Where the Roots Begin

Chapter VII

I "have never failed in kindness"?

No, we lived too high for strife, -

Calmest coldness was the error

which has crept into our life.

-Sarah Williams

They stepped in all at once. The room suddenly lit six small fires with a notorious distance between them.

"Each one of you, approach a fire", the robotic woman's voice commanded. When each one of them was standing more than ten feet away from each other, the voice spoke again.

"Simulation one begins, now".

And suddenly, they were in the middle of the sea. There was a small island barely visible in the distance.

The first moments, Alessandra was confused by the sudden change of landscape. Without previous warning, she suddenly had to swim. A sport she wasn't too used to. She had been taught how when she was very small, her mother loved swimming and she wanted her daughter to love it too. Alessandra still remembered how her eyes lit up when she managed to reach her without drowning, how her mother lifted her up in the air laughing, screaming at her dad that Alessandra was a natural.

It was one of the few memories she had left of her parents.

Focus.

She had a bit of trouble staying afloat at first. And when she managed to do that, she had no time to feel pleased with herself. She felt as if she was being watched.

She turned around, and at first she saw nothing, just endless sea, and the others nervously looking around as well. Kaiya, or at least Alessandra thought it was Kaiya, looked the more distressed, but Alessandra was too far to even yell at her, to ask her what was wrong. And suddenly, Kaiya disappeared underwater.

It could've been a wave, or maybe she went underwater intentionally, trying to see something.

But she didn't come up again.

And then someone yelled, "SWIM!"

Alessandra looked around, trying to see something, anything.

And she did. She saw greyish triangles swimming close to her. Fins.

She doubted they were dolphins.

So she started swimming.

She heard a scream, cut of by a splash.

And she kept swimming.

She wasn't afraid. She was furious. What was so important they had to go through this? What was the point? Part of her brain told her they had to be prepared for whatever there was on the other side of the Portal, but it still bothered her. And how had they managed to create the simulations? How had they learned to install the device on their necks? How many experiments had they done on innocent lives to discover all of this, and how to use it right? How many accidents?

Unfortunately, the teeth sinking in her left ankle interrupted her thoughts.

Pain shot up through her whole leg, and for a moment she couldn't move. She saw her blood reaching the surface. She panicked. She remembered how she had read once that sharks were attracted to blood. They could smell it from miles away. She was about to be eaten. Alessandra started half swimming and half kicking, and hit a shark, maybe two. Probably this would make them angrier, but she was desperate. The island seemed to get far and farther away, and there wasn't anything else she could do. So she swam, and kicked, and swam, and kicked.