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New message:
Automated transmission order received
Date of transmission: –/–/197-
Attached message file ‘Summary - AO-14’ now available for examination.
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The loud notification coming from my computer signaled that my nonexistent break had already ended. With a sigh I sat back down in my chair, directing my attention towards the screen. It had taken a good couple of days, but it seemed we had finally received another file from the guys down in, well, wherever the hell they were. It was need to know, as was basically everything around here. They didn’t even tell me where the hell the coffee machine was, but, considering I don’t drink coffee anyway, I didn’t really care.
I quickly read over the computer generated report to see whether something of interest had popped up, but I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
“A.O. Fourteen, eh? Don’t remember ever hearing anything about you”, I whispered to myself as I tried to open the file. I’d examined a few other files like this before recently, but they had all been heavily edited, leaving only a couple of sentences available to be actually read. The rest were usually partially hidden or just blacked out completely. Not that it mattered much to me, as it wasn’t my job to read them anyway. All I had to do was make sure the transmission had been a success, and that nothing had been corrupted or whatever along the way.
I tried to open the file, but it took a lot longer than it should have. After about 20 seconds of absolutely nothing happening, the computer froze completely.
“Shit”, I muttered to myself as I tried to get things working again, but nothing happened. I silently cursed at myself for being sloppy, as I had probably missed something in the report that would’ve hinted at this happening. Even though it was probably just the computer not knowing how to deal with whatever corrupted garbage I had just tried to open, it didn’t feel right.
Just when I was about to give up and forcefully shut the whole thing down, things started working again, and a small text document popped up on my screen. I leaned back towards it, and started reading. The document was titled as “A-Origin summary’, with an filing number of 14. I let out a small sign of relief, as that was perfectly in line with the other documents I had examined before.
What wasn’t in line with the others though, was the fact that I’d just about read everything in that file in three seconds. Apart from the title, logo and number, the rest of the document was suspiciously empty. The general description contained only a single sentence, claiming that ‘AO-14 does not exist right now’. No handling methods or anything else was specified, claiming that it did not need anything as it did not exist, and that this number was merely reserved for potential later use, according to the file.
I leaned back into my chair, thinking everything over for a moment. Technically, I could have just given this the all clear and sent it to the archives, but it didn’t feel right. Why would they have reserved this number, when I’d previously read articles about cases as high as seventy-something?
As I debated my options, I read over the computer generated report again, just to see whether something would catch my eye.
At first, I drew the same conclusions, that nothing looked out of the ordinary, but just as I was about to approve the file, I spotted something in the corner of my view. The file size was huge. Way too big for what I’d just read anyway, that was for sure. There was absolutely no way this was all there was.
“The hell is this”, I muttered. “Some kind of virus attached to this or something?”
I opened the file again, this time trying my best to spot something out of the ordinary. “There’s something else here”, I whispered.
All of the lights in my room turned off the moment I spoke those words, causing me to shoot up out of my chair. The screen was my only source of light, leaving the rest of the room incredibly dark. For a moment, I was frozen in place as my eyes tried to look around the room, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Only after I was absolutely sure I was alone, I was brave enough to move towards the light switch, to turn the lights back on.
To my relief, lights flooded the room again. I let out a deep sigh before setting out to check every little detail of my office, making sure everything was the same. Doing so was incredibly boring, but protocol was protocol, so I did it anyway. After I was absolutely positive I was still in my room, and most importantly of course, in this reality, I sat back down at my desk.
It took me three hours, but eventually I discovered some kind of decades old script, which must’ve come along with the file, running constantly in the background. From what I managed to find out, it was scanning the my computer for a handful of keywords, all variations of ‘AO-14’ or simply the number fourteen, after which it attempted to delete or at least block any and all access to those files.
Naturally, I was incredibly intrigued at this point, and I spent the next 30 minutes or so to disable the script, which was ultimately successful. A new file popped up, sporting the same name as before, but I could tell it wasn’t the same file.
I opened the new file, burning with curiosity. However, as I did, all of the lights turned off again, accompanied by a loud banging noise. I let out half of a yell before I was able to stop myself. Once again, the computer screen was the only source of light.
Slightly annoyed that I was caught of guard by the sudden blackout, I cursed a few times as I walked over to the light switch, and switched it back on. However, nothing happened, and the room remained dark.
“Oh shit”, I muttered to myself as my frustration made room for fear. For a moment, I was frozen once again, before I forced myself to move, following protocol. I leaned over, grabbing a flashlight from my desk, and turned towards my door. I let out a sigh of relief as the flashlight turned on, giving me a weak but at least reliable beam of light. I walked over to my door, slowly opening it, only to be met with more darkness. It was pitch black in the hallway, making it absolutely impossible to see anything. The beam of light barely made it a few meters in front of me, making it incredibly difficult to navigate my way around the place, even though it should’ve been familiar to me.
I tried to find anything to help me along the way, but it seemed all of the emergency lights had also been shut off, somehow.
“Doesn’t matter”, I whispered to myself, trying to gather some strength. “Just have to make it to the shelter.”
I wandered in the dark for what felt like an eternity, constantly feeling like something was about to pop up behind me, but it never came. Then, I heard a soft scraping noise coming from the distance, making the hairs on my neck stand up straight. Moments later, louder banging noises came from down the hallway, sometimes so loud it felt like my eardrums would burst.
I debated running, but since I had no idea what I would be running from, or towards, I decided against it. And then the footsteps begun.
Occasionally I would hear footsteps, as if someone kept running past me from behind. I would swing around instantly, but there would be nothing to see in the darkness.
“Go away, please go away’”, I whispered as the noises slowly became louder and louder. The running footsteps started being oriented towards me, picking up in volume as they came sprinting at me.
Yet whatever the source was, it never arrived.
I felt like I was going mad, stumbling through the dark, hearing noises but never seeing where they came from. I started mumbling words I didn’t even recognize myself anymore, and just focused on my mission to reach the shelter, wherever it was.
“Hey? You alright?”, a voice rang out from the darkness. I immediately swung to face the direction it came from, trying to spot whatever just spoke with my flashlight.
“W-Who is there?”, I stuttered, slowly taking a few steps forward.
Then a man suddenly appeared out of the darkness, his face being the only part being lit up by my flashlight. I jumped out of surprise when I saw him, but managed to keep myself from yelling. He squinted his eyes in response to the light I shone into his face.
“Hey, man, what’s up with the light?”, he said with a confused expression as he held up his hand in front of the flashlight.
“It’s… it’s all off”, I responded. “The lights are off, and they won’t turn on.”
“What?”, he asked me in response as he leaned around me, as if he was peering into the darkness behind me. “In your office? Did you check the bulb? Thing probably just broke or something.”
“What? No!”, I responded firmly. Now it was my time to be confused. “What do you mean, dude. It’s pitch black!”
He didn’t respond and just stared at me for a few moments before slowly stepping back into the darkness. For a moment I intended to step after him, as I really didn’t want to be alone here, but I remained in place.
He didn’t believe me, I knew it. I could see it in his eyes before he slipped back into the darkness. How was he able to see? I couldn’t trust him. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Who the hell was he anyway? I couldn’t tell if I recognized him or not. Wouldn’t I have noticed a coworker with such strangely empty eyes?
I swiftly turned back around. Clearly it was no good being out here either. I wasn’t going to find the shelter, and I really didn’t feel like hanging around in the darkness anymore. Especially considering I now knew for a fact there were others here as well, and they were acting extremely strange.
“Gotta get back to the office. The office. Office”, I mumbled to myself as I stumbled through the halls. My flashlight had stopped working, but I didn’t care. I knew where to go, somehow. I couldn’t see in the dark, not like my colleague, but I just knew, like I was being guided. It was starting to get difficult to think, but I just knew what I had to do, and was so grateful for it. If I could just return to my office, the file could fix it.
It was a brilliant idea. If I could just read the file, I would know all about whatever it was that was going on, and I could fix it. The lights would come back on, and I could just go back to work. It was so easy.
Suddenly I sat down, and found that I was sitting in my office chair. There was a very dim light coming from the broken light bulb above me, allowing me to take in the familiar surroundings. I turned towards my computer, seeing someone had completely shattered the screen. The computer was completely unusable, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I just needed to read the file, so I could understand. That’s what we were all about, understanding that which no one could understand. And when I understood, I could fix it.
A bright light flickered on from the broken computer screen. I squinted my eyes for a moment as they adjusted to the light, but when they did, I was overcome with relief. Letters danced before my eyes, and I recognized them immediately.
It was the report! It was still readable! I was saved!
I forcefully leaned forward as my eyes started to glide over the text eagerly. There was not a single thought in my mind, everything was focused on what was in front of me.
I had been right before, there was absolutely more to the file than the empty one I had seen. There was so much here, a bunch of different descriptors from what appeared to be recorded events including eyewitnesses, various theories about potential realities as well as some kind of semi-persistence theorem.
This all proved what I knew deep inside. AO-14 did exist!
A loud noise came from the hall outside my office, causing my head to jerk upwards. My eyes hurt as I forced them to momentarily look away from the report. I gazed through the window into the pitch black hallway. Well, it wasn’t completely pitch black anymore, as there was one area where the darkness was accompanied by a barely visible cloud-like gas. A few dim colours swirled through the air, barely visible, but definitely there.
And then it suddenly moved. It wasn’t a cloud. It wasn’t gas. A gust of wind didn’t just blow it somewhere else. It moved with purpose.
And now it was gone.
My eyes darted around what little I could see, but all I found was the same darkness from before. The broken light bulb was still giving off some light, so after deducing that I was safe for now, I did the only logical thing I could do. They were right. I had to continue reading. I had to understand what it was if I wanted to be safe. It was simple really.
More text. There was surprisingly little concrete information here. Instead, there were blocks and blocks of text quoting a variety of different physicists, mostly pertaining to what it means “to be real”. As I continued reading, I must’ve read a few dozen different definitions of what “reality” even meant, or how one would prove they themselves are real. I had a hard time understanding any of the more complex explanations and theories, but they all seemed equally pointless to me. What was the point of finding some dumb definition for reality? We all knew what was real and what wasn’t. I was real, obviously. I could see myself, I could feel myself and so on. The desk in front of me was real. The broken light bulb was real. The hallway was real. The report was real. AO-14 was real.
In that moment I spotted the cloud again. I didn’t know for how long it had been there, but it was back, right in front of my window. The cloud, or, figure, was clearer now. Strange colours were shifting inside of the shape, which now vaguely resembled something of a physical… something. I kept staring at it, confused if what I was seeing was real, or if my eyes were playing tricks on me. It was quite dark after all, so perhaps…?
I needed to keep reading. If it was real, I needed to know how to deal with it. It needed me to keep reading. No, I needed myself to keep reading. Did I?
The report would have the answers I needed.
The next paragraph attempted to simplify some of the more complex theories, and mentioned a concept I somewhat remembered from school. It was incredibly simplistic and I had found it quite dumb at the time, but if it was mentioned here, perhaps it was worth my consideration. I’m sure you’ve heard of it too. It’s quite popular.
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
I rolled my eyes. Obviously, the impact of the fall will cause vibrations in the air, so, in my mind, that’s a resounding yes. The following text acknowledged this as well, but noted that the vibrations itself are not necessarily sounds the way we experience them. Fair enough I guess, but still, there’s something there at least.
It continued on, arguing that a truly unobserved event, meaning one which is not seen by anyone and does not leave behind any evidence of its happening, is virtually the same as an event that never happened at all. After all, how would you ever know the difference?
This did cause me to think for a bit. If there was absolutely no one that knew of your existence, and no way for you to interact with anything that would signal you were ever there, then… were you ever there? Were you real? How could you know or prove it?
If you were completely unobserved forever, then, at least to others, it would be exactly the same as if you hadn’t even existed in the first place.
The colorful cloud shifted, and my heart skipped a beat as I saw it standing behind my computer. I had no idea when, but it must’ve entered my office at some point without me noticing. As my eyes focused on the shape, it seemed to slowly solidify in front of my own eyes. It was hard to describe whatever it was… or whatever it was not. As the figure slowly seemed more and more real, I finally understood.
It took all of my willpower and more to physically tear my eyes away from the figure. I noticed tears were flowing down my face and had probably been doing so for a while. Trembling, I slowly turned away from the figure, but not before glancing at the computer. The report was still there, but it was different somehow. Harder to read or even… to see. Instead my eyes pierced through the text and onto the shattered monitor. There was no way this screen could have displayed any text. It was completely ruined. There was simply no way.
What little light still came from the screen immediately flickered away. It was almost completely dark now. The broken light bulb above was the only source of light still remaining. I closed my eyes, trying to reject whatever was happening in front of me, but I had to know.
I had to look. I was terrified of seeing, or acknowledging, whatever was or wasn’t out there, but I was too afraid to keep my eyes closed. Just one look. Just one.
I carefully glanced around the room, but quickly wished I hadn’t.
There wasn’t just one anymore. There were so many now. The entire office was filled with the same shifting colours. They seemed to immediately respond to my gaze. As my eyes wandered over them, even if only for a moment, there presence was amplified greatly, and they suddenly seemed so much more real.
I closed my eyes again. I intended to never open them again, but how long would I have held out that way? I had to do something. Document it. Ask for help. Anything.
I blindly rummaged around my desk until I found my phone, and carefully took it in my hands. I bent myself down towards the ground before daring to open my eyes again. With my phone in hand, it’s the only thing I dared to focus on. And I did what I told you I would do. Document it. Ask for help. Anything I could… anything I can.
After all, what else could I possibly focus on anyway? There’s nothing here.
Apart from me, my office is completely empty.
Please. You have to believe me.
I’ve read the file. All of it. And they were right, it doesn’t exist. AO-14 does not exist. Help me make them go away. It doesn’t exist. It really doesn’t. You have to believe me. 14 does not exist.
Please don’t allow them to exist.