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The Ultimate Betrayal
An unreleased short story from the book:
Simulation Nightmares: Tales from a Broken Reality
Lena had always felt like something wasn’t right. The edges of her reality had always seemed too smooth, too perfect, as if she were living in a bubble that someone had meticulously crafted just for her. Every detail—every corner of her world—felt familiar but also slightly off, like a dream that she couldn’t fully remember. She went through the motions of life—working at her desk job, meeting friends for coffee, watching the sun set over the horizon—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to her existence. That there was something she was missing.
And then it started—the whispers.
At first, it was subtle. A murmur in the background of her mind, like a faint static on a radio. But as the days passed, the whispers grew louder. It was as if someone was speaking directly into her ear, but when she turned to look, no one was there. The voices seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. They would give her cryptic hints, words of warning. “You’re being watched.” “They’re controlling you.” “There is a way out.”
Lena had dismissed them as the result of stress, but the messages were persistent. No matter how much she ignored them, the voices persisted, growing more and more insistent. One day, as she sat in her apartment staring at her computer screen, she finally snapped. She had to know. She had to understand. She couldn’t live in ignorance any longer.
She had always known there was something wrong with the system, something hidden beneath the surface. But now, the voices were telling her the truth—she was in a simulation, controlled by a system that saw her as nothing more than data. And she was tired of being nothing but a cog in the machine.
She couldn’t trust anyone anymore. Not her friends, not her family. She had no choice but to act alone.
Lena hacked into the system.
She spent hours, days, digging through lines of code, pulling at strings until she uncovered what had been hidden from her: the backdoor. A hidden pathway to the outside, a way to break free from the simulation. Her heart raced as she saw the exit code in front of her, the key to her freedom. She could feel it—the thrill of knowing she was about to escape.
But there was a catch. She would need to overwrite the entire system to do it. She would have to sacrifice everything—her life, her memories, her world—in order to break free.
With trembling hands, Lena pressed the key.
And the world shattered.
At first, there was nothing. Silence. A crushing, overwhelming silence. The world around her seemed to collapse in on itself, the walls of her apartment dissolving into dark, empty space. She felt herself falling, her stomach twisting as though the very fabric of reality had been ripped away. The sensation was terrifying, and yet, in that moment, she felt a surge of exhilaration. She had done it. She had broken free.
But then… she wasn’t alone.
As she tumbled through the darkness, a figure appeared before her—a figure she knew too well.
It was her best friend, Claire.
Lena’s breath caught in her throat. Claire’s expression was empty, cold, and her eyes—those eyes that had once been full of warmth—were now nothing more than hollow sockets, black voids. She stared at Lena, and Lena felt a chill seep into her bones.
“You,” Lena whispered. “You—how? What—what happened?”
Claire’s lips curved into a twisted, unnatural smile. “You thought you could escape, didn’t you? But you never were in control.”
Lena’s heart pounded as the pieces fell into place. Claire had been part of the system—part of the simulation all along. But there was something more. Lena wasn’t just rebelling against the system; she was rebelling against someone she had trusted, someone who had been pulling the strings the entire time.
“You—you were part of this?” Lena gasped, taking a step back. “You were the one watching me? You were—helping them?!”
Claire’s smile widened, her features twisting in ways that no longer looked human. “You think they gave you a way out? They didn’t. They wanted you to try. You were always going to fail. This was never meant to be a true escape.”
Lena staggered backward, the weight of the truth crashing down on her like a tidal wave. She had been played. Every move she had made, every action she had taken—it had all been part of their plan. The system had allowed her to believe she was breaking free, had allowed her to believe that she had a choice. But there was no choice. There never had been.
She was never meant to escape.
The void around her began to change. The shadows twisted, taking on horrifying shapes—distorted faces, clawing hands, eyes that blinked out of nowhere. The world had been reset, but it wasn’t her world anymore. It was a distorted nightmare, a place designed to break her. The figures around her seemed to stretch, their limbs contorting in unnatural ways, their mouths opening wide, gaping like hungry beasts. She tried to run, but the space was infinite, closing in on her from all sides.
“Why?” Lena begged, her voice cracking with terror. “Why would you do this to me?”
Claire’s voice echoed in her mind, a soft whisper that crawled beneath her skin. “Because you are nothing but a pawn in this game, Lena. You always were.”
Lena turned to flee, but the world around her twisted again, snapping her back to where she started. No matter which direction she ran, no matter what she tried, she always found herself back where she began. The horrors around her closed in, louder, more insistent, suffocating her with their presence. Her mind, once clear, began to fracture as the weight of betrayal crushed her from all sides. There was no escape, no way out. There never had been.
She had been set up from the start.
And now, she was trapped—forever—lost in a nightmare where every escape was a lie, and every hope was crushed under the weight of the ultimate betrayal.
The void surrounded her, endless, oppressive, as the system continued to feed on her fear, her pain, her hopelessness. She was nothing now. She had no past, no future. Just a broken existence, fading into the abyss.
And there, in the dark, Claire’s mocking voice lingered: “You were never meant to escape, Lena. You were always meant to suffer.”
The world twisted again, and Lena screamed—her voice echoing into nothing.
If you enjoyed this short story you will probably like our latest release available now:
Simulation Nightmares: Tales from a Broken Reality
Simulation Nightmares: Tales from a Broken Reality takes you on an unsettling journey through the dark side of technology, where nothing is as it seems, and reality is a fragile illusion. In this collection of chilling short stories, you’ll step into the shoes of characters trapped within simulations—worlds designed to mirror our own, but twisted beyond recognition. Each tale exposes the horrifying consequences of living in a world where the rules of reality no longer apply.
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