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F.A.I.L.U.R.E.There was just darkness all around him. It was the first thing Starlai realized as he gained consciousness. But his senses were defective at the moment, it was like his head was filled with haze that prevented him from being in contact with his own body. Did he even have a body? He felt like he was just floating in a void, inside black nothingness. Starlai tried to move his limbs and he could faintly feel that he indeed had arms and legs. But moving them didn't feel normal, it was more like he was under water. It almost felt like the haze in his head was surrounding him as well. How was that possible, he didn't know. What did he know, though? A very high-pitched sound pierced Starlai's ears and distracted him from his thoughts. The sound managed to cut through everything, the blackness, the haze, even Starlai's brain. He opened his eyes, just a second before a bright red light began to flicker in front of him. Starlai's eyes were blurred, but as he stared at the light, his vision gradually sharpened. It was like the haze was now slowly getting out of his head. He realized that he was in some sort of confined space, it almost felt like a coffin. He heard another piercing sound and could feel from a slight tremble around him that wherever he was, it had started to move. Then his little coffin started to open, pouring in blinding light, and Starlai fell forward, on his stomach against a hard floor. He was a little dazed and remained on the floor for a moment, trying to get control of his own body. It felt heavy, but after a couple of attempts, Starlai successfully lifted his body from the floor, although his balance was a little shaky. He glanced at himself, noting that he was wearing some black and white outfit that resembled a space suit. It felt weird, like a second skin. Then he decided to look around, but couldn't be more confused. He had just emerged from a capsule of some sort. There were a lot more of them lined against a wall, but as far as Starlai could tell, they were empty. He was alone. He let his gaze wander and the bright rectangular lights on the ceiling illuminated the space so perfectly that it seemed like there wasn't even a single shadow around. The room was pretty much empty; there was just a console at the center and a door leading out in the opposite direction from the capsules. Starlai decided to check the console, but it showed just an "ERROR" with big red letters. He tried to get it to work, but in vain. It was stuck. It appeared there was nothing he could do, so he decided to leave the room, walking towards the thick metal door. It whirred open as soon as he came close to it, granting him access to the next area. It was dark at first. The door closed behind Starlai with a loud thump that ominously echoed in the dark space where Starlai had ended up now. He didn't know what to do, but then a spotlight suddenly lit up, revealing a singular screen in the middle of everything. Starlai started to slowly walk towards it and once he was close enough, he could see the message on the blue screen. “WHO ARE YOU?” Starlai was confused by this. He knew who he was, his name was Starlai. But the more thought he put into this, the more terrified the question became. He couldn't really tell anything about himself. His identity was a completely blank page. What did he like, what did he dislike? What kind of personality did he have? How old was he? Did he have any talents? And the worst of all, what was his past like? It was like he didn't have memories, just a few scattered small fragments floating in his brain that couldn't fit together, like an impossible puzzle. “I'm Starlai, a nobody”, Starlai said quietly to the screen. The screen turned off and went black. Followed by this, at the far end of the room a door opened, similar to the one Starlai had already passed through. A round green light got lit above it so Starlai could see it better. He figured that there was nothing else for him to do but to advance through this entrance and started to walk towards it. It automatically opened once it sensed his presence and Starlai noted that there was just darkness beyond it. But that's how the previous room had been like, so he wasn't worried. He passed the door and as it closed behind him, it left him in the darkness. Starlai waited. As if somebody had just flipped the switch, suddenly the whole room was basking in the bright light, almost blinding Starlai. He blinked a few times to get used to the illumination, then he looked around. He was now in an empty room with white walls surrounding the nothingness. There was just one thing, another monitor in the middle of the room. Starlai stepped closer to it, wondering what this one was saying. Soon he was able to read the question it had for him. “ARE YOU MALE OR FEMALE?” A simple question that most people could answer right away without having to think about it. But for Starlai, it was different. He looked at his body and could somewhat distinguish having breasts and a wide waist. Clearly feminine traits, but Starlai knew he was a male. He just had the wrong body. Had he always been like this or had someone transferred his mind to this body just to screw with him? Though, it made him question himself, was he right about being a man? Thinking about it was frying his brain, but in the end he came to the conclusion that at least, at that moment, he felt like a man. “I'm male”, Starlai answered. At this point he realized that even his voice sounded wrong. As soon as he had vocalized his answer, another door suddenly appeared in the opposite direction from where he had entered. It was like it had been invisible at first, gradually becoming visible. It was yet again a thick metal door and Starlai assumed that it worked just like the previous ones. He was right. Once he was close to it, it automatically whirred open and granted him access to a room that broke the pattern as it wasn't completely dark. The place was dim, bathing in green light. There were numerous screens hanging on the walls, showing nothing but glimpses to empty rooms of some sort of facility, and the screens glitched occasionally. The strangest thing about the room probably was that there were vines of actual plants slithering all around like motionless snakes. They were pulsating oddly and in a rather eerie way, Starlai noted. At the center of the room there was once again a monitor, so Starlai knew what he had to do. “WHY ARE YOU HERE?” Starlai didn't know how to answer. He had no idea where he was or how he had ended up here. There was nothing at all in his memory. It gave this extremely uncomfortable sensation inside his head, making him dig his nails on his scalp and he started to scratch himself violently, as if doing this would erase the feeling. Would he get the answer if he dug deep enough? Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. There was only one response he could give. “I don't know…” Starlai said quietly, but then he yelled: “I don't know!” A mass of vines that had gathered at the far end of the room began to suddenly move. Now they resembled snakes more than before as they slithered like they were alive, soon revealing another doorway. Starlai stopped hurting himself and for a moment he just stood there, looking with dreadful eyes at the entrance to the next room. It was very dark, but Starlai could see glimpses of dim lights that seemed to appear and disappear in a continuous cycle. The latest question had caused a turmoil in his mind and now he was afraid to continue forward. However, he realized soon enough that there was nothing else he could do. There were no alternate routes and he still didn't know where he was or what was his purpose in all this. He just had to keep going. With stiff movements, he began to walk forward again, all across the room of plants until he reached the next room. As he stepped into the darkness, the vines moved again, sealing him inside. This place was similar to the previous one, it just was a more mechanical version. Instead of vines there were thick and black wires that were like tentacles, spread around like a parasite. They were everywhere, at the ceiling, walls and floor, and they were holding onto screens that resembled the ones in the previous room. The footage they showed was cryptic, rotating weird shapes and objects that didn't seem to mean anything, but sometimes even people appeared, though they were way too blurry to identify. Some of the screens were cracked and even those that were in a good shape kept malfunctioning and glitching. Except for the one that was in the center of the room. It was held above the floor by a few wires, showcasing it like some ancient relic. Starlai walked towards it, noticing that his steps made no sound. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. He was a bit afraid to look at the blue screen. “WHERE ARE YOUR FRIENDS?” This confused Starlai more than frightening him. Friends? Did he have friends? Though, why else would the monitor ask him that if he didn't have any. But he just couldn't remember… But, he was all alone here. Where were his friends, indeed. Maybe they had all abandoned him into this hellscape. Maybe they had found a way out and were living a good life. Isn't that what he deserved? No meaningful relationships, just loneliness and being forgotten by all. Starlai didn't know who he was but he hated that person. And if he did that, then all the other people should too. “I have no friends”, Starlai said bitterly, his hands clenching into fists. Following the familiar pattern, a door appeared as soon as he had answered. It was once more a metal door that opened upwards, granting Starlai an access to somewhere… odd. He could see how the color crimson dominated whatever place lay ahead and he began to approach it. Once he was close enough to get a better look, he noticed that the doorway was leading to a corridor, breaking the pattern. He took his first step in the strange hallway, the door behind him rumbling down, closing him in. He could see nothing ahead of him, it was like the corridor was endless. Starlai began to walk forward, gazing at his surroundings. There were still wires intruding the structure from various spots, but they were dark crimson, not black like the ones in the previous room. They stretched far ahead, Starlai couldn't see the end of them. But as he walked along the narrow corridor, he noticed how the color of everything around him, the walls, the ceiling, the floor and the wires, they were gradually becoming brighter. From the dark crimson it transformed into a glowing red, the hue that brought violence, passion and blood and flesh into Starlai's mind. He wondered where he was heading to, if anywhere. Maybe he was in hell, walking through a corridor that had no end. As he progressed, he noted that the wires that had accompanied his lonely journey were slowly disappearing from the scene. For a while there was nothing but the empty hallway, until something rather disturbing started to appear around him. Eyes. Dark, bulgy, disgusting eyes were on the walls, watching his every step. It made him extremely uncomfortable, and it kept getting worse. More and more eyes appeared, some of them becoming bigger and bigger, and some fleshy tissue had started to replace the metal on the walls and ceiling. It truly felt like he was on a road to hell. But still, he had nowhere else to go, so he continued to walk. Starlai was relieved when he realized he could see the end of the corridor. Though his relief was only temporary as soon as he reached the room beyond the hellish hallway. The same kind of horrors were still surrounding him; the fleshy walls and the eyes, but in here, some of the eyes were absolutely gigantic, and Starlai felt like he couldn't hide anything from their gaze. All the eyes watched him silently as he insecurely walked forward, feeling so small and insignificant under their constant supervision. The redness of the place made him feel ill, it was like he was inside someone – or something – like a pesky little parasite. In the middle of all the redness was a blue dot, a monitor that had the next question for Starlai. It was held by a fleshy column; the tissue was framing the screen in a grotesque way. Starlai walked towards it, a little bit afraid of what it was asking him this time. “ARE YOU REAL?” It was an impossible question to answer. There was no way Starlai could know that. He could think, he could feel, but it didn't prove anything – he could be artificial, every ounce of him. Maybe all this was a simulation, somebody was testing him. The more he thought about it, the more distressed he became. “I don't know!” Starlai yelled, starting to nervously stomp around. “I don't fucking know! I don't want to exist!” The screen went black. His surroundings started to tremble violently, like an earthquake. But he didn't care. He could get crushed, buried in the flesh. He just wanted out and if this was the way, so be it. The eyes around him were getting bloodshot, frantically glancing all around. Starlai was just happy that they didn't pay attention to him. Something hit Starlai in the head. He wasn't sure what, because he could feel the impact, but not any pain. After that, he was devoured by pitch-black darkness. The sound of everything crashing down ceased. It was like he was floating in a void again; there was nothing and it was silent, being similar to the state he had started with. Had he died? He wasn't sure. But if he hadn't been real to begin with, it means he wouldn't technically die, either. He was suddenly blinded by a bright light, he couldn't look at it directly. It infiltrated his comfortable space of nothingness, but Starlai got the feeling that he had to reach for it. Somehow he got his body moving, like he was swimming through the void, floating towards it. Then he woke up again.

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