Glitch | #ONC2020 ✔

Chapter Nine

The Glitches

I gasp as my eyes open.  Looking around, I notice that it’s the same room from an ever so familiar dream.  My hands raise and I stare at them. IVs are connected to my wrists, liquids are moving into my arm.

My hands grip onto the IVs.  With determination, I take a breath and pull out the IVs.  I cover my mouth, covering up the scream of the pain of tearing them out of my skin. 

I let go of my mouth and firmly press onto my now bleeding wrist.  A headache begins to develop as I become more and more anxious. My hand raises to my head, only to feel wires connecting to my head.

Quickly with my hand, I slowly pull off each wire.  Once each wire is successfully removed from my sweaty forehead, a sigh escapes my lips.  

My heart is beating fast, my anxiety is heightened to unexplained heights.  Without really thinking about it, I swing my legs to the edge of the table and step off.

Only to immediately fall onto the ground.

“Dammit,” I mumble as I force myself to stand again.  With a quick glance, I can tell that I have been in that world for a while.  My legs are skinny and the bones indent every little ridge. My hand grips onto the flat surface that I was just laying on.

With an audible huff, I force myself to stand.  The feeling of my bones popping and groaning with the sudden weight brought upon them.  

My eyes look around the dark area.  While there aren't any discernible items that would catch my eye, I do notice that whoever did this was keeping track of my heartbeat.

As I look around, I practically scream as my hand is tugged.  The girl, who I can't see very clearly in the darkness, shushes me.  My body is pulled back to where I was moments before.

She and I just sit there for a moment, her eyes are gleaming in the low light.

Then I hear it.

The monstrous sound of metal on metal.  The sound of metal creaking needing an oil change.  The steps are heavy, making the experience even more terrifying to my mind that is still half awake.

"Warning, patient nine million awake.  Patient nine million is awake and out of bed."

I shiver at the voice.  It sounds so eerily robotic and yet human-like at the same time.  

The footsteps continue, but they fade away, telling me that the thing is leaving.

I let out a breath before gasping once more as I am pulled by my arm.  My feet, that are quite weak, try to keep up with the girl. She puts a finger to her mouth as she presses on the wall and it turns inwards.

Inside the wall, multiple people are sitting there.  Wires are in random places and sparking. Piles of canned foods are neatly stacked in the room as well.  Once both of us are on the wall, the door closes.

Oh, and did I mention that there is a sea-green tint because of the light? Yeah, there's that as well.

"What is this?"

The girl, who is now sitting on what looks like a couch cushion speaks up, "Welcome to glitch headquarters."

I raise my eyebrow at the girl.  Is she taking meth it something? "I'm sorry, what headquarters."

The girl rolls her eyes and stands up.  She's a couple of inches shorter than me, but that doesn't make her look less threatening.  Her brown hair is tied in a messy ponytail as her eye bags tell me that she doesn't sleep very much.  "You're what is called a glitch."

I look at the other people in the room.  A man, who looks like he is in his early twenties nods, confirming what the girl just stated.  I look back at the girl, who is currently picking at her nails. "What is a glitch?"

She snaps her fingers and I am pushed onto a cushion.  She sits on another cushion and stares at me. "We were all put to sleep so some scientists could figure out how to save the world.  On paper, we were supposed to be out a week tops, but the earth had a different plan."

The guy in his twenties sits next to the girl.  Now that I think about it, they do look similar.  They're rugged brown hair and gleaming brown eyes make me think they may be siblings.

She clears her throat and hits her chest.  It must be a really bad cough. "Anyways, I was the first to wake up, and that was a month ago.  I called myself a glitch because everyone else was asleep still."

"But what makes us different exactly?" I interrupt her, which makes her glare at me.  I look away awkwardly, slightly scared of her glare.

"Glitches are a part of the program that malfunctions.  That's why I named it that." She moves around the cushion and gets into a presumably comfortable position.  If you count laying on cement with your head propped up by a couch cushion comfortable. "We aren't supposed to be aware of the system.  Because of that, the system starts rejecting the person as they become more aware that the system is not real life."

"But that doesn't explain why we are like this."

She glares at me once more.  "I was getting to that. Calm down when I'm trying to explain stuff to you or you're going to be thrown out there.  I'd like to see you try to battle one of those robots while you're still weak."

I shiver at her ice-cold glare.  She's really scary.

She clears her throat and continues her monologue, "I only presume that the way they hooked us up to the system was wrong.  Because of that, our mind starts to reject it the more the system tries to give it delusions. But of course, I don't know. It seems that every week another glitch starts to become aware.  That's how I knew you were becoming a glitch actually."

I tilt my head at the girl.  Is this a dream or is she actually reality. "What do you mean by that."

She smiles, probably happy that I didn't interrupt her.  "The robots start to crowd around a glitch's room because they become aware of their uniqueness.  Plus, the system alerts them that the glitch was awake and that the dreaming software is no longer working."

"Wait, so that dream was because I was becoming aware?"

She nods and sits up. The cushion is empty as she is sitting on the ground.  "We all had the same dream. Anyways, welcome to the glitches."

I stare at her, and then the others around me.

Why is this my reality?

Word Count: 1,137
Official Book Word Count: 9,355