Room Four

My eyes opened as a cacophony awoke me from my slumber. The screams of Nuria, the shouts of Gerald, and cries of Yasmine suddenly became clear in my mind as Mr. Grey pulled me out of my bed.

“What’s going on?!” My slow slumber filled mind managed to ask. No response came a resolution of silence seemed to have settled in Mr. Grey as he and Mrs. Red plucked my friends out of their beds. Mr. Grey was never known to be chatty but he’d never once woken us up in the middle of the night and forced us out of our beds. Neither had Mrs. Red. The school was strict but not that strict. Something was very wrong. To make it clearer what was happening I must describe our lives before we were plucked from our beds.

Egregie Filii was the name of the institution we called home. On the outside it wasn’t a homely place, its brutalist style made it more foreboding than welcoming. Although it was always clean and comfortable for us students. So, the infrastructure is a moot point. As the name suggests this wasn’t just any school it was built specifically for raising brilliant children for wealthy parents. The purpose wasn’t clear to my young self. Nor do I fully understand it now. All I knew then was that I was assigned to room four with three other children Gerald, Nuria, and Yasmine and we were waiting for the day we would be brilliant enough to be accepted by our parents. There were forty children in the institution divided into groups of four, those groups of four shared a birthday. Ours was the eighteenth of November. Those groups lived together schooled together played together. The assistants were the ones who ensured we behaved and they supported the teachers. There was the headteachers who taught the classes then there were assigned teachers who ensured students were learning. Our assigned teacher was Mrs. Red, a fake name to be sure. She herself was obviously brilliant and ensured we became as brilliant as herself if not more so. Our daily workload would make a university student quaver. Although for us it was just life.

Days would begin with the regular zmmm of the room’s alarms we’d immediately get up and brush our teeth get into the school uniform and down to the mess hall. Our tables were numbered by room numbers, we rarely if ever conversed with the other children. Our breakfast was always palatable but extremely healthy. No sweets ever came into the facility. After breakfast, we shuffled off towards our daily classes. It was always physics with Mr. Brown, mathematics with Mrs. White, athletics with Mr. Pink, science with Mrs. Purple, geography with Mrs. Blue, and then writing with Mr. Green. Their rooms were even the colors of their chosen names, likewise our homework and subjects were color code.

After our classes, we went to do our work with our assigned teachers who from my understanding were all called Red. Mrs. Red always looked over our work and if she saw one minuscule mistake, we would do the work over again in its entirety. Considering our homework was at a minimum twenty or so pages worth it was an undesirable consequence. Our work was always complex. There were no easy multiple-choice tests. The questions were precise and the answers had to handwritten. Mrs. Red would always add extra questions to challenge our weaknesses. We certainly became quite brilliant for our age.

After this we had our free time until seven pm. Our school day ended at five pm. Those two hours were precious to us we would become whatever we wanted and forget our schoolwork. Often our games revolved around exploring the world since Yasmine had a love for Geography and had excelled at it. Her imagination lead us to shark-infested waters, and mermaid shores. Then Gerald would set us on a quest to retrieve the hidden jewels when in reality they were just geode from the science class. Nuria would run through the fields surrounding the buildings encouraging us to catch her but we never could. We would collapse in exhaustion after running after her gazelle like sprints and sit making daisy chains. Then it was time for bed and the whole cycle would start again.

Now that was how life had been before that night. After that night the order we had grown so accustomed to had been flipped on its head. And we were separated from each other and were thrown into wildly different lives. On that night we were placed into separate cars but before that, I had an idea. I shouted, “See you at the Coliseum!” Luckily, they understood that I meant for us to somehow meet up again. Although it was hard to hold onto that scrap of hope once I came to understand what my new life was going to be like and why we were raised.

When the sedan I was shoved in by Mr. Grey stopped at a long rambling modernist house a couple walked out of it smiling and cheery “Henry!” They called out cheerfully. That was my name although it was unclear how they knew it. They opened the car door and gestured for me to come out their arms were wide open as if to embrace me. It clicked in that moment that these must be my parents. The school was the only place I’d ever known but we’d always been told that we were getting smarter for our parents that one day we would be just right to make them happy. Apparently, I was ready, not that that’s what I wanted. I’d always hoped I’d stay at

Egregie Filii until I grew up.

I dutifully let them hug me but I had never felt more distant from anyone or anything. I had once been shown their picture but had long forgotten it. Seeing them in person had an unsettling effect on me, their blue eyes were like mine their blond hair was the same shade as mine, they looked so much like me as parents do, I suppose. Although I fit almost too perfectly in, as if I had been sculpted into a clay mold. Of course, my young self didn’t know how to express these feelings. So, I distanced myself almost immediately. I wanted nothing to do with this family even if they were mine.

I was silent at the breakfast table as we ate. They asked me all sorts of questions, but never once did they ask how I felt or what I liked. My room was decorated with (something they love but he hates). It was clear that I was to conform to whatever mold they wanted. I asked, “Will I get to see Nuria, Gerald, and Yasmine again?”

My father turned to me, “Are those your imaginary friends?”

“No, they were my friends at the school.”

“Oh sweetie, the school was just a dream.” My mother chided me her tone was cold yet her voice sounded melodic and sweet.

“We’re so glad you’re here now, we’ve been waiting for you. Don’t be sad you woke up from the dream.”

“But…” my voice grew small. I wondered if they were right. If my friends were just a dream. Months of this turned to years. Many moments like this added onto each other, till I just kept what I knew to be true buried in the back of my mind. My family was rich and clearly powerful, and I was being persuaded into politics. Once I was seventeen, I had outwardly conformed as well as I could, although inwardly I was biding my time till the moment I could flee. The plan had already been set we had agreed we’d be at the coliseum on our eighteenth birthday. I knew it was a false hope to see them again but even if I didn’t, I couldn’t live with these paper mâché people any longer. About two weeks before my eighteenth birthday I put my plan into action.

My father’s study was always off-limits to me but it was where the money keys and stuff of that sort were kept. I had already been testing my limits and had succeeded in hiding my entrances into his study. I knew exactly where everything was hidden and thankfully the fool my father was kept his passwords in a, locked albeit drawer. I had memorized his current ones and had already transferred minimal amounts of money into an account of my own creation. It had added up to a sizable sum. Now to add the last amount, a significantly larger sum. I knew it was technically stealing but frankly, I didn’t care. I wanted out desperately.

I had already bought a ticket to Rome with my account for that evening. Now I obviously was still underage but I had found a clever way around that and had pretended to be my parents and all that so I was confident I only needed my passport which I had applied for by myself in another spate of cleverness. I grabbed the keys to my father’s car and headed to the garage carrying my duffel. I drove off with a sense of relief. I wasn’t going to drive directly to the airport I left his car at a random business nearby knowing it would get towed and hopped on a shuttle. The airport was easy to get through as I expected. Oddly enough I had never been on a plane, despite my parents’ wealth we had never once traveled internationally. Everything was new to me as I anxiously waited for my plane to open boarding. The crowded seats the warnings of departure going through the intercom. I knew it would be like this but experiencing it had a strange exhilarating quality to it. I was finally defying my parents, not that I had ever considered them that.

“Gate sixteen all classes boarding now for Rome.” One of the flight attendants called out over the intercom. I hurriedly got up now that I was finally able to get on board. I had chosen an economy seat since I was sure it made more sense for a young random teen to be in economy. I had chosen the window although I came to regret this decision since I my restless legs were squished into a tight space. Although I didn’t particularly care since I was free. I was gone. Now I could only hope that my friends would be there by our birthday. I had chosen to leave two weeks early because it would be better for me to just disappear before I legally gained my independence. Since I was sure I was going to be pressured to practically give it up.

My parents were planning on my attending their Alma Mater, and I had pretended to go along with it. They had an intimate friendship with the dean and I knew that their influence would trickle down to me even if I was technically an adult. So, I here I was on a plane to Rome with no other plans except for being at the coliseum on November eighteenth.

My seat-mate was a chatty American, who idiotically asked, “Where ya from.” Obviously, I was also an American.

“Ya know from the good old USA, much like yourself. But if you don’t mind, I will read my book for awhile.” I replied with the fake enthusiasm I used with my parents.

“Ah no that’s fine.”

I pulled out the book, Oliver Twist, and flipped to a a bookmarked page. I was mostly reading to pass the time, not that I didn’t like Charles Dickens work but it wasn’t keeping me on the edge of my seat. In fact, what was keeping me on my seat was the feeling deep in my gut that my escape was simply too easy. Something was off.

The landing was uneventful. I wandered out the airport into the morning sun with a light drizzle. Now to find the hostel I had booked. While I could easily book a hotel, I figured it would be better to be at a less expensive place. And I would also be able to blend in with the other guests. For the next two weeks I explored the city saving the coliseum for my birthday.

Once my birthday I went to the ancient stadium and waited outside the crowds were immense and nearly suffocating.

“Henry!” A voice so familiar yet so foreign called out to me. I turned to see Yasmine her tight ringlets diffusing the sun creating a hazy glow around her honey kissed cheeks. Her adventurous smile had formed on her usually perpetually pouting lips. She’d grown up of course I had been expecting that but I still couldn’t help but be taken aback. But then her smile vanished in the strange shudder of light that seemed to only affect her. Her face became pained and she screamed, “The coliseum was destroyed in the third world war!”

With those words I was rocked. How could I have forgotten? We’d always play pretend and the coliseum was something we’d pretend we still could go and see. So, what was this crowd surrounding me? What was the structure purporting itself to be the coliseum? Who were my parents? So many questions were rushing my mind. Then Yasmine’s whole frame shuddered with the light and wavered like a flame in the wind.

“Find Egregie Fillii!” She screamed before her frame flickered and vanished. Everything around me followed suit and vanished revealing the dining room of my home. My parents were standing with their arms crossed with their disciplinary look.

“Oh Sweetie, don’t you love us?” My mom asked.

“We provide everything for you! How dare you take my car and money.” My father screeched.

“You’re not my father!” I yelled fed up and confused. I wasn’t interested in a lecture. I wanted to know what on earth just happened. How I jumped a continent in a split second. If I actually had ever left the continent. What had Yasmine meant if that was Yasmine anyway. Why finds the school.

“Son you’re grounded.” My thoughtful self must have looked penitent enough for my parents to just ground my grown self.

I had tried to find Egregie Fillii before, I had searched for it on the internet. I had asked my parents several times but they always laughed it off as if I had dreamed it up. So, for Yasmine to beg me to find made me more desperate to find it again. But I had no idea how to, and my rebellion had made me be housebound until my semester at their alma mater started. Which was in January. So, I had little time to investigate a secret that several people clearly wanted hidden. I had to start somewhere though. So, I scoured the internet once again, to almost no avail, until I found a chatroom buried by search results. I would have been disinterested had the user’s names no been, Yasmine, Gerald, and Nuria. Their chats seemed benign but we had as children created a code and when I applied the childish trick, they became more clearly about Egregie Fillii. Although they never once mentioned brilliant children or Egregie Fillii, it was obvious that was what they were discussing. I entered the chatroom under my name and began to post with the code. Uncoded our conversation looked like this

“Hi, are you the gifted kids from room four?” I typed.

“Henry! You found us finally!” Gerald responded.

“Finally?! I looked for Egregie Fillii before Yasmine told me to but never found this chatroom?!” I typed back.

“We’ve been trying to get through to you but you’re under a heavy firewall.” Yasmine replied.

“Firewall as in a computer?” I clacked back confusedly.

“Yes, your parents were the most extravagant in undergoing their digitalization.”

“Digitalization, I’m not following.”

“Everything we have seen and heard since we were put in those sedans by Mr. Grey is a creation of complex virtual reality codes.”

“How come I’ve only just become aware of this? You seem like you have known about it for some time.”

“I was the first to set up this chat room. “Yasmine typed, “We want to cause ourselves to wake up from this world.”

“Wake up?”

“Our bodies have been put into a what is basically a medical coma. “

“We all are?”

“Yes, we are.” Gerald and Nuria typed back.

“What did you mean by saying find Egregie Fillii?”

“I wanted you to find this chat room.” Yasmine typed back.

“How do we get out?”

The chatroom glitched and the page refreshed back to the search engine as if the page didn’t exist. Apparently, that was my parents firewall. My rebellion hadn’t done anything, I was still under a delusion. Everyone else was aware and I was still stuck, but I refused to let this trap me. I flipped desk and threw my laptop out of the window shattering it. If this was all just ones and zeroes, I couldn’t care less. I had a set of matches I had always rebelliously kept under my desk taped to the drawer. I spread my paperwork around and splashed my cologne all over it and dropped a lit m match as I jump out my window. It caught flame quickly. And ate through my room. I had no idea whether the fire was actually going to destroy anything in this digital illusion, but I had recalled my mother screaming at me for having these matches years before. I had thankfully had two packs. Where they came from I hade no idea.

I ran wildly into the street and the shudder started in the concrete that I was running on. I kept running it felt like I was running through mud. I looked at myself and I could see I was shuddering too. I didn’t want to go back to that house, but that seemed inevitable. In desperation I drenched my clothes in the rest of the cologne and set myself on fire. The heat came upon me but I felt nothing else. The shudder grew faster reverberating across my body. Till I flashed much like a tv being turned off.

My head hurt, and eyes stung as I opened them. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt pain.

“He’s awake! He broke through the code!” Someone in a medical gown yelled causing a rush of movement. I tried to move but was restrained to the operating table. A mask was shoved on my face and I fell back asleep. I woke back up at my house in my bed with my parents leaning over me menacingly.

“Son how dare you disrespect your grounding!”my father growled at me as his frame shuddered, “Look at me!” He screamed.

My mother shook her head in agreement as her body shuddered as well, “You did this! We were just trying to protect you!”

“This virus could destroy us!” My father yelled in my face as droplets of spit hit me.

“So?” I was disinterested in their tirade and laid back considering how to get off the operating table. I couldn’t think of anything since the restraints were built into the operating table. Not only could I not break them, I had to wake up again and my matches were gone. Something else had to work. Then I had an idea. I looked at my shuddering parents and threw myself at them and ran through their wavering forms. The virus had infected them so it might reinfect me and wake me up. I was all out of other ideas so this was the only thing that could work. It felt like mud once again and I shuddered again like a tv screen being shut off.

I was back in the operating room or whatever it was. They seemed less frantic this time that I was awake. Though their actions were the same, but I now had an idea. I bit through my tongue their frantic state came back. As they rushed to stop the blood from drowning me. Like I had hoped they put off whatever operation they were preparing. Although I was simply moved along with the table into some other room which again the purpose was unclear. They seemed to no longer care that I was still awake. It was hard to fathom why they wouldn’t just put me under again. Not that I was ungrateful, it simply impossible to know what their plan was for me.

Eventually a group came in and transferred me to a gurney. To my surprise I could actually move my muscles. While I hoped to use them, I had assumed they’d be atrophied. I was wheeled over to a wing that seemed to belong to a hospital. I was dressed in street clothes and quite literally thrown out.

“Why? l”

“Your representatives, your parents, have become infected as were you. Infected cannot live in the digital realm, and adults can’t leave the digital realm. So, you’re just a poor orphan now. “One of the nurses answered.

“Wait! Do you know where Egregie Fillii is?! The place I came from?”

“Kid that place shut down a hundred years ago. What you think you’re gonna waltz in there and beg for a bed?!” Another nurse who hadn’t escorted me out exclaimed as she lit a cigarette.

“A hundred years ago... but I was there!”

“Bingo! You’re a hundred,” she blew smoke in my face as if to strengthen her point, “You were set to loop through your “teen” years until you reached a hundred then your college and all that shit. Look I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.” She started to walk away.

“Please! Do you know what happened to the other children from Egregie Fillii?”

“Look kid you’re better off not looking for them you’re bound to be disappointed one way or another.” She flicked her cigarette ash on the ground, stamped it out and walked off into the hospital. Leaving me with more questions than answers. My mind was spinning and my head felt as if someone had run me over with a train. But I was free. Now to find the others. Suddenly I realized, if I had been resetting, I couldn’t know how many times I rebelled. How many times I found that chat room? How old my friends now were if they were even alive. How could I find them without resources? I put my head in my hands, frustrated at my idiocy.

I walked into the city surrounding the hospital the sky was grey and a slick black rain began to fall. Everyone ran for cover and I did likewise. A small convenience store is where I found myself. My newness must have been obvious as I earned stares of resentment and curiosity. A middle-aged woman with grays peppering her red hair looked me up and down and sneered her skin flaming with blotchy redness, “You don’t belong here! Get out!”

“You can’t ask him to do that! He’ll die.” The clerk stated with firmness her afro bounced with the shaking of her head. She seemed to be my age, well eighteen, not a hundred.

“Thank you.” I might her resolved gaze and for the first time since waking up I saw empathy in someone’s eyes.

“Look, digital boy I don’t know why you ended up here but I’d suggest giving up on going back. And learn some street smarts quick.” She said as fiddled with register.

I was quiet for a few minutes, and everyone else who had found shelter was mumbling in annoyance at the weather or was browsing the snack aisle. I finally responded, “Ya know, I never wanted to go back. I never even wanted to be there in the first place. I was put in there against my will.”

“Good, you don’t want to go back. Though know this city hates digitals. Since most of ‘em we’re wealthy politicians and the like who abandoned them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Digital boy. You don’t have any money, right?”

” Ha no.”

“Well we have had a shortage of employees willing to work for us since well honestly we can’t pay much, but since you’re a trashed digital. Well maybe we can throw in a room too.”

“Who is this we?”

“Oh yeah it’s my family.” She turned her head and hollered up a flight of wooden stairs behind her. “Hey pops come down here! We got a digital. Ma you too!”

Creaking steps rattled till a tired looking forty-something man arrived behind his daughter.

“Honey I was about to go to sleep.”

“I know pops but this boy’s a digital.”

“A digital huh? How long you been awake?”

“A few hours they threw me out of the hospital not that I blame them. I’m glad actually.”

“Glad well that’s rare, thanks hon for telling me,” He kissed his daughter on the head. ” Take. Him upstairs won’t ya. Ill mind the counter.”

I was led up some rickety steps to a kitchen with a pot bubbling on the stove. A woman was humming as she stirred it began vocalizing.

“Ma, we have a guest.”

“One of your fine friends innit.” She turned around and was clearly a little surprised at me. I suddenly realized that my fair Aryan skin was in stark contrast to this family. I felt rather awkward unsure of whether to address the tension or not.

“A digital, it’s been a long time since I saw anotha’.”

“Thank you for your kindness ma’am.” I fumbled with my words.

“No need to ma’am me. Hon can you set another place at the table.” She gestured at a worn wooden table with a vase of paper flowers in the middle.

“I’m sorry for not asking sooner, but what’s your name?” I asked as she pulled out mismatched silverware.

“It’s Latisha I haven’t asked yours yet either. What is it?” She said as she placed a plate and silverware on the table.

“Henry.” I answered as Latisha gestured for me to sit.

“Pops will be joining us in a minute.” Her mom explained.

“Make it ten at least Karen is here.”

“Oh dear. That tyrant of a woman.”

“That’s the woman who called me out for being digital, right? “

“Yes, she hates digitals as do many people here. But mind you she wouldn’t hate you if you weren’t digital then she’d love you.” Latisha

“Cause I’m white?”

“Yep! She is racist as hell.”

“Latisha!”

“What it ain’t Fuck ma.”

“Latisha!”

Latisha started laughing as her mom stared at her in exasperation.

“Girl you lucky you grown.”

“Not like you still wouldn’t whoop my ass.”

Her mother stared at her in annoyance. And was about to say something but couldn’t Because a a scream rang out through the kitchen from the store below.

“There’s Karen.” Latisha rolled her eyes. But then a shattering could be heard. Latisha ran downstairs and I followed her. The Karen had broken one of the store’s doors.

“I can’t stand to have a fucking digital working in this store! I’m never coming here again! You n-.” She couldn’t finish her sentence because Latisha, stormed up to her, “I dare you to say it you bitch.”

The Karen finally seemed to understand that she wasn’t going to get her way, and stepped through the broken glass outside.

“Ugh that bitch, now we will have to board this door up before the next rainfall.”

“I’m gonna grab the boards.” Her father went to a room that said employees only and walked back grunting with a piece of plywood.

“Pops ya shouldn’t’ve, your back.”

“I know I know.”

“I can help since it’s my fault that that woman broke your window.” I lifted the plywood off hi back and set it against a nearby shelf.

“It’s not your fault, that woman broke the window not you,” Pops said as he leaned against the same shelf.

Latisha handed me a push broom, “Here, you can help sweep up the glass.”

“I know but she wouldn’t have if I wasn’t I here.” The glass crackled against the tile as I pushed it into a pile.

“She was bound to get angry over something her reactions are her responsibility not yours.” Pops said as his drill whirled while it drove screws into the doorframe. Aluminum shavings fell from the holes as he dusted them out and lined them up holes had made on the plywood. Latisha gestured for me to come back upstairs and showed me a pullout couch made up with clean sheets, and blankets.

“We don’t have much space but you can sleep here till you get back on your feet.”

“I highly appreciate it; may I ask why you are doing this?”

Latisha stopped, “Ma was a digital, no one knows that thankfully. But when she first woke up the world was waging yet another war. She had been in a group of experimental children from a school called Egregie Filli.”

“I was there! That was where I was before I was taken to my parents.”

“Egregie Fillii bred select specimens for wealthy client’s….”

“What room was your Ma in?”

“Room three.” Her mother said behind us, “You were in room four, weren’t you?”

“Yes, how’d you know?”

“Room four…” She took a deep breath and sat down on a worn recliner, “That room was always set up as an example. You see Egregie Filii was an absolute failure except for that room. You four passed their so-called genius tests. Everyone else failed. That night, the night they took us out of our beds they delivered us to a research facility. We were used to improve the digital way of life.”

“Improve? Like… experimented on?”

“Yes, that we were.” Her gaze affixed itself to a wall.

“I’m not sure what to say… You see I don’t think at least that I was experimented on.”

“It’s true you were given to your parents while we were failed products, but you still are a digital and from Egregie Fili no less.”

“Do you know what happened to Gerald, Nuria and Yasmine? From room four?”

“Last I heard is that Yasmine and Gerald got out

But Nuria couldn’t escape. We had this group that we created for digitals from Egregie Fili but it disbanded after a nasty fight.”

“What happened?”

“Yasmine wanted to save you and Nuria but Gerald was adamant that it wasn’t worth it.”

“Oh…What I don’t understand is why I just saw Yasmine in the digital world if she escaped so long ago.”

“When your life is looped experiences are copied over to the next loop. They do change a bit to ensure entertainment and realism… That’s why you saw her. Her code was copied into your loop.”

“So…Where is she now? And where’s Gerald?”

“Gerald is the leader of a band of ex digitals, he’s currently somewhere on the western seaboard. And Yasmine was last seen in Seattle or what was once called Seattle.”

“I just realized I don’t know where I am, what city is this?”