The Vision
Jake Winters - POV
I can't stop shaking.
Every muscle in my body trembles like I've been standing naked in a blizzard. The ice pulses in my veins with each heartbeat. Cold then colder. It reminds me I'm alive, which should be comforting except I can still taste death on my tongue. Metallic. Wrong.
Being alive isn't the problem though.
The problem is what I saw while my heart wasn't beating.
"Jake." Maya's face hovers above mine, blurred at the edges. Her hands grip my shoulders hard enough to hurt. "Talk to me. What did you see?"
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out at first. My throat feels frozen from the inside.
Three futures. I saw three possible futures while I was dead. Each one crystal clear. Each one completely different. But now they're bleeding together in my head like watercolors in rain, and I can't separate them anymore.
"There were. Choices." My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. Hollow and echoing. "Three different choices."
"What kind of choices?"
I try to sit up. The bakery spins violently and my stomach lurches. Maya catches me before I fall sideways.
"One future had magic everywhere." The memory flashes behind my eyes. Bright lights that hurt. People floating. Reality bending like warm glass. "Everyone could do impossible things. But."
I stop. The words tangle up.
"But what?" Maya's breath is warm on my face.
"Nobody chose anything. We just existed. Happy faces. Empty eyes. Like someone was controlling us from the inside and we didn't even know it."
"No free will." Pastor Williams moves closer. His gray skin pulses with light. "A future without choice."
"Yeah." The word scrapes out. "Everyone smiled but nobody was really there. Like puppets dancing because someone pulled the right strings."
Maya's fingers dig into my shoulders. "What else did you see?"
I close my eyes. Try to grab onto the second vision before it dissolves completely.
"The other future, we were free. We could choose whatever we wanted." This memory tastes bitter. Makes my chest ache. "But we were alone. Completely, totally alone. I walked through crowds and couldn't feel anyone. Like everyone became ghosts. Present but not real."
"Loss of human connection," Dr. Cross says from the laptop somewhere to my left. I don't look at her. Can't look away from Maya's face. "Complete isolation."
"Worse than that." My throat closes up for a second. "Imagine loving someone and not being able to feel it. Imagine touching them and feeling nothing. We were alive but not living. Just waiting to die one by one in our separate bubbles."
The silence that follows feels heavy enough to crush me.
"You said three." Maya's voice cracks on the word. "What was the third future?"
I open my eyes. Look at her. At my parents standing behind her. At the forty-seven awakened people pressed against the walls. At Mrs. Rodriguez's ghost presence by the window.
"I don't remember."
"What?" Maya's hands drop from my shoulders like I burned her. "Jake, what do you mean you don't remember?"
"Exactly what I said." Frustration boils up, mixing with the cold. "I saw it. I know I did. But every time I reach for it, it's gone. Like trying to hold smoke."
I press both palms against my temples. Push hard enough to make my skull ache. Maybe I can force the memory back through sheer pressure.
"We kept both things. Free will and connection. We got to keep them both but we lost." The words die in my mouth. Just vanish. "Something. We lost something."
"Try harder," a voice says from the laptop speakers.
"I am trying!" The shout rips out of me. Makes the ice in my chest crack and send shooting pains through my ribs. "You think I want to forget? You think this is fun for me?"
Maya touches my face. Her palm warm against my frozen cheek. "Jake. Breathe. It's okay."
But it's not okay and we both know it.
The temperature drops ten degrees in two seconds. The Regulator's presence wraps around all of us like a suffocating blanket.
CORRECT. The word explodes in my skull. In everyone's skull based on the gasps around me. JACOB WINTERS EXPERIENCED PREPARATION FOR TEST THREE. THREE PATHS SHOWN. THREE SACRIFICES REQUIRED. HUMANITY CHOOSES NOW.
"Why can't he remember the third one?" Maya's talking to the ceiling. To empty air that somehow listens. "If you showed him all three, why hide one?"
THE THIRD SACRIFICE CANNOT BE REVEALED BEFORE SELECTION. PRIOR KNOWLEDGE CORRUPTS THE CHOICE. THIS VIOLATES TEST PARAMETERS.
My head throbs. The visions swirl faster. I see free will disappearing into light. I see connection dissolving into nothing. I see the third option and then I don't. It slips away every single time.
"This is insane." Pastor Williams stands up too fast. His chair scrapes loudly. "You're demanding humanity choose blind. Sacrifice something fundamental without full information."
YES. THIS MEASURES SURVIVAL CAPACITY.
"That's not fair!" Maya's on her feet now. Her hands ball into fists. "How can anyone make an informed decision if you hide the consequences?"
FAIRNESS IS IRRELEVANT. SURVIVAL REQUIRES DIFFICULT CHOICES. SPECIES WHO PASS THIS TEST UNDERSTAND FAITH PRECEDES KNOWLEDGE.
The laptop explodes with voices. The global summit losing its collective mind. People shouting over each other. Crying. Swearing. Someone's laughing hysterically in the background.
"So we vote on this?" Dr. Cross cuts through the chaos with her clinical tone. "Choose between losing free will or connection, without knowing what the third option costs?"
CORRECT. SIX HOURS REMAIN. MAJORITY DETERMINES OUTCOME.
"What if we refuse to vote?" someone asks.
NON-PARTICIPATION EQUALS CHOOSING EXTINCTION.
The word extinction hangs there. Poisonous and final.
"So our actual choices are lose our will, lose each other, lose something unknown, or die." Maya's voice goes flat. Emotionless. Which means she's terrified. "Those are our options."
THIS IS TEST THREE.
I force myself to stand even though my legs shake so badly I might fall. The ice in my body has stopped spreading but it hasn't retreated. I'm frozen at exactly this moment. Not dying. Not healing. Just stuck.
"The species that passed this test." I have to stop and swallow. Taste blood. "How did they choose?"
RESTRICTED INFORMATION.
"Of course." I laugh and it sounds half crazy. "Impossible choices. No information. No time. Perfect test design."
Maya grabs my hand fast. Her warmth bleeds into my frozen fingers. "We'll figure it out."
But I don't think we can. The visions keep fracturing. Reforming. Dissolving again. I'm losing pieces every second.
Pastor Williams makes a sound like something breaking inside him.
Everyone turns.
His gray skin ripples like water disturbed by wind. The black and white energy that's been at war inside him suddenly goes still. Perfectly balanced. His whole body glows brighter.
"I can feel it." His whisper carries through the silent room. "I can sense the Regulator's emotions."
"That's not possible." Dr. Cross sounds uncertain for the first time. "It's an entity. Entities don't have emotions."
"This one does." Pastor Williams turns in a slow circle. His eyes unfocused. "It's been hiding them but I'm balanced now. I can sense both sides of everything and." He stops spinning. Stares up. "Oh. Oh no. It's afraid."
"Afraid of what?" Maya asks.
"Of us. Of what we might choose."
The room temperature drops another five degrees. My breath comes out in visible puffs.
"Why?" I force the question out through chattering teeth. "If it's testing us, if it controls this, why fear our choice?"
"Because one of these options breaks something." Pastor Williams closes his eyes. His face twists with concentration. "Something massive. Something even the Regulator can't repair. And it doesn't know which choice does it."
"Which one?" Maya moves toward him. "Which choice breaks things?"
"It won't let me sense deeper. But it's terrified we'll pick that one. And equally terrified we won't."
The Regulator's presence pulses. Hot anger mixing with cold fear.
STOP. TESTING BEGINS IMMEDIATELY.
The voice doesn't just speak. It detonates in my skull. On the laptop. Through the walls. In every language at once creating this awful harmony of command.
TEST THREE COMMENCES. SIX HOURS TO VOTE. OPTION ONE: SURRENDER FREE WILL, RETAIN MAGIC. OPTION TWO: SURRENDER CONNECTION, RETAIN CHOICE. OPTION THREE: SURRENDER \[STATIC SCREAMING\], RETAIN BOTH.
The static where the third option should be sounds like reality tearing. Like the universe screaming.
THIRD OPTION REMAINS CONCEALED UNTIL SELECTED. VOTING OPENS NOW. MAJORITY DECIDES ALL. NON-VOTERS CHOOSE EXTINCTION. DECIDE.
The laptop screen shifts. Three buttons appear. Two labeled clearly. One just says UNKNOWN in red letters.
Numbers start climbing immediately. People voting without thinking.
"Stop!" Maya shouts. "Everyone stop! We need to discuss this! We need more time!"
SIX HOURS. NO EXTENSIONS. CHOOSE CORRECTLY OR CEASE EXISTING.
My vision blurs. The three futures flash through my head again, faster now. Mixing into incomprehensible chaos. I reach desperately for the third option. Try to remember what we sacrifice to keep everything else.
But it's gone.
And humanity has six hours to gamble on our survival.