Andrew Tucker sat on the bed in the decent-sized room which housed two beds and a handful of machines, the light-grey walls, the white ceiling and the dark-grey floor encasing him and Katie Flynn as they stared at someone who looked like a businessman, though if he was a businessman, he was proposing the idea of an odd... partnership?

 

"Last hope?" Katie questioned, Andrew glancing at her as she spoke. Her blue eyes stared curiously at the tall, broad-shouldered, slightly-muscular, brown-haired man who was dressed in a black suit, before she started to fiddle with a strand of her dark, brown fringe, almost nervously, as if she was preparing to give a presentation to a classroom of judgemental students. "What's that... supposed to mean?" She then asked, dropping her hair and tilting her head slightly as she processed just what the man had said to them.

 

"There's a chance that you two could be... the world's last chance of survival," the man clarified, rephrasing what he'd previously stated, continuing to gaze between Andrew and Katie, the flicks of his grey pupils as they scanned to his left to look at Andrew and to his right to look at Katie seeming almost rhythmic.

 

"What?" Andrew questioned, still unsure, his green eyes watching the man, trying to see if he was going to explain what had happened to them from only his facial cues. He could remember the last thing which he’d experienced before waking-up in this room: He’d died! Katie had been attacked- nearly fatally- by someone who’d robbed a small, corner shop, and he’d been struggling to cope with the worry and the fears that she was going to die- naturally, given that Katie was his girlfriend, given that they had a deep, resonating bond between them which felt stronger than steel- and, in his attempts to clear his mind or to come to terms with what had happened, to begin to accept it, he’d stumbled across a man who’d snapped at that very moment and had stabbed him multiple times, leaving him to bleed-out in the stream beneath their beloved bridge. Yet, even though both of them had possibly been murdered, they were somehow alive. How? Given that he and Katie had just awoken from what had almost seemed like synchronised dreams, he wasn't sure whether their experiences had been nightmares. Had they really witnessed a student in their Maths class strangling their teacher before committing suicide? Had they really witnessed the horrible urge which had caused such a thing to happen flood across the planet, affecting nearly everyone? Had they really both been murdered?

 

The man sighed lightly, empathetically, seeming patient. "I understand that this is a huge adjustment, but I need to you two to listen to what I say and to not forget it, okay?" He ordered, his voice commanding while simultaneously soft and caring. Immediately, Andrew felt- for whatever reason- as if he could trust the man. He seemed caring-enough, didn’t he? Plus, he probably knew all of the answers which he and Katie sought.

 

Slowly, Andrew and Katie nodded, the tips of the hairs which made-up Andrew's black fringe flapping in front of eyes slightly, looking to him like spider legs which dangled in front of his vision for a second.

 

"Everything that you've just experienced was simulated," the man stated simply, glancing between the two teenagers as he spoke as if watching for any negative reactions, though the only feeling which stemmed from his sentence was confusion, as evident by Andrew scrunching-up his face, his expression contorting as he considered the words.

 

"They were simulations?" Andrew asked slowly, trying to grasp what the man was talking about. He'd heard about virtual reality, but while it had come so far since it had been invented, Andrew didn't believe that he and Katie had been experiencing something virtual. He didn't know exactly how far the devices had evolved given that they'd become incredibly expensive to buy- therefore, he'd never had the slightest chance to experience being in a virtual world- but it just didn't seem right... Everything had felt real. Nothing had seemed simulated. He and Katie had held each other, had kissed, and it had felt exactly the same as it always had, so how could such a thing have been simulated? Unless those feelings- those sensations- had stemmed from the memory of what they’d felt like, jitters of reactionary emotion and fake sensations being filled-in by his expectations, but to be so consistent? And for some entirely new things to be thrown into the mix? Unless the pure agony which he’d felt as he’d laid in that stream had been conjured by his imagination filling-in the gaps with what it knew would accompany certain events, how would he have known the feeling of having a stainless-steel blade pierce his skin, slide into his muscles, causing them to jolt? But the pain had felt so real… How could that have been simulated, even a tiny amount?

 

"Yes, simulations,” the man confirmed, nodding once alongside the confirmation. “You've been wearing those headsets," he continued, motioning to the device beside Andrew, "and through the power of those, we put you back in your normal lives while... guiding some events to happen,” he explained, his voice trailing away slightly towards the end, seeming almost as if he felt horrible for having put the two of them through the scarring events, and Andrew truly hoped that he did. It had been so frightening… The anguish which had overridden his body upon Katie being whisked to the hospital… It was even hard to recall given the relief which Andrew still felt within him, his heart pounding faster than normal from the adrenaline of having been proven wrong. He’d truly thought that Katie had been killed. When she’d been taken away in that ambulance, the paramedics had assured him that she was going to be okay, but he’d been so unable to believe it. The agony from witnessing her being… Andrew couldn’t even formulate the thought because it made his heart and stomach sink and his gaze drift downwards, away from the man. “The purpose was to show you just what life is like out there..."

 

"What we saw is real?" Katie pushed, shocked. Andrew guessed that she'd been assuming that the ordeal had been some sort of experiment, scientists wanting to see how some people would react to such a situation, and that the two of them had unfortunately been selected as test-subjects, not that they’d been given a window into the havoc of what the world had somehow fallen into.

 

"Unfortunately, yes," the man confirmed, solemn about that fact. He closed his eyes for a second, his head tilted towards the floor, and sighed deeply. "Almost everyone on the planet is experiencing those urges once a day, and we're trying to figure-out why," he stated while glancing-up again, his gaze moving to Katie.

 

"Why aren't we?" Andrew questioned. While in the simulation, he, Katie and his parents hadn't experienced the urges to commit crimes. Of course, that could be explained by the fact that it was a simulation, but why would they be chosen for this... what seemed like an experiment if they were actually having these urges? Unless it was so that they could be tested-on in order for scientists to see what was causing it...

 

"You two were lucky, actually," the man let-out, sounding slightly relieved while he said the words. If, as he'd said, Andrew and Katie somehow- for whatever reason- were the world's “last hope,” it made sense that he was relieved- after all, whatever it was which was setting Andrew and Katie apart from everyone else could have been lost had he and Katie been affected by the urges. "We're not sure why you weren't affected, but maybe you were out of the range of whatever it was that caused this..."

 

"Range?" Andrew pushed, wanting elaboration, but the man's face simply paled slightly before he let-out a light cough and checked the time on a watch which resided on his left wrist, having to pull the sleeve of his blazer back to do so.

 

"We don't have long to talk..." the man mumbled, glancing over the two of them for a moment before hiding his watch beneath the sleeve of his blazer again. "You two aren't the only people who haven't been affected,” he then stated.

 

Andrew felt incredibly surprised upon hearing that, and it was clear that Katie did, too. Why hadn’t that been mentioned earlier? But because the information had come out of nowhere, Andrew’s desire for elaboration on what the man meant by “the range” of something was beginning to slip as the thought of other people who were possibly in his and Katie’s situation gave him hope that they could find some solace in their company, alongside the thought of how he and Katie were the “last hope” for the world. If there were other people in his and Katie’s situation- unaffected by the urges- then was there something which truly set him and Katie apart from everyone else, or had the man been referring to everyone at once, just having made that unclear?

 

“There's a very small percentage of the population who haven't been experiencing the urges, and we've collected as many of them as we could," he continued, glancing between the facial reactions of Andrew and Katie before pausing and taking a breath, as if preparing to say something, possibly scared of what their reactions could be. "We're going to train you all to be able to fend for yourselves when you'll be going to find and fix whatever it is that's causing this to happen."

 

"Sorry," Katie began, perplexed. "We're supposed to fix this?" She pushed, almost shrill, and rightfully so. She and Andrew were only teenagers… When thinking about it, Andrew couldn’t recall many dangerous situations which he’d been in. He’d nearly fallen off of a cliff when he was younger, but that was about it- well, aside from possibly being stabbed to death, but given that it had happened in a simulation and had almost definitely been forced to occur, Andrew didn’t really want to count that- or anything else which had occurred within the simulation- meaning that he’d been in one dangerous situation in his entire life. How was he supposed to go from that to what he was presuming would be experimenting on dangerous, wild, animal-like people?

 

"You'll be working with the other people,” the man clarified, quick to point-out that detail. “We know that it'll be dangerous, but this needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. People are killing each other..." He quieted for a moment. "Nearly half of a billion people have already died because of this."

 

Andrew and Katie stared at the man, silent, in awe at the scope of that number. Half of a billion had died... The feeling of utter dread which had silently slid into Andrew’s stomach started to amplify as he thought about how many people whom he knew were probably included within that statistic. The thought of his parents, of his friends- hell, even Katie’s family and friends- having been murdered by someone else, whether that would be during a head-on assault or a terrorist attack… It was sickening to even think about, and it was something which Andrew didn’t want to try to imagine. The only thing which he was certain about was that he couldn’t just leave the people whom he loved to be in danger because he felt scared… Maybe that was a backwards way of thinking about it, but it was what began to fuel him in the moment. What better motivation would he find beside saving the lives of the people whom he cared about, anyway?

 

"Okay," Andrew said after a moment, nodding lightly, trying to psych himself up to deal with the weight of the agreement. "I'll help, at least."

 

The man smirked lightly at him, almost as a way to thank him.

 

"If you are, I am, too," Katie agreed, chiming-in, taking Andrew’s left hand with her right and squeezing it as if silently and needlessly reminding him that they’d just made a giant and incredibly important decision, one which would probably shape the remainder of their lives, one which could possibly haunt both of them on their death beds, one which could even become the cause of their deaths in the first place.

 

“Good,” the man said, his smirk growing slightly wider. He glanced at their connected hands for a moment before continuing. “We have a theory that this has been… manufactured by someone,” he then stated abruptly, surprising Andrew and Katie with the idea, but not because it was revolutionary.

 

“Well, obviously,” Katie snarled, seeming unimpressed with that thought, with the theory which had been concocted after how long? A month at the least considering the preparation which would have had to happen to collect people and to put them through that virtual world? “This isn’t something natural.”

 

The man tilted his head slightly, looking sheepish following Katie’s remark.

 

"So, what's going to happen with this training, then?" Andrew asked after a moment, wanting to know what was in-store for him and Katie. They knew that it was dangerous, but that was way too broad. Would they be training to fight? Fire guns? Kill, even?

 

"That'll be explained once we've met with the others," the man replied simply, avoiding the question, though Andrew knew that, at least, they would get an answer- hopefully somewhat soon.

 

"How... dangerous will it be?" Katie then questioned, her voice slightly quiet. Upon glancing at her, Andrew noticed that she was actually looking at him instead of at the informative man, seemingly troubled, and after taking a moment to think about why, he realised that she was probably worrying about him.

 

The man watched Katie for a moment, silent as he observed her worried gaze before he finally answered. "Quite dangerous."

 

"Will we die?"

 

The man remained silent.

 

Andrew saw Katie turning to gaze at the man through his peripheral vision. She seemed to have had her worry replaced with pure petrification. "Will we?" She repeated, pushing for an answer.

 

"There... is a chance, but your lives will be in your own hands," the man assured, quickly trying to force a positive twist to the notion that the training would be so dangerous that there was a risk of them being killed. "We're not going to influence anything that happens, I promise."

 

"Who's this 'we,' anyway?" Andrew almost groaned, having only just realised that the man was referring to multiple people. There had been people who were presumably doctors and nurses who'd rushed out of the room as soon as he'd awoken from what he could only assume had been a coma, so maybe the man was referring to them, but why would they have any more involvement in what was going on? Andrew reckoned that they were probably closer to employees and that the man who was stood in front of him and Katie was an executive, meaning that there was an abundance of other board members who were absent. Where were they? Maybe talking with the other people who'd been collected, the other people who weren't experiencing these disgusting, murderous, thievery-inducing, assault-powering, rape-guiding urges...

 

"The people I work with," the man replied simply. "They're working with me to train you and the others, and we're also trying to figure-out what's causing this situation in the first place."

 

"Do you have any ideas yet?" Katie pushed, seeming slightly more confident, more motivated from the power and tone behind her inquiry. She was probably hoping that she and Andrew wouldn't have to be trained and in severe danger for too long, that the urges would be destroyed quick-enough to keep them out of trouble.

 

"Well, the only thing we're almost certain about is that this isn't going to go away on its own, that someone needs to... disable it," the man replied.

 

"Disable it?" Andrew repeated, curious as to what the man was referring to, though his request for elaboration was ignored.

 

"We think that this is man-made and that it's been done either out of malicious intent or so that someone or a group of people can swoop in, fix it and be reigned as heroes," the man continued, confusing Andrew slightly when a thought came to mind.

 

"But, if this is a terrorist attack, whatever's controlling this could have been destroyed... What if there isn't a way to stop it?" He asked, to which he saw Katie's face pale slightly, though the man, strangely-enough, seemed to smirk for a moment.

 

"There has to be a way to deactivate it," he assured, weirdly calm considering the idea which Andrew had posed. "They're probably after something, and they'll get it once people realise that this'll stop once they have what they want."

 

"How can you be sure?" Katie almost whimpered, her fear incredibly prevalent.

 

"Mainly through hope," the man grumbled, his eyes sweeping the floor for a moment before returning his stare to them. "We're crossing our fingers that this is a twisted way for the creators to become famous and hailed as royalty, or something... If it isn't, the world won't ever be the same."

 

The three of them quieted, mauling-over the frightening concept of things never returning to normal before the man checked his watch again and nodded lightly to himself.

 

"Come on," the man muttered, concealing the miniature clock beneath his left sleeve again. "Let's go."

 

Obediently, Andrew and Katie stood and followed him out of the room.