Freebie Mondays: Real Again (Prompt Novel Chapter 12)

For 2024, I have decided to devote my prompt writing time to a novel. The twist is that the novel plot will be generated entirely by the writing prompts I chose to use for the project – which were rolled randomly using my trusty dice and a few online prompt lists. You can find the Table of Contents here.

For Chapter 12, the prompt was: “tell a story through text messages.”

Now that I’ve allowed the main conflicts to take root in the novel, it’s off like a shot. Things are starting to come together, and it feels really good! I’m still worried about trying to fit a few of the prompts I rolled into the overall story. But for the most part, I think I’m headed in a good direction.

Since I’ve already done a chapter that was entirely dialogue, I decided not to have this entire chapter be text messages, even though I think that’s what the prompt originally intended. Instead, I used a bunch of varying different text message threads to tell the main story of this chapter – that felt like it fulfilled the spirit of the prompt without being horribly bulky and awkward.

If you’d like to see this chapter come together, you can watch the VoD on Youtube!
. . .

Alyial’s life had been fairly odd for the last several months. There was no way to deny that. But it had never been odder than when he awoke in the lab surrounded by a series of wires and IV tube to realize that the last several weeks of his memory weren’t actually real.

As soon as the crown of wires slid free of his head and he sat up to blink disorientation out of his eyes, he recalled his mission to pop briefly inside the computer simulation to test its stability. Nala’s insistence that it would be a quick and easy jaunt should have proven accurate. But instead  of going to the office, Alyial had gone home. And he had so enjoyed the freedom to move through the digital space without worrying about time and money constraints, it never occurred to him to question his surroundings after the first five minutes of immersion.

Though it now explained Ira’s odd obsession with getting him to pop into his office.

If he hadn’t already been convinced he was cursed, he was sure of it now.

There had been a lot of flaming hoops to dodge after Alyial woke up from what turned out to be nearly three full days of absolute oblivion. His coworkers had been keeping his condition a secret, but Eidas had his fingers hovering over the emergency 911 call button on his phone when Alyial finally woke up, ready to summon assistance as soon as things turned dire.

Despite all the questions Alyial needed answered, his first and most urgent requirement had been food. Luckily, Noodles hadn’t hesitated to sprint down the hall and return a few minutes later with a foot-long sub and a massive bottle of water. Alyail had the presence of mind to eat slowly rather than devouring the sandwich, but there hadn’t been a lot of time to answer questions.

Alyial needed to be checked by an actual medical professional, so Nala contrived a far-fetched but not all together implausible story about a fad diet gone terribly wrong so they could slip him into the hospital for monitoring without mention of their experiment. If his brain had been in any way damaged by his extended stay in the simulation, the tests the doctors performed would show no sign of it.

But he also wasn’t keen to lose his job.

He was most curious about the strange woman who had awakened on the cot next to his after spending one of the most fantastic weekends of his life with him – real or imagined. He knew she wasn’t a member of the team and didn’t work for the research institution that occupied their campus. But she flitted away before he could utter more than a thank you in her direction, and he only knew her name because she offered it inside their shared delusion.

Ira.

His queen of pentacles.

Alyial’s discharge had been granted swiftly, and his coworkers accompanied him home to his humble apartment to make certain he wanted for nothing. Nala forcefully tucked him into bed, Eidas stocked his fridge and Noodles took care of all the questions no one really wanted to think about let alone answer flowing from the general direction of their office.

That was two days ago, and Alyial had yet to let himself touch a piece of computer equipment more complicated than his phone. The TV worked just fine, as did his fridge, oven and toaster. But he still worried if he touched his computer, it would explode.

Or suck him into it. It was an irrational fear, and he was aware of that, but he hadn’t been able to banish it since he awoke in the lab.

How many layers deep was his delusion? How many times would he wake from a dream to find he merely occupied another dream?

He was in the process of staring at his ceiling, trying his damndest to see through it, when his phone buzzed. He sighed but, since the small device had become his only lifeline to the greater world, he picked it up and checked his incoming messages.

The text was from Noodles and read, How are you doing? Do you need anything?

I don’t know, man, Alyial typed in reply. And then, because he saw no reason to conceal the truth, he sent a second message that said, Everything still feels just a little unreal.

He had just set his phone aside when it buzzed again. Noodles sent a reply that said, It might not seem like it, but I get it. What you went through had to be harrowing. Take as much time as you need.

Alyial smirked. He had a sinking suspicion Nala was in a tizzy over the fact that they were a man down and yet another week behind. But it was technically all her fault for forcing him to do an unsanctioned test. And while he felt guilty over the fact that he was saddling his coworkers with yet more extra work, he also felt entitled to lying in bed for as long as it took to feel like he was real again.

Still he sighed and sent, How are things going at the lab?

The fact that he didn’t receive an answer right away probably said a lot. They had maybe three months before they’d be expected to present their results to a review board, and if anyone caught wind of the fact that they had skipped ahead to human testing, all their assess would be fried.

Deciding that he didn’t feel like waiting any longer for Noodles to answer, Alyial scrolled through contacts on his phone until he found Nala. She was going to be furious with any form of interruption – but he didn’t care. He deserved answers.

Spill, he commanded, just barely resisting the urge to type the text in all caps. Who was the woman who dug me out of the simulation? How do you know her?

He could only assume she was some friend of Nala’s, probably some hyper intelligent analyst or programmer. Someone with as much drive and ambition toward success as Nala herself.

Which probably meant most of the things she told Alyial inside the simulation were lies.

He could feel the exasperated sigh attached to Nala’s response when he received it thirty seconds later.

Her name is Ira, the text declared curtly. And it’s complicated.

No more dodging, Alyial insisted. Tell me the truth, or I’ll submit my resignation by the end of the day.

He could have done so much worse. But if he submitted an incident report, every member of the team would lose their job, not just Nala. And possibly they’d lose their ability to ever work in the field again, unless they wanted to work for unscrupulous individuals on questionable projects.

He couldn’t do that to people he considered friends, even if he didn’t feel overly gracious toward Nala at the moment.

She’s the friend of a friend, Nala replied, evidently cowed enough by the threat to type another message.

Alyial was in the process of telling her she needed to offer more than that when a second message came through. It said, She’s married to an old high school friend of mine. She’s good at recognizing the kinds of patterns the rest of us dismiss. She has nothing to do with anything, but she got you out, didn’t she?

Alyial frowned but, before he could think of a response, his phone vibrated to indicate a new message had come through.

For a moment, his heart performed a backflip. He had already typed the number Ira gave him in the simulation into his phone and attempted to send her a message. Every time he received a new notification, he couldn’t help hoping it indicated a response.

But he didn’t know if the number she gave him was even real. She certainly had no reason to grant him a legitimate form of communication considering that she had known everything happening between them was fake.

His heart dropped when he returned to the main text screen and found the message was from Noodles. It said, Things are crazy here, man. I mean, they were crazy before, but Nala acts like she’s possessed.

There were several choice things Alyial would have liked to say about that, but he bit his tongue and resisted the urge to type any of them. Instead he sent, What is she trying to accomplish anyway? We have a viable product, and the newest build is ten times more stable than the last one. Why’s she acting as if the world is about to end?

Did she know something the rest of them didn’t?

Alyial switched resolutely back to his conversation with Nala and sent, Did she say anything after we both woke up in the lab? Have you been in contact with her?

Then he returned to the main screen of his texts and stared somewhat forlornly at the name Ira he had so lovingly and painstakingly entered though he had no idea if the number was actually accurate.

Maybe if he stared at it hard enough, he could will her to respond.

Sixty solid seconds of staring made not an ounce of difference, however, and Alyial started tapping his fingers to express his impatience.

What he should do was get out of bed and march down to the lab. He should interrogate Nala in person, drag Ira’s address out of her, then go to see this strange woman no matter how far away she lived. He was fully ready to drive several hours if that was what it took to have an in-person meeting with her. But he hadn’t even summoned the energy to roll out from under the covers before his phone buzzed again.

This time, he knew the message hadn’t come from Ira, so he wasn’t surprised to find Noodles’s name bolded when he awakened his phone from slumber.

Something’s going on, his text declared, and Alyial could just imagine him crossing his arms in front of his chest and scowling when he made the statement. We’re all a little on edge since the incident. It was a mistake, and it would be dumb not to acknowledge that. But Nala is acting like she has to redeem herself in short order or its all over.

Have you heard anything from on high? Alyial demanded. But if there had been a message from their superiors, it should have gone to all of them. They didn’t technically have a team lead. They were all supposed to be equals, even if Nala acted like the queen bee and had been ready to demote him to coffee gatherer after all the weird incidents of computers exploding in his hands recently.

If the project was on the line, they all deserved to know. And if Nala was chasing some other goal – like a position on another team – they deserved to know that too. Anything that could put their work in jeopardy should be shared among them.

He hated secrets.

He was tempted to send Nala another not so cryptic threat, but as soon as he summoned his conversation with her onto his screen, he received another message.

Why would I talk to Ira? it demanded in what he could only assume was an annoyed tone. I barely know her. And before you ask, I’m not going to chase after her husband on your behalf.

Wait a minute… She’s married?! the words flowed out of his fingers seemingly of his own accord.

Nala instantly responded with an emoji that expressed annoyance, followed by the words, It’s only come up like three times now, Alyial. Stop wasting our time. We have deadlines to meet.

She may as well have said I know you’re talking to Noodles.

But screw her! He had every right to uncover the truth about what happened while he was in that computer simulation.

Ira is married…

She most certainly knew that when she pressed her imaginary lips to his.

Had she been willing to do it because she knew it wasn’t real? Had the time they spent together meant nothing to her? Was he just some passing fantasy, some way to fill the empty hours before she finally managed to pull him free of the simulation?

It couldn’t be. The time they spent together had been riddled with sparks. They connected on so many levels, all their interactions felt natural. It seemed as if he’d known her for a decade rather than three artificial days. And there was no way she could have failed to notice.

But why didn’t she mention being married? Was she unhappy? Trying to escape? Nala said she was good friends with Ira’s husband, that might mean he was stuffy and pushy the same way she was. Like attracted like after all.

Alyial gritted his teeth, then began typing furiously.

Nala, he declared boldly, if something is going on with the project, you need to tell us right now. Because I didn’t just risk my life over a plug that’s about to be pulled.

Emboldened by his assertiveness, Alyial switched back to his conversation with Noodles and said, I need your help getting Ira’s phone number. She must have given it to one of you. Hopefully Nala wasn’t the sole possessor of that information – she was probably the one person he wouldn’t be able to get it out of.

And then, because he had decided it was time to go big or go home – metaphorically, of course – he opened the singular text he had sent Ira and sent another. It said, I don’t know if this is your actual phone number and if the person reading this is the Ira I met in a computer simulation, but I feel like we really need to talk.

It generally wasn’t considered polite to sleep with a person and then disappear into the ether without saying anything as soon as you walked away from each other for five minutes.

But once all the messages were sent, he once again had nothing to do but wait. He set his phone down beside him and returned his gaze to the ceiling. It was easy to let his thoughts drift back over everything that had happened while he was in the simulation and pick it apart.

There had to be some reason he started writing his own program during his ‘off’ time. It would probably be fairly easy to recreate it. He didn’t exactly have the entire program memorized, but he remembered enough of the base concepts to reconstruct the code.

Did this solo project signify dissatisfaction with his current line of work? Had he disappeared into the depths of the simulation because he was tired of dealing with his real life and all the problems associated with it?

Or had it merely been part of the damn curse that caused technology to malfunction around him. Had he become entangled with the fake reality because that destructive force dug its fingers into his brain and twisted him toward every purpose but the one he was actually meant to serve?

Maybe it isn’t me that’s cursed, he mused. Maybe it was the project. Maybe something like this simply wasn’t meant to exist.

If the first thing that happened inside it was a sordid affair, maybe that told them all they actually needed to know.

Suddenly, Alyail was sick of laying around waiting for this life to collapse around him the same way the artificial one had. His muscles ached for activity, and the sensation was centered strongest in his fingers. He needed a keyboard underneath them, even if it meant whatever device he used might soon evaporate into a puff of blue smoke and singed stink.

He threw his covers away so violently, he knocked his phone to the floor. And the moment the device struck the carpet, it began to go wild.

Heart in his throat, Alyial bent down to retrieve the device. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what was going on in the project – or what might have been going on in Ira’s head when she spent three wonderful, fantastic and unforgettable days with him inside a computer simulation.

But if there was one thing recent experience had taught him, it was that ignoring his problems didn’t make them go away. If anything, it made them worse.

So he sighed, braced himself, and activated his phone.

He read Nala’s message first – it felt like the most urgent.

The project has always been precarious, the first sentence declared, and Alyial had to sink back onto the bed because a sudden wave of dizzy dread overwhelmed him. But at the moment, our problems are all unofficial.

He thought he was going to have to send another out with it text, but Nala had already sent another message that said simply, One of the med students who helped us sustain you while you were in the simulation is blackmailing me.

WTF? Alyial sent back, his fingers once again moving automatically. What do they want?

He read the message from Noodles next, though he wasn’t sure if he should share what he just learned.

None of us have a way to contact Ira. His message was accompanied by the small image of a man shrugging. Except maybe Nala, I guess. Good luck on that front.

It was a lost cause, especially in light of her most recent revelation.

He closed the text app just in time to receive another message.

I’d rather keep it personal, Nala insisted, and Alyial wasn’t sure if he should read the words in a stern tone or an angry one. But her next message said, I’ve already caused this team enough problems.

So Nala was trying to protect the rest of them from her last mistake. It was reassuring, in a way. It meant that the woman must have a heart somewhere in her cold, icy chest if she could at least realize that she’d caused hardship to her companions.

But blackmail was serious business. And even if the matter was personal, all of them would be at risk if one of the med students made anyone else in the research department aware of what took place in their lab – not to mention their attempt to cover it up.

Much as Alyial would love to let Nala reap the rewards of the pressure she piled atop his head, that wasn’t the kind of person he was. But before he got a chance to respond to her message, his phone buzzed again. And when he checked the list of text messages, he nearly dropped the device all over again.

The name that now bore a highlight within the list was Ira’s. It was like a bright, blazing beacon to his tortured brain.

Yet his heart fluttered in his chest before he could tap on it, and suddenly he could hardly breathe.

What if he had the wrong number?

What if he didn’t?

His heart lodged in his throat as he opened the message and he swore, for a second, it stopped beating.

Then her words unfolded before him, and he could hardly read them fast enough.

You’re right, her message declared with brief, blunt honesty. We need to talk. In person.

He read the message three times, his mind so numb he could barely comprehend what was happening. He had no idea how to respond that wouldn’t sound eager or desperate, but he would have to think of something.

He tapped the reply button – and his phone’s battery chose that exact moment to die.