For minutes, I remain staring square at the sun dumbly and as still as a statue.

And then the brightness starts to hurt my eyes and I turn away, staring at the blank ground instead. I stay silent and still as my eyes water and then the tears recede.

"How long?" I wonder out loud, my eyes still staring at the cement floor, though they haven't recovered enough to see the tiles for real. My voice cracks a bit, still, and I can literally sense the tiredness and wonder in my own voice.

Yeah, how long have I stayed in Virtuality, strapped into that jail of a room, not being allowed to leave it for years on end, not even allowed to take a look at the real sun?

The answer just lies at my head: since near birth, of course.

But the thing is, now that I look back on that fact, it simply doesn't make sense. How could I have been put in a room all by myself in a big room with nothing but strange-looking furniture and tiles in it? If no one had entered the room till now and left me alone there, I would have to be antisocial, right? But as far as I can remember, I didn't have much relationship problems in school back in Virtuality...

Or, what if I turn out to be antisocial if I get into contact with someone else? Is that the reason why the symptoms of extreme antisocial-ness haven't emerged yet, not seeing anyone till now?

Alright. This will have to be something I'll check out later.

Anyway. With no relevance to me being socially ill or not, everything related to Virtuality is still not right.

-But, I'll figure out the faults later. As I said before, I need some recharging.

My eyes have come back to normal and I glance back at the sun-it has descended a few centimeters from my point of view.

I guess it'll be my first sunset in Reality in years.

I feel the breeze blow over to me for a few more minutes, then drag my tired self away from the window. I need some rest for sure. The chairs I saw as I entered the room look inviting enough, so I go to them. Positioning them along the wall opposite the window, I jolt them into a row so I would be able to use it as a bed and sit down on the last one. Though I feel as if I might plunge into REM sleep the second I close my eyes for 2 seconds, I just have to see the sun completely go down and the moon rise.

I finally have a chance to examine myself when I sit down-I appear to be wearing a simple and loose training suit. However, the outfit I'm wearing(or the outfit they made me get into) isn't much of my deepest concern. My face and identity is the biggest question.

I can still remember the day when I went through the Window with Jake and came out older-both of us had been terribly shocked but amazed.

-and all that had been Virtual.

What if I'm not the Eric I knew back in Virtuality? What if all the mirrors available in Virtuality showed me a different face from the face I have right now in Reality? What if I'm older than 18 and actually not even named 'Eric Hunter'?

I get the sudden urge to fetch myself a mirror and check whose face is on me, but don't have the motivation to stand up. My legs are already too tired from having carried me around after some days of unconsciousness, and anyway, I have no idea where to find a mirror at all.

The sun's gone outside the window, and the darkness is chasing a faint glow of deep red. I try not to think about the city right next to the building I'm in, its decimated form and ruins. I'll deal with it much later than now, I guess.

I slowly lie down on my makeshift bed, eyes fixed on the window. Finally do I get a chance to sift through my emotions slowly and carefully-I had been too busy with my physical weariness and lack of knowledge of my surroundings a few hours ago.

And now that I stare out the window, my legs curled a bit and my arms crossed over my chest as my spine slowly starts to hurt on the hard plastic seat of the aligned chairs, I feel something tense in my chest that is a bit familiar to me...

-fear.

I'm afraid.

I don't know much of this world-everyone I knew in Virtuality is gone or still haven't managed to free themselves out of their own rooms along the hall. Everything I believed and trusted as my safe world and haven turned out to be nothing. And tonight's my first night in years spent in Reality.

Guess I'm the same as a newborn child with almost no knowledge of the world around it-except that I'm much older than that. I have no protection against anything here. Even a dragon could exist and I would have to believe its existence.

I groan-nothing seems solvable by myself for now. At least it seems unsolvable right now. I pull my arms closer against my chest and clench my eyes shut. Though I'll grow cold over the night, I think the fear and tenseness will manage to get me up at dawn or before that, even.

Things are too complicated and strange now. Only time and some thinking would have to solve it-

-later.

And I'm off like that, dozing off into a rather deep sea of sleep in mere seconds.

I am in a room, all of its walls white and bare. Strange and random objects are placed all around the room, all of them strange and artificial.

I recognize them as the objects I found in the room I had been confined in.

This time, I don't start out strapped to the bed. I'm standing beside the door, staring at someone.

It's a man, dressed in the same way as I am. I can see both his back and right side, and his hair is uncut, with his bare feet looking pale on the tiles.

Oh, I know those tiles. And as far as I know, that man should be aware of them a lot.

But the thing is, the man seems... blank. His head simply bobs around, seemingly looking at something beyond my view, something only available to only his sight.

His face moves slightly around, his arms lying at his sides without much strength.

-and he's speaking.

All of a sudden, I can hear words that are coming from his moving lips.

"Nightmares?"

He waits then, looking confused.

Then, after another few seconds, he seems to reply to something I can't hear.

"Of course I do. Why, did you just have one?"

I freeze everything I'm doing-well, since I haven't been doing anything much, I only stop my breathing.

-because I know that conversation. I know what words must be being spoken into his ear through an earpiece I can't see for now.

Before I can see his next move and hear his next words-one check of his bare wrist, then 'hmm, Eric, I'm afraid I don't have the time to-', I turn myself on my heels and race to the door.

I press all of my fingers upon the pad by the door, but it doesn't even give a budge.

It's locked. Of course.

And only dad can open it.

Dad.

-that guy in the uniform, locked up in a large cell identical to mine, limited by computer codes and systems and a lock that can be opened by just one swift press of the thumb, is my dad.

Or, was.

I open my eyes in a jolt, every part of me tense and sweaty.

Ironically, it's just like the day when I woke up from my very first nightmare, the day dad had his last casual conversation with me.

I blindly look around and remember everything that happened yesterday as I take in the plastic-hard chairs I'm lying on, the cement room I'm in, and the small window.

The jail-like room. The strange furniture. The hallways. The sun.

Taking a deep breath, I wait for my eyes to chase away the sleep and see that it's a bit over dawn, maybe 6 or 7 in the morning. Even right now, I'm simply so amazed at the fact that I'm seeing the real dawn for the first time in years.

I know I have to get up and start looking around this place today, for I delayed the task on and on yesterday. So I roll to my side, prepared to use my arms as supports as I lift my head off the chairs-

-and that's when I feel something press into the skin between my right eye and ear.

Too used to being surprised at this point, I slowly raise a hand to the spot and touch around, trying to feel what's pressing into my skin.

Something strong and plastic comes into my fingers.

I jerk up to a sitting position I intended before, yanking a piece of plastic that somehow was extended to hang around by ear and yanks my earlobe on its way off myself.

The device is small and light, sensors and buttons placed on its slim side.

It's a hi-tech version of a visor, I think-except, the visor is so small and comfortable that I hadn't been able to realize that I had been wearing it.

-or, had been too used to wearing it for years without ever pulling it off.

Though I get this eager itch to drop the thing to the floor and crunch it into industrial dust with my shoes in an instance, I pull myself back, for it might be the only visor anyone in this building has.

I didn't expect the first few days in Reality to start out cheerful, anyway. Pushing the thing into my pockets, I walk back towards the window.

The sun's rising, and the sunrise is just the same as the one I got used to seeing in Virtuality.

For another moment, I let my eyes rest on the skyline for a few minutes. However, today, I've got things to do. Important things.

I push the chairs I used as my bed to one side of the room. First, I'll have to check out on every room on the floor, trying to see if anyone else is conscious, or is Jake or June.

Flexing my legs on the way and making myself do extra kicks into the empty air, I head to the hallway I'd walked through the day before.

The place is the same as I found it yesterday-pale, empty and bare. Though I know I went through something traumatic that's related to these halls during my 'escape' from my room and the nightmare I just had, I, somehow, feel little fear as I step my way down the way.

-Maybe, I'm growing used to feeling fear.

I stop myself in front of my room and take a deep breath. This time, I won't step inside and shut myself back in it-I had enough of its locking-up features yesterday.

I find another biological recognition pad next to the door frame, similar to the one on the inner wall. Automatically and habitually, I stick my thumb to it and it opens.

The room is the same as before-everything's in place, nothing changed. Even the rumpled spots of the bed I was on looks the same.

Alright. So that means that not everything is automated or done without human supervision in each of the rooms.

I quickly back up and close the door and turn to move to the other rooms. That's when I spot something I was too busy to discover before.

It's a plastic-sealed tag, similar to one found on each patient's doors or walls in hospitals(at least in Virtuality). And there's my name on it.

-and an additional piece of info that I hadn't been expecting to learn about the Reality-me.

"Benjamin Collins-2057~/X"

So I guess I was born in 2057, not the early 2000s, which was my birth year in Virtuality. God, they made even a simple thing as my name and birth period so different from reality.

A sudden headache rushes over me as I stare at the solidly printed letters of a name I never knew I had in real life. So I'm not really Eric Hunter. Though I had known it was always too similar to the name of Landon's friend in 'A Walk to Remember' and was a bit too idealistic, I had never thought that my name itself could be different in Reality.

So I'm now Benjamin Collins, born in 2057.

Ben Collins.

The name seems fine to me, yeah, but not too familiar. I can't stop myself from thinking about Benjamin Button or Benjamin Franklin or any of the Ben-guys.

I guess I'll stick to my Virtual name for now. One day, I might consider taking in the Benjamin Collins thing in.

So I got myself and the tag deciphered a bit. But the thing is, I can't make anything out of the X. Guess I'll have to figure it out, referring to other people's plastic tags.

I move on.

I head to the end of the hallway and start out from there. Rooms are aligned right up to the blocked end of the long hallway, meaning that I have a lot to examine.

The first person-a Simon-is a lot older than me-born in 2024. He also has that wavery mark right behind his birth date, probably meaning that he's yet to be dead in there or, worse, yet to be recorded as dead.

I'm all jittery and a darker mood as settled over myself, for who in the world wants to check out if a person inside a supposedly-locked room is dead or not?, but still, I try my finger on the lock.

It doesn't budge-what did I expect?

Alright-so I'll have to find myself an ultimate key to unlock all the doors in another sort of way.

I move onto the next room, reading the person's name and age. There do I get a feel of what the part beyond the slash should be meaning-injuries before. The person-a Raechel-, is recorded to have had 2 minor injuries from a fall from a high slide and a staircase.

Seems like they recorded everything about us.

But I notice that I'm not too shocked by that fact. If they had the guts and power to lock all of us up in big bare rooms and make us live in a fake, coded world for years, knowing and recording everything about us would have been a piece of cake to them, just one tiny tick to a straight line.

However, in place of the surprise, I feel anger.

No matter how bad or sinful we had acted in the past, we had no right to be forced into such disastrous conditions. That fact was the only but firm fact I knew.

But I can't do anything about it. Until now, no officials or guards supposed to be around the building have shown up-actually, except my locked-up peers, the entire place looks deserted.

Pressing down the anger, I decided to focus on my current task and move on to the next room.

Read each tag at the door, press a finger to the pad, budge the door, move on to the next room. I repeat this session for minutes on end until I come across something... much different from what I had been examining till now.

A door that's slightly open.

I walk closer to the open metal door, eyes wary. I have seen no open door till now, and considering that all the room doors open only with the occupier's biological code and close right away automatically, an open door that hasn't been closed simply doesn't make sense.

Or maybe, the person inside had managed to get it open with his fingerprint, then something wrong happened and he wasn't able to crawl out of the room.

Though every possibility seems quite creepy, the open door makes me curious enough.

When I reach the door, I can't push it open further right away-I have to prepare myself.

That's when I remember the tag that's supposed to be near each door. I scoot back and find what I was looking for.

"Steven Carson-2024~ /minor pelvis injury from accident at 7-years-of-age--heart attack at 46"

So, for some reason, Steven has his door open.

And I can't figure out why and how-unless I open the door.

Slowly, I push the door open and step inside, self-referring to a mental note I had made to myself before to beware of the automatic tiles.

It's when I look up from the tiles that I see it.

It.

A body lies on top of the mattress, just like how I had been when I woke up at first. The white constraining threads lie loose beside all of his limbs and his head loosely faces the ceiling.

-And his eyes are wide open.

I let myself sag behind, leaning on any solid wall. My eyes avoid the man on the bed and I let my eyes hover anywhere else.

Because those eyes aren't the eyes of a person who just got conscious, not the wandering, frantic eyes.

Those eyes are blank, as blank as my dad had looked in my nightmare today.

-Dead.

Maybe, he died as he exited Virtuality. And no one had ever taken care of his body, even when there must be a dozen cameras placed around each room, observing each occupier.

-I think the people who made our Virtuality left us to die out in Reality.