The Choice 1
Caitlin Lauritzen
The Choice
She awoke to silence and an empty house. This was not something to be alarmed over for Lexi.
Her parents were rarely home, always at a work or meetings or business trips. She had grown used to
the loneliness and had even learned to enjoy it.
She got dressed and ate her breakfast, plain toast and orange juice, trying to remember if her
biology paper was due today or tomorrow and whether or not she had even started it. These thoughts
occupied her on her walk to school, so much that she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. She
didn't notice that the birds weren't singing and that the wind didn't make a sound as it rustled through
the trees or that the sky was tinged a strange gray.
The school day passed with relative normality, with note-taking intermingling with daydreams
and talking with friends. A few strange things happened, like the words on the white board appearing to
be written in a different language for a moment in social studies and the words her friend was speaking
cutting in and out, as though they were being said through bad cell phone reception, during lunch.
Those things were easy to brush off, though, with excuses like momentary tricks of the mind or the
noise in the cafeteria being too loud.
It was on her walk back home that Lexi began to feel aware that something wasn't right. She
couldn't place her finger on exactly what the problem was, though she searched her mind for
possibilities. Had she left her straightener turned on this morning when she left? No, she was sure she
had turned it off. School assignments, chores, locked doors, and forgotten appliances, all the things that
she could think to be wrong but none of them matched the feeling of foreboding that she was trying to
place.
She tried to push it out of her mind, pretend as though nothing was the matter and instead focus
on something else. She thought of homework, the upcoming dance, maybe going to the movies this
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weekend. If she started to wonder why she felt as though something was wrong, she would begin to
recite the structure of a cell, the subject of an upcoming test, in an effort to steer her mind in a different
direction. She was sure nothing was really wrong, it was her mind trying to trick her, she'd probably
forgotten something small and would realize what it was later.
Once she got home, she left her book bag in the living room, as always, and went to the kitchen
to find a snack. After looking through all of the cupboards and the refrigerator and finding nothing
exciting, she settled on an apple and a glass of water. Lexi grabbed the book that she had been reading
lately, The Giver, something the librarian had suggested to her, off of the kitchen table and headed
through the sliding glass doors to the backyard.
It was quiet and calm, although she still hadn't realized yet why it was so quiet. She settled into
one of the chairs on the patio, apple and water on the table next to her and her legs stretched out in
front of her. She was only a few pages in to her book when she heard a loud pop.
She looked up, startled, expecting to see an animal or a person, but there was no one. Suddenly,
everything flickered, like the image on an old TV as it's warming up. Lexi blinked a few times, certain
what she had just seen was her mind playing a trick on her. Then it happened again. She tensed, unsure
of what was happening. There was a thin line across the sky, like a crack in the universe. She was sure
the world was ending.
A moment later, her father was in front of her, as though he'd appeared out of thin air.
“Dad? What's happening?” her voice was shaky, like her hands.
“Everything's alright, Lexi,” he said in an even, soothing voice.
She relaxed slightly. She could trust her father to tell her the truth. If something was really
wrong, he would tell her. She watched as he reached out to touch her arm but the contact never came,
his hand went right through her. She drew back from him, eyes wide with panic.
“What just happened? What's going on?” her voice was starting to sound strained and she had to
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remind herself to breathe. She stared as her father's figure began to fade slightly until he was
transparent, the tree behind him suddenly visible.
“Everything is alright, Lexi.” he said again, in a voice too calm for the situation.
“Tell me what's going on!” she screamed, feeling on the verge of tears. Her father held his
hands up, although she wasn't sure if it was to calm her or to quiet her.
“Alright. I'll explain everything, just give me a moment.” His voice was still perfectly even.
Suddenly, he flickered and was gone.
Lexi tried to scream but nothing came out. Things around her began to fade away, one by one,
until everything was black, then blinding white
She was aware she was laying down, but when she tried to push herself up, nothing happened. She tried
to call out, for her father, for anyone, but all that came out was a grunt. The ceiling was coming into
view, white and plain, not even a speck of dirt marred its surface.
Soon she was moving, but not of her own accord. Whatever it was that she was lying on began
to slowly move upright, with a low mechanical hum accompanying the movement, until she could see
the rest of the room she was in. Stark and white, just like the ceiling, with a long window looking in to
another room along one wall with a door next to it, some things that looked like computer monitors,
and that was it. She was became aware of a quiet beeping coming from beside her, although she
couldn't turn to look at it.
Was it a heart monitor?
Was she in a hospital?
What was happening?
The door near the window opened and her parents walked through it, closing it with a quiet
click. They smiled at her in a way that didn't quite reach their eyes.
“Hello, Lexi,” her mother spoke quietly, as though she was talking to a scared animal.
The Choice 4
“Everything is alright.”
Lexi attempted to speak again, to ask them for answers to all of the questions that were swirling
around her head, but just as before, all that came out was a grunt. Her father moved closer to her and
touched her shoulder gently.
“Lexi, you're in a room at the Pryce Facility. It's where you've always been.” he began softly.
“There was an accident when you were three. You were paralyzed from the neck down but your brain
was left undamaged. You parents could no longer afford to care of you, so we, Dr. Morgan and I, took
over your case. We needed a subject for our virtual reality testing and you turned up at just the right
time.”
It took a moment for Lexi to process what she had just been told. She was paralyzed. These
people were not her real parents, but were doctors. How was any of that possible? She wanted to
scream, or throw something, or hit something, she wanted to do something, but all she could was blink.
So that's what she did.
“We wanted to you lead a normal, happy life,” her mother, no, Dr. Morgan, said as she gently
grasped Lexi's hand, “So, we created one for you.”
“Everything you've experienced since the accident has been a virtual reality. One we control in
that room there.” the man she had thought was her father gestured to the room beyond the window.
"You've been raised just as a normal child would, except that it has all been inside your mind, rather
than out in the world.
Lexi's mind was reeling. Everything she knew, everything she was, her entire world was a lie.
Her family, her friends, they didn't really exist. The time she had broken her arm falling from the
swings hadn't actually happened. The book she was reading, was that even real? Or was it something
made just for her?
“Yes, you're the first person to be raised within the virtual realm. You're a pioneer!” Dr. Morgan
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said enthusiastically.
“We were doing software updates when the glitch occurred this morning. We had hoped that it
would right itself and that you would be none the wiser, but the malfunction continued and we made
the decision to bring you out so that we could do a hard reboot.” The man spoke very matter-of-factly.
Lexi didn't know what to think, or what to say, if she could talk. “But,” he continued “as you are now
past the age for medical consent, we can't put you back under without your permission.”
Lexi blinked. So now it was up to her. She didn't get a chance to decide before, but now she did.
Before she could even begin to think through what she wanted, Dr. Morgan was speaking.
“Now we'd like for you to communicate with us through blinking, alright? Once for yes, twice
for no. Does this make sense?”
Lexi blinked once.
“Good. Now, do you understand what is being asked of you?”
Another single blink.
“Are you ready to make this decision?”
Two blinks.
“Alright. We'll let you take a moment to think things through.”
Lexi closed her eyes. So this was it. It was up to her. Choose to stay here, in the real world,
trapped inside a body that wouldn't work, or return to the life she had always known, with the
knowledge that it was all a lie. How could she ever begin to make that decision?
"Lexi," Dr. Morgan's soft voice interrupted Lexi's swirling thoughts "Whenever you're ready,
open your eyes. Blink once to stay awake and twice to be placed back in to the virtual reality."
Lexi kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, trying to think clearly, although her thoughts
were coming in like tidal waves. What if she made the wrong choice? Could she change her mind?
How would she tell them? She tried to take a deep breath, but some machine was breathing for her, so
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she just focused on the steady sound it created for a moment.
She opened her eyes and blinked twice, praying that it was the right choice.