“What are the odds, Minjoo?” She asked, the smile still evident on her face. The wind gushes and her eyes settle at the twinkling of the stars—

Suddenly, everything else started to fall apart, like a roll of film that’s been cut into pieces and taped randomly together, the images flashed right in front of her eyes as she took in exasperated breaths, sweat dripping all over her body. She was going in and out of consciousness, her whole being felt weak under the effects of sedatives and hallucinogens, warping her sense of reality and perception. Yujin was beginning to lose herself halfway through the simulation, but with the little strength she has left in her limbs, she clenched her fist and tried to fight through her distorted memories, waiting for the session to be over and for the drugs to wear off.

“Simulation day three hundred and sixty-eight completed, commencing the last dose of sedatives in five seconds,” a man instructed over the intercom on the other side of the glass wall where Yujin could be observed. A woman wearing a hazmat suit pressed the button on the infusion pump, the drug dripped through the line and entered Yujin’s veins, making her loosen her grip after a few seconds—the medication finally started kicking in again, rendering the young girl to enter a hazy state. After what seemed like forever, she saw the blinding light inside the testing room, four men circled around Yujin, donning protective gears. They began to remove the contraptions on her body in one go, memorizing every step, doing each movement with precision and accuracy, not missing a single beat. When they unbuckled the padded restraints, she felt the world spin, her lightheadedness made her feel nauseous, so much so that Yujin started retching, making her tear up on the process. The men lifted her on to the stretcher for room transfer. During this time, Yujin tried to keep her eyes open, she started to see images on the white walls, and for a moment she thought she saw an apparition of Minjoo smiling widely at her. She drew in long deep breaths, wide-eyed, and confused what’s real and what’s not.

“Joo,” she uttered deliriously, her eyes losing focus everytime she opens them, “Minguri.” Her voice was hoarse from all the screaming while she was undergoing the test, but she called out her lover’s name, still. She knew she had to give it a gamble to say her name. Perhaps, Yujin thought, if she called Minjoo enough times she would eventually wake up from a long and dragging nightmare. Unconsciously, tears fell one after the other as she drifted into sleep, she could still hear the voices of those who are around her, the door to her room opening with the sound of metal against metal, she could just run away and put everything on the line, she could’ve done that— but she was too frail, too vulnerable to even move in the slightest. And so, just as she did every day for the past year, she decided to succumb to rest for now, and stuck to her plans of escaping Calypso.

Yujin was parched; her lips were dry, and her head throbbed with a steady beat. The sedative was wearing off, but her body was still heavy from its side effects. She was lying down, her back touching the soft mattress, and her eyes focused straight up at the bright fluorescent light. In her best efforts, she swallowed to give ease to her thirst. Although, doing that only made it worse for Yujin, she felt the dryness that hurt and made her cough. She turned her head to the side, saving herself from possible aspiration. She can’t die like that, not when she’s only used a fraction of her ability to get out of the forced confinement she’s in so far.

Gradually, Yujin was able to move her limbs with much more strength than before, starting with her fingers to her arms, from her toes to her legs, until she willed herself to sit up on her bed. The headache was gone, although the heavy feeling has not left her system completely, doing the minimum movements was enough for Yujin for the time being.

She found her stare settling by the wall, her eyes meeting the mural at a certain angle from her bed. She followed every of the brush, each color alive on their own, giving meaning to the bareness of the whole room. Yujin chanted in a low voice, “I am Ahn Yujin, seventeen… I’ve been abducted, I’m in Calypso… my parents are… my parents are dead, Minjoo—Minjoo’s dea—no, start from the beginning. The death of Minjoo was not real. Not everything I remember is real. I am the glitch, my time stopped but I’m still alive, my parents are still alive, Minjoo’s also alive. I am going to get out of here—” her statement was cut off when she heard a muffled knock on the wall; she stared at it for a few good seconds until another wave of knocks came. That’s when she remembered about the person over the wall.

She got out of bed, standing still for a moment to maintain good balance before making her way towards the direction where the sound came from. Yujin took in a deep breath, released a labored sigh, and tapped a message.

Hi

A reply was tapped back immediately, and as Yujin waited for the message to be over, she sat comfortably by the wall to ward off suspicion.

You shouting in sleep.

Yujin understood the lack of certain words; it was hard to answer in full sentences using Morse code, something the person on the other side seemed to understand as well.

You too.

Are you real?

She finally asked, still reliving the simulations that messed up her sense of discernment, as the other person tapped in a response, Yujin leaned her back against the wall, the coldness of the surface slowly seeping through her white long-sleeved shirt, the dots and dashes resounding in her head. Her eyes were fixed on the lights by the ceiling, counting the minutes in her mind.

Are you?

            The other person asked back which made Yujin chuckle to herself, taking all the time she needs to think of a good answer. At one point, in her moment reflection, she even began to question her own existence. All the while, she never removed her stare, and then there it was, the subtle flickering of the light, ten seconds after, Yujin’s eyes travelled over to where the camera was, and she knew it was safe to speak.

“I’m real,” she told the person with a quiet voice. She heard tapping on the wall and Yujin had to stop it abruptly, “It’s okay, you can speak. The camera and microphone will be off for the next hour.” She waited for the other person to say something, each passing second seemed to last for years, her heart beated faster, scared at the thought that if the person on the other room wouldn’t answer, Yujin might doubt the authenticity of everything else in her current state.

“How did you know that?” It was the first time she heard her speaking voice. Yujin only ever knew the sound of the person’s screams at night or after simulations, but not how her voice sounds like when she’s talking—she never knew that until now.

“We wake up an hour after the simulations, it’s the time needed for the maximum effects of the drug to get out of our system. I’ve proven it over a year of staying here. Five minutes after, you can see the light flutter in the sl