Past Or Future

“You're going to kill me now, only one left after all." Yuka swung unstably; it was any moment before she was going to pass out.

I have no axe, no stamina, no energy to kill this thing; I'm just at its mercy. So why isn’t it coming?

Heavy metallic footsteps echo across the room as the robot descends upwards; its cold robotic gaze never moves from Yuka’s eyes.

Clap.

The robot clapped. The sound of metal colliding hurt her ears; a jolt passed through her, yet she was still confused. “Why are you clapping?”

A warmer voice answers her, someone that would be around her age with an average male voice, not too deep or light. "Both of you managed to get to the end, so you don’t die." Not from me anyway."

“What do you mean 'got to end'? Are you trying to tell me this was all just a sick game for something like you? " Yuka’s hands trembled.

The robot raised its arm in surrender, the sleek skeletal body still looking hollow. “It wasn’t a game; it was a test to see if you could handle what was coming up."

“Are you the leader—”

The leader gave a nod with its robotic skull; he goes towards the console on the platform before the screens above her flashed everything that happened during the conversations between them in mwchat.

“You really are a leader. How dare you test us like that? We were loyal the entire time. Not only did Himari pass out, but you used a dead person's voice to trick us into seeing if we would fall for it!”

The leader replied. “If you fell for that, if you both lost there, then you would be useless up there. Our mission is to achieve freedom, all of us."

While they were in their conversation, Himari from the side started to emerge from her deep sleep; her body felt heavy, it was covered in sweat, and the drowsiness from the heat was mostly gone, but the lingering effects of dizziness and fog still resided within.

She turned her tired eyes towards the right, seeing Yuka standing out with her fists balled up. From behind her head she heard metallic typing, metal grinding, and screeching around behind her; it awakened her instantly.

“Yuka, get back!” She reached over to the side; there was no axe, but just an instinct left to always reach for something, a feeling she was too used to. Prompting herself up onto her feet, she ran over to Yuka’s side and got in front of her.

Her eyes stared up at the screen, noticing the old chats they had and the fact Yuka and she were still alive. “You're the leader—the one hunting us that entire time was the leader?"

“It was a test. I explained it to Yuka to see if you are ready."

Himari gave a scoff. “Your voice is human now; you might be able to fool her and lower her guard, but if you try one thing then—”

“Then what? You could barely even stay awake a second ago, and now you are threatening the person who saved your life, the one who tested you and will grant you freedom today.”

Himari's eyes sharpen, she remembered. “Today is my destined day—”

“Now are we ready to start? I will get the axe you have, and you hand over the files.” His bare finger pointed towards Yuka’s sweaty frilly dress; the files tucked in from underneath must have become wet beyond near no return.

She took the files out from underneath, presenting them in both hands to the leader. “Explain what you want to do with them.”

The robot didn’t mind this question. “I need to take recordings of these files and save them in my database; it will be used as evidence for everything that has transpired here from back then.”

"That's fine with me, but I want to see my own file. She put the files onto his desk; they were wet and gave out a smell of cardboard. The leader began skimming each report one after the other to find a specific one.

He took only two sheets big; it had no name at all around them. It was a file for nothing and no one, yet it had details inside.

“This is your file; it's short, not much since you're still alive. Yuka, are you ready?”

Rushing over to the leader's side, she stares down at the file; the words instantly drift into her head: “There isn’t anything about my past life.”

The words on the page under the category of history/past had just one word to summarise the entire section: "Nothing".

“How is there nothing? Everyone comes from somewhere, so where do I come from? Who was I before all this? Was I made here?”

The leader doesn't respond to her questions; he didn’t know. Himari didn’t know. They knew her personality and what she enjoyed but not her roots; she never talked about them even once.

“Maybe you were an orphan or just some castaway; what you will become and what you will expose will be worth way more than a past they didn't even write.”

Yuka stays silent; she knows this is true. The idea of knowing her past wouldn't matter to her anyway tomorrow since it was all going to end either way.

“I just wanted to know; let's keep reading.” Her eyes scan down the page, the section titled 'Purpose'. Her hands got colder. Himari, even without her awareness, put a hand on her shoulder.

Yuka starts to read “Purpose: Create an obedient human while preserving the ability to adapt and develop skills."

Yuka's eyes narrowed, her face turning deeper.

Himari’s hand tightened on Yuka’s shoulder. “Keep going, Yuka, this is the truth—” Himari quietly whispered.

“Tasks required: memory erasure via substance?" - conditioning via environmental isolation, lack of contact and other means to limit the truth or exposure to knowledge"

The file shook slightly; Yuka’s hands couldn’t keep still, words jumbling around the page, impossible to decipher.

“Am I just this— Who was I before? THEY didn’t make me who I am, did they?"

The grip on the file grew; her bright pink eyes became darker. Seeing herself like this, planned, used, and discarded as a report, didn’t sit right.

“Result: 100% success rate, compliance never questioned, memory never recovered, fear instilled."

The page crumbled beneath her slightly.

“Yuka—”

“I chose to follow the rules; I chose to stay in my room, didn't I?”

Himari pulled the file away from her wavering hands. “You didn’t choose anything.”

Reassurance wasn’t her best side. “You aren’t a thing to be used; you are my and Koyomi’s friend, someone we trust dearly and someone who will help us get away from this place—You aren’t just an experiment, to me anyway.” Her hands wrapped around Yuka, warm and comforting; she felt safer now, from every side.

Besides them, the leader was already gathering other files in the meantime, his eyes watching over every side report. “You are the success; they also have details here of the failures, multiple amounts of people—a dozen, most of which went either insane in their rooms or died from overloading.”

"Yuka, it's fine now; you aren't, if anything, an experiment but the person who will end everything, the one who will stop anything more from happening." Himari kept holding her closely; it was hard seeing through Himari’s files, her own files and the idea that there were dozens of others who felt the same fate.

Tears slightly forming underneath her eye were quickly rubbed off using her own sleeve; they were absorbed like a sponge. "You're right— We have to stop this; we can’t let this continue even if I will never be normal again.”

“The cubes aren't real, Yuka; they are in your mind, implanted by them. Just let them go and let yourself explore the world after.”

Yuka froze up. “But I see them; they are there. I feel them. We're all stuck here whether we like it or not!”

"No, Yuka, they were just things, you see; there is a world out there, people out there and a whole planet of things to do—just not for you."

Yuka didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stood still, too still. “I wasn't made for this world, you're right—But I can still burn the one that made me this way."

The cubes never existed. I made them up for what? to trap myself, but no, it was them. If I know they are fake now, will they stop? Maybe I can move out now; maybe they will vanish since I know the truth. My mind won't be tricked!

“What about THEM?” she asked instinctively.

Himari sighed again. “THEY are the people who hurt you; you see them like that because the experiment was to make obedient people, and the best way is fear. THEY are human, scientists—”

“THEY don't exist—the cubes. They never did either. I will try my best to believe it; you're right, Himari.” Grabbing the file, she grabs the top piece before tearing it in half, then another and another; it was made into tiny pieces.

Getting off of Himari’s embrace, she stood up before walking over to the edge of the platform, her eyes staring out in the distance, the crumbled, torn file in her hand. "I'm done with my past.” She lunges her hands forward as she also releases the file from her hands out into the maze of cables below.

The leader, looking at the scene unfold, goes back to typing away. “We're going to burn this place down if possible using a circuit overload; it will cause attention once everything comes out, so don't worry about that file ever coming back.”

The leader then pushes himself from the screen, his hands scavenging the cabinets within the desk, looking for a tool. “I have these cameras, which will capture everything and instantly send it back here to my database. I will compile everything and make sure it gets around; just worry about getting to show everything there."

"We're to become camera drones for you—while THEY roam due to this whole staff room plan.” Himari tapped her foot, its impatience thinning; avoiding and capturing information was certainly a task of high stress.

“Correct, you will show your old rooms, the dead garden, the state of others; everything down here was already captured, but I don't have access to the outside.” His hands take out two sets of cameras, both having a clip to be attached onto their frilly dresses to stick perfectly while capturing without the worry of them falling.

Himari protests. “It's very risky—”

“Come here.” The leader twists his hands, pulling Himari close to his speaker, whispering into her ears. Himari's expression changes multiple times, to satisfaction, then happiness and worry.

As Himari pulls away from the leader, her hands shake slightly. “This is the only way, right?”

He nodded, affirming it. “I will do it. Fine, but just make sure this doesn't go down or else I will find a way back to you, trust me.”

He nodded again before moving forward. “Himari will do the first floor and outside; Yuka, you will do the upper floors and rooms. Try to find someone who will speak to you. At the end of the mission, you will stay in someone's room for the night. THEY are actively patrolling at all times now; THEY will know, so be quick and end things before midnight.”

“Who were you before this?” Yuka whispered.

A mechanical laugh erupted. “I was just an experiment like you two who gained the power to change things for the people I know and suffered nothing else.”