Reset

“What? Where am I?” I mouth to myself as I’m standing in front of a mirror holding a bloodied bat in one hand and a reindeer mask in the other. Why is my heart racing? Why am I sore all over? What the hell just happened? I lean closer to the mirror to get a better look at my reflection. Even without a good source of light I can see that my face is bruised. The top of my head appears to be bleeding. “Is this my blood?” I wonder. My polo shirt is ripped at the collar seemingly from being pulled on. I feel I have just gotten into a fight... but with who? Where is the other person? My nerves are exhausted, I can feel my body has been panicking for longer than I remember. The muscles on my body are so tightly clenched, I can barely take a breath without shivering. Unless I find out what’s going on I’m not sure this will stop. I reach for my pocket and pull out a remote and a heart locket. I fidget with the remote for a bit but it doesn’t seem to respond with anything so I set it down. The locket is pretty plain and has a picture of a man and who I would guess is his daughter. “Why do I have this?”

I take a moment to survey the area. The house is basked in this uniformly dim light, no traditional light fixtures to be found. Instead about a few feet up there are hundreds of white glowing balls lining across the entire ceiling that provide a mild illumination. They seem to be motion censored as they change colors to a blush pink when I walk underneath. I inched towards a living room location that I could only describe as breathtaking. Every corner was immaculate and pristine with beautiful colors and mesmerizing centerpieces. It’s unusually large for a house this size but I can see that the designer has chosen to extend the living room into an area that had once been a kitchen. The basic form of a kitchen remains yet all sinks, refrigerators, and any typical cooking appliances were uncomfortably absent. I’m now realizing not a single photo or frame is to be found. The idea that this place wasn't actually a home but just meant to look like one, started to crawl in. I made my way back to the mirror I initially found myself but this time noticed a trail of blood leading to a room at the end of this hallway.

Before investigating the house any further, a chime radiates throughout the house. Then an awfully familiar voice recording announces: “There are un-verified visitors at the door.” Caught off guard by what just occurred, I wondered if this was actually my home. I creep back to the living room to attempt to find a window to gain a visual vantage of the front door but realized I haven’t come across a single window. By the door however, is a screen that seemingly projects the outside along with some sort of directional panel underneath. The panel has a list of every camera surrounding the house along with a notifications tab with two unchecked notifications. I find the option for the front door and am able to clearly see two individuals. They are dressed in pastel pink polos identical to the one I’m wearing along with matching reindeer masks. Neither one seems all too familiar to me but it’s a possibility that they could fill in some detailsI put on my mask and answer the door.

“Did you find it yet?” shouted the man as he shoved me aside when I opened the door. “Hopefully you can shut the door faster than you did opening it”, the woman remarks as she struts past me. Hoping to avoid revealing that I have no idea what is going on, I respond “I don’t know what it looks like.” Suddenly, both of them stand still and begin to look at one another. It seems I have made a poor judgement call and exposed myself.

“It’s a bad time for a joke Comet” the woman shouts angrily.

Am I Comet? I wondered

“Probably not a joke” the man responded as he moved closer to me.

As he drew near it became apparent how large this man really is. Shaved head, braided beard, and tattoos everywhere you can see skin showing. It’s as if he was designed to be this intimidating. Probably noticing the terror on my face, his expression migrated from irritation to concern. “You alright there pal?” he warmly asks as he lifts my mask to inspect my face with his giant hands. I have no memory of ever seeing this man in my life but the way he is examining face feels oddly familiar.

“Aye Dancer? ... I think he’s been reset” as he feels around the wound on my head.

“Aw shit.” she replies

Dancer nervously walks over and stares me in the eyes as if she was also searching for something on my face. Her skin was as pale as the briefcase, her hair was big and curly, her eyes green and arresting.

“So Blitzen ... what now?” never breaking eye contact with me.

“I mean he did let us in… so I guess we just let him stay.” Blitzen responds.

“Maybe I can explain some things. How much time do we have?”she asks.

Blitzen checks his watch. “Maybe about 10 min.”

She turns her head to face Blitzen “Ok, I’ll explain… you go look for the controller…Wait! Do

you know where it is?

Things are quiet for a second until I realize she is talking to me. “Oh?... No I don't.”

She turns back to me “Ok Blitzen, good luck.”

In a single move she walks right past me and gestures that I should follow. Completely unfazed, she proceeds right into the room just past where the trail of blood is coming from. “So, uh… is this my house?” I ask sheepishly. She merely smiles and gestures at me to step into the room.

A few steps in and my stomach drops. A sterile white room with a single bed, a toilet and a sink.

“No… this is where you are being kept”, she smugly responds as the confusion washes over me.

“Being kept?” I snapped.

As if debating to react to my outburst she keeps her pose. “Yes, this is your home.”

“How? Are we in prison? What does any of THIS…” I point to the room “...have to do with THIS?” I gesture to her outfit and mask.

She stares at me for a moment and then removes her mask “I don’t know. This could be prison?Every single morning we wake up naked unable to remember anything before. Like today I woke up similar to you and spent the day doing errands for a voice that sounds exactly like me in exchange for food” she chuckles for a moment. “Sounds ridiculous when you hear it out loud doesn’t it?”

“Ok but… how do you know?” I asked.

She pulls out a little notebook from her back pocket. “I seem to wonder that very same thing every day. At some point I guess I decided to write down random thoughts and memories I had. Over time a few of us had decided to chronicle their time here. Blitzen for example tattoos images on his skin to help remember things. I can’t make heads or tails of it but we have apparently met and talked about it before. There are others though, I think at one point I tried to find out who was here the longest. It says I found one that went back two years. I leave myself instructions sometimes, like today. I am supposed to meet Blitzen and head over to meet you.”

“So who’s keeping us? Do you know who’s doing this to us?”

“Honestly no... but whatever it is the answers are in a safe, along with that heart-shaped locket you are always looking for.”

“You mean this one?” I pull out a locket from my pocket.

Her eyes widened and her voice cracked “Wait… why do you have this? Did you get the locker open?”

Before I can answer her, Dancer’s head is blown clean off. A man covered in blood holding a makeshift gun is at the doorway. “I did her the same favor as I will do for you” he calmly says before aiming his gun at me.

“Favor?!” I shout. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember?! We don’t fucking exist! We are prisoners here for a war that ended decades ago! We have no free will and whoever put us here wants us to torture our souls!“

“Is everyone insane, what the hell are you talking about?” I retorted.

He pulls out a remote, the same remote I had in my pocket and slowly presses a button. In that instance everything made sense. Everything came back to me. I remember it all. I remember meeting up earlier with Prancer and breaking into the safe. I remember the horrifying feeling after learning that we are prisoners here. I remember waking up everyday wearing the same stupid polo, forced to tend a garden I dont care about, forced to engage in pointless conversations, forced to do tasks for an advanced A.I. all so that they could pretend to be human. We are skin suit experiments for them to live vicariously through. We don’t have lives to go back to, we don't have a world to return to. We don’t really exist. Who we were before any of this means nothing. Prancer wanted us to end it but I couldn’t. I just wanted to know more. He tried to kill himself but I pulled off his locket and hit him with a decorative bat. He was right though. Ignorance was bliss. I couldn’t live knowing this so I reset my mind 24 hours earlier.

“It’s a doozy isn’t it?” Prancer asked.

“What did you do with Blitzen?” I demanded.

“I set him free” he answered mournfully.

“What will you do after you kill me?”

“The same… probably.”

“Would you like me to do it for you?”I asked.

“Would you really be willing? You didn't want to before.” he trembled.

“I will now.” I walk over and pull out the locket I was holding “I think this belongs to you”I hand it over as he looks at me with tears in his eyes.

He hands over the gun and gets on his knees facing the door. “Please kill me this time” he spoke but I don't believe he was talking to me.

He sat down, smiled, closed his eyes and turned his head away from me. I pulled the trigger. In an instant it was over. He laid there peacefully. The silence was broken by the alarm going off. I recognized it instantly. I was about to be reset.