Third Eden

“Where… am I?”

She wakes up in a city of dead hopes, of wandering souls long forgotten by God.

She knows this place. Everyone knows this place. History won’t ever let them forget.

But this isn’t right, she shouldn’t be here anymore.

She doesn’t know how she knows, all that she does know is that they promised they’d get her out of this place forever. And just as she thinks that, at once angered and hopeless at her cruel fate—

Welcome to Third Eden. Initializing all processes…

All of the scenery around her suddenly morphs.

No longer surrounded by colorless remnants of fallen human homes, now all she can see are the vivid tones of nature. Grass, trees, birds—it’s the first time she’s seen most of these in her life, outside of books and the Network.

When she was born, the world was already dead, the wonders of life of which the old spoke all erased from existence and, slowly, from the collective memory.

The smell of dried blood is no longer filling her lungs.

The painful, death-filled silence that envelops the ruined city has been replaced by a peaceful and relaxing one.

She looks down at her own clothes. They are unrecognizable. A beautiful white dress with blue accents has replaced her old ragged attire, which used to just barely cover her body enough. By her side, and with an identical color scheme, is an umbrella. Why an umbrella? It isn’t raining, and by looking at the sky, it’s very clear it’s going to stay sunny for a while.

… Actually, she can guess why it is she has an umbrella. It’s very simple, really. Almost laughably so.

She has an umbrella—because she’s always wanted one.

Ever since she can remember, she’s wanted to wear these exact same clothes with that exact same umbrella.

And it’s not just that.

She gets up and walks towards a nearby lake, its pristine water clearly reflecting her image on it. And just as she expected, all the wounds are gone. All the scratches, as if they’d never happened. She’s also gained weight; she’s no longer so extremely underweight that simply looking at her would hurt one’s soul.

So this is the promised paradise…

She mutters to herself, in complete awe at seeing all of her dreams and hopes come true at once.

All… except for one.

But she can’t be greedy.

She’s already received so much.

Asking for anything else would be inconsiderate; no, straight up rude to the gods who have just blessed her with this perfect world.

“Don’t think like that. You’re a guest to this paradise, and as such, you have the right to ask for whatever it is you desire.”

Startled, she looks behind herself to find a tall man with a sweet and welcoming expression. She’s met him before, though only once.

“Mister… Oland?”

“I’m glad to meet you again, dear. It makes me so happy that you could get here successfully… You worked very hard, and you’ve had to suffer a lot, so that’s why you can ask for anything and we’ll give it to you.”

“A-are you sure, mister?”

“Of course I am. I’m the creator of this place, I can grant your every wish.”

The girl is overflowing with so much joy.

Even if he’d just said he couldn’t do it, even if she’d had to live like this for the rest of her days in this paradise, it was still infinitely better than where she’d just come from. As Doctor Oland had just said—it had been a lot of work. A lot of effort. A lot of pain.

“I… I want my parents.”

She knows this is an impossible demand.

She knows they died years ago, just a few years after she was born. And yet, they’re who she wants most to be by her side—if at all possible, she’d like for all three of them to experience this paradise together.

“Hmm, I see… I’m sorry, but that could take me a while to arrange. Don’t worry, you’ll still have them here soon.”

She smiles brightly, impatient for her parents’ arrival. Doctor Oland goes away and promises to visit her again when he has any news.

“If you ever need me, just shout my name and I’ll be right there, all right?”

“Yes, mister! Thank you so much!”

And so their promise is made. Then time passes.

Hours, days.

The girl is more than used to boredom, to endlessly waiting without a hope in sight, but—this time is different.

She now does have something to look forward to, something which she’s anxious to see with her own eyes. Something that’s keeping her up at night in expectation and that’s making time feel so painfully slow.

After a few days, she can’t take it.

“Mister Oland! Are you there…?”

Shouting into the void, she almost doesn’t expect anything to happen—after all, she knows doctor Oland was probably very busy at the moment, and he probably can’t even hear her. She should just keep patiently waiting like she was told to-

“Yes? Did you need anything from me?”

“Ah!”

“Oh, sorry I startled you. You did call for me, right? How can I help you?”

“I… When will my parents be here, doctor Oland? Do you know?”

“I’m afraid it’s still going to take some time, dear. I know how much you want to see them, I really do, and I’m doing my very best, but some things just take a long time…”

“… I see…”

“I still haven’t forgotten about our promise. Whenever I have any news, I’ll tell you, okay?”

“…”

“Are you okay?”

“Doctor Oland…?”

“Yes?”

“Is there no way I can help you bring them here faster?”

“… I wonder.”

“Is there anything, doctor? Anything at all? I promise I’ll do anything, so please-!”

“Let’s see. Yes, there is one method with which you could help me bring your parents faster, as well as other people who aren’t them, if you wanted to.”

“Really?!”

It’s as if she’s just been told that any miracle is possible in the this, the third garden of paradise. In fact, for all she knows, that’s exactly what she’s been told.

“Yes. All you’d have to do is come with me to my laboratory, and I’ll tell you how you can help.”

“Yay! Thank you, doctor!”

“No, thank you. Without you, all of this paradise wouldn’t be possible.”

The next day, just as the girl is waking up from sweet dreams of reuniting with her lost family, Oland appears right beside her.

“So, are you ready, dear?”

“Yes, doctor! I am ready for anything!”

“Glad to hear that. Then please, come with me.”

They walk for what seems like hours on end, but she doesn’t get tired. She’s more than used to this kind of effort from her days at the Old City.

As they get farther and farther away from the area where she’d first come into this world, though, she starts to notice some things not even books and the Net had ever taught her existed.

Two-headed birds, flying whales, solid clouds with trees growing out of them and towards the Earth below her feet, lakes that smelled sweet from afar… The list goes on and on. Oland’s expression begins to sour as they progressively walk through the fantastical sights of paradise.

“These aberrations you see… Your assistance will help fix these and turn them into a real paradise indistinguishable from the Old World.”

The Old World… He probably means the one before the war, where dresses like hers and trees and animals still existed. She thinks this paradise is even better than that, though. There’s something new to discover at every step of the way.

At long last, they finally reach a completely square and plain white building. It has no windows, only a single metallic door on the front—or at least she thinks it’s metaling, Oland won’t let her touch it—and the construction and color is so perfectly uniform that it seems completely unnatural.

“Enter, dear. This is where I live, and from where I control what happens in this Third Eden.”

The inside is nearly as impossibly lacking in detail as the outside, save for one exception: a big, soft chain which almost feels like a bed once she sits in it at Oland’s request.

“I’ll explain to you what we’re going to do. I need you to pay attention, okay? I you have any questions, just ask.”

“Yes, doctor. I will.”

She’s completely focused now. There’s no way she can afford missing an important detail that will make her commit a mistake and screw everything up.

“Okay, all you need to do is sit on this chair. You can’t move, but if your body moves by itself that’s fine. You may feel pain, and I apologize in advance, but it’s necessary for the process. We can stop whenever you feel like you can’t take it anymore though. Just shout my name and it’ll stop.”

“… Okay. Does something happen if we stop?”

“… Your wish may not be granted successfully.”

Now she completely understands. It’s crucial that she doesn’t stop until the last second. Until she really can’t take it anymore.

“Well then… let’s go.”

Click.

Third Eden Human Subject Evaluation Software: Initialize.

All systems are GO. Subject detected: Number 0279.

Encephalon building start.

“AAAAHHHH!”

She’s no longer in the doctor’s room, but in the middle of the Old City’s ruins.

She hears herself shouting, but she isn’t the one who’s done it. Why is she even shouting…?

Then she sees it.

Her body—it’s that of a grown man. The voice she’s just heard wasn’t hers, and yet it’s familiar. Very familiar.

Her head moves to look straight at her left arm—she has no control over this body.

A bullet wound.

Her left arm is bleeding, a lot. Her body—no, the man’s body—stumbles backwards, falling butt-first into the rubble at her feet.

There’s somebody in front of her, somebody whose face she cannot see. Somebody who comes close, their face still just a black void, and with a gigantic chainsaw, they tear her right arm apart.

“You filthy scum! I can’t believe I ever loved you! You Artum are nothing but a pile of garbage! Murderers, genocidal maniacs, you should all DIE!!!”

The other person stabs the chainsaw through the man’s heart. Throughout this whole time, the girl has felt nothing, unable to move a body that reacted completely on its own, but then her sight fades to black.

Then it hits her.

Her left arm, as if a bullet has just pierced her.

Her right arm, as if it’s been completely cut off into pieces.

Her torso, as if it’s been slaughtered by a chainsaw.

She wants to scream but she can’t move.

She wants the pain to end, but she can’t do anything.

It goes on and on and on until-

Human Subject Evaluation: complete. Results: satisfactory. Now disengaging test environment.

“…”

“it’s over now, dear. You did admirably. Thank you very much for your valiant efforts.”

That voice… It’s Oland’s voice, she tells herself. She instantly knows that the nightmare is over. And yet, the lingering ghost of the pain she’s just experienced still remains strongly in her body. She’s never experienced anything like it in her whole life.

“it’s okay, it’s okay. The pain wasn’t real. You’re just fine, see? Those wounds weren’t yours, they were someone else’s.”

“Y-yeah…”

It had very much felt real to her.

“And look, it worked! Why don’t you go outside for a second? I’ll leave the door open.”

She does as she’s told, reluctantly, but when she steps outside she finds a familiar man and woman waiting for her with warm smiles on their face. They’re her parents.

…

They spend their life together in paradise for a long time, and the girl forgets about that horrible nightmare. It’s as if her parents had never in her life left her side, and she can’t have enough of it.

But eventually, the years pass.

Now she’s older, and the company of her parents by itself has grown stale. There’s nothing new to experience, nothing to shake up her life in Eden.

And so she wishes for a friend.

“Doctor Oland…?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Can I still ask for someone else to come here to paradise?”

“Of course, dear. As many times as you want. And like last time, you can wait, or you can sit down on the chair to make the process faster.”

“I’ll sit on the chair and make it faster!”

She doesn’t remember the nightmare, so she once again sits in the chair. Once again, though to her it looks like the first time, the world around her vanishes-

Third Eden Human Subject Evaluation Software: Initialize. […]

A monster’s gigantic skull is right in front of her. Its bones have long been devoid of any meat on them, it’s all been eaten away by the few survivors that hide in the area.

That monster had once been a massive biological weapon of warfare. But now, reduced to this state and hidden away in the middle of a decaying forest, it looked like nothing more than a pitiful reminder that everything will one day meet its end.

Much like will soon happen to the girl whose body she’s inhabiting right now.

It’s that of a young female, roughly her own age, but one that looked somehow even worse than she had before she was brought to heaven.

She had to move, she had to look for food somewhere or she’d die of starvation.

But she didn’t have the energy.

The body wouldn’t move.

It wouldn’t go anywhere, it was finished.

There was nothing left to do but to wait for death to take her, but it would be slow.

Very slow.

Slow.

…

……

………

After what seems like an eternity, the forest and the giant half-buried skull fade into black. And then the pain hits her—but unlike last time, it’s not all at once.

It’s slow, and progressive.

Just like that other girl, starving to death.

She has to keep resisting.

She can’t give up now, or her wish won’t become true. Her Heaven won’t be perfect unless she pulls through.

And she does.

She resists the pain, creeping into her body for so long, never ending, never stopping, never releasing its iron grip. Until, at last, she finally opens her eyes to find herself at the doctor’s room again.

“…”

Wordlessly, she goes out of the doctor’s room, and there she finds a girl her age, waiting for her with open arms.

Once again, she forgets about the nightmare she’s just experienced. Once again, she proceeds with her life like nothing’s wrong—because nothing is. She has all she could ever desire, until…

When she becomes a beautiful young woman, she wishes for a lover.

As an adult, she wishes for children.

And as an elderly woman at the end of her life, she wishes for grandchildren.

Every time, the process repeats, and every time, the nightmares only get worse. But it’s okay. She’ll always forget they ever happened. It’s all okay in the end.

As long as she gets to live her happy, perfect life in paradise, she doesn’t mind just a little suffering to achieve it.

“Hey, doctor Oland. I think I… My life is probably coming to and end soon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s probably true. A very long time has passed since you first came here.”

“You haven’t aged a day yourself, though…”

“…”

“Heh. Maybe someday I’ll understand you. For now… goodbye, doctor.”

“Goodbye, dear. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Think you could afford to say my name at least once before I die?”

“… Goodbye, Spica.”

As Oland says her name, her eyes close one last time. They would never open again.

Her body slowly vanishes into thin air, with that of a young girl wearing a white dress with blue accents and with a matching umbrella by her side taking its place.

“Welcome, Spica. You’re a guest to this paradise, and as such, you have the right to ask for whatever it is you desire. I promise you—I’ll grant anything you may wish for.”

Third Eden Project: initiating brand-new process tree. Human subject detected, Number 280.

Encephalon building start…