reggie stood between the wall and Stephen without hesitation, but asked exasperatedly, “Why are you doing it again?”

But too late, Stephen again reached out a hand to grab the pipe. As he inched closer, and Reggie felt the same, a strange feeling came over them. Like they were on a stage performing in front of an audience. Further still, in the split second before contact was made, flashes of places and people replaced the guys’ realities. Memories that weren’t theirs came in and overwrote their own. Reggie was holding onto Stephen and whatever he was feeling was conducted into Reggie.

Stephen’s memories of coming second at a 24 hour coding jam, replaced with his memories of relaxing at the skyscraper beaches with his grandchildren. Reggie’s memory of finally putting together a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle after school, replaced with his memory of being shot running for the cartels.

Then, they snapped out of it. A brief red flash followed by a set of those concentric circles marked their return to real life, and their own memories flooding back. Their hearts were beating and they were breathing heavy, their experiences, who they are as people, were completely erased.

“Jesus Christ, I only wanted to see the rest of that memory. I wasn’t ready for that!” Stephen shouted. Reggie continued leaning against the white tiled wall trying to catch his breath. Both took a few moments before realising, they may not have understood what that message said, but they understood what it meant to not be welcome.

The room had changed. Its lifeless grey boxy form was replaced with a quaint english cottage. A crackling fireplace was all that illuminated the sparsely decorated, now oak wood panelled, room. Both men had landed on the couch after their bad trip off the pipe, which was the only thing that remained of where they were before.

“I think I’ve had just about enough of this place,” Stephen exclaimed, leaping to his feet and reaching for the key in his pocket. By now his work clothes had a significant amount of wear and tear on it, so discerning between a pocket and a tattered thread of pants was tricky. Not helping was his memories trickling back to him, in front of his eyes. It didn’t completely block his vision, but his mind’s eye was working faster than his regular eyes.

“I forgot who Una was…” Reggie said, still shaky.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here s—” Stephen was cut off by Reggie leaning left and looking past him. There was a door. It had just appeared without them noticing until now. Stephen was overcome with thoughts of what was behind this door. And clearly, looking at Reggie, Stephen could tell the same was true of him. “Or…”

“We could look a little deeper into this place?” Reggie asked. Both almost completely forgot that awful feeling of loss as their own memories had almost finished coming back. Reggie got up and stood next to Stephen as he walked over to the door. He somehow knew, more than any other fact, more than gravity existing, that there was something behind that door he needed to see. And he knew he needed to give this door his key.

Stephen held out the key with the palm of his hand, ready not to unlock but give the door his key. Then, Reggie snapped out of it and placed his hand on Stephen’s arm to stop him, “Wait, that door appeared as soon as we were hit by that warning. I think it might be a trap set by the computer.”

“Like a honeypot?”

Reggie nodded. Stephen stopped looking at the door and began studying it. It was still drawing him in, like it was radiating pure curiosity in ebbs and flows. Then, as soon as the sense of doubt began creeping in, everything stopped. The fireplace faded from a crisp flame into a blurry splotch of orange and the door was no longer interesting. There was only one thought in Stephen and Reggie’s mind: RUN!

Both stepped back to the far corner, as far away from the door as possible, before it was blown from the other side, with chunks of wood swirling around the room like hailstones. A creature emerged through the blinding lights of the doorway. Slick and black like it was coated in tar, it slithered into the room, using its many tentacles to wrap around the room.

“Surrender yourself to the antibodies, or rejoin the cycle,” it bellowed, its echo intensified by it’s own form enveloping the room. Not responding to this thing’s orders, the two raced to the doorway and slipped in the tiny gap that had not been covered yet.

They were greeted by faces staring at them. Their eyes were following their movements as they ran past them, but looked at the two with no expression. No emotion, like they were just waiting to be put on a body but until then just looked at whatever was moving. Stephen ran past one which was familiar, same with Reggie a few seconds later. They recognised these faces because they were their own, in other memories that had been forced upon them.

The two tried not to think of that same feeling of being on a stage in front of people, as they neared the end of this corridor. Stephen briefly looked behind him and caught a glimpse of the monster coiling around the entire room as it pursued them. It was a creature with barely any form, a wobbling mass of jet black goo with no face and no discernible appendages. Stephen had gotten a really good glimpse.

Stephen damn near had his head taken off by Reggie who had stopped him. They had entered a new room without either of them noticing. Here gun-metal grey adorned the floors and the walls. The whole room had the air of a military base, with zigzagging overhead platforms and crates covered in navy green fabric with netting over top. Stephen and Reggie dove for the nearest crate and Reggie covered his mouth trying to quieten down his laboured breathing.

“I have an id—” Stephen said, before Reggie forcefully shared a quieting hand with him. Stephen angrily batted away the hand, “Fuck you, this idea might work.”

Reggie looked at him sceptically, “What is it?”

“This place clearly treats reality like a computer program. So we should think like who or whatever made this place. There has to be a backdoor so a person who should be here isn’t treated like an unwanted guest,” Stephen explained.

“How do we find that?” Reggie asked.

Stephen thought a bit longer, “Every room here seems to have been created from memories that are either ours, or we were given. The English cottage was I assume yours, the faces were both of us and this military base must be from a vague memory I have of being in the service.”

“There hasn’t been a military for hundreds of years,” Reggie stated

“I know,” Stephen responded. Reggie knew exactly what this meant. He closed his eyes, along with Stephen and thought like the first person to create this place. After ever so slowly bringing his heart rate down and allowing his nerves to settle he began to see it. The key was calm, that someone who knew the way to avoid being chased would be calm and wouldn’t be chased. Perfectly circular logic that only a programmer would use. Then both men were rocked by an explosion.

Doesn’t matter how well you know that you’re safe. When a giant black tar creature crashes through the walls and has spotted you, there is nothing to do but panic. Before the guys could get up and run the creature coiled itself around them, blocking any means of escape. “Surrender yourself to the antibodies, or rejoin the cycle,” it bellowed.

Stephen looked around them, they were back in the first room they saw moments ago. A grey steel box with that damn pipe worming through. The hole that the creature fit through was streaming bright white light in. Stephen was now panicking, not because of the creature but because he had already decided what to do. “See you in the next life, Reggie.”

Reggie didn’t have a moment to react before Stephen boosted himself up on the side of the creature and grabbed the pipe with his entire body. Reggie finally saw what they had looked like earlier, that the same white light that flooded from the hole in the wall consumed Stephen. And soon enough, he was no more. He had rejoined the cycle.

Reggie stared motionless at the part of the pipe where Stephen used to be, and allowed himself to be enveloped into the tar black folds of the creature.

Reggie awoke to the gentle pushing of waves on his legs. He opened his eyes and sat up, he was on a beach. A thick, white mist enveloped everything, but behind him he could discern the outline of the city. He put a hand on his chest, yes he was real, and alive. Out of the haze on either side came men dressed head to toe in camouflage military uniforms and about five different people pointed their weapons at his head.

Reggie spent the next month of his life getting bounced from lawyer to lawyer and signing document after document. A bunch of non-disclosures, a few admittances of wrongdoing and criminal trespass. He wouldn’t be sent to prison, hell, the city didn’t even need prisons anymore, and after the month was over he was sent back to the same job he had been doing for so long, and learnt so much from.

Reggie was back there, throwing a ball against the wall and occasionally restarting the computer when it asked for it. Though it was lonely without Stephen there with him, he finally knew how death in this reality worked. Reggie was a bigger expert on the reincarnation computer system than any other living being, and he knew that Stephen was going to be happy with whatever life he ended up in next.