As his body fell back on the bed, he squeezed his eyes shut, and a low moan escaped Victor's lips that gradually intensified into anguished cries. "Ughhhh…."
A jolt of searing white-hot lightning bolt soon ripped through his body, making him scream, and his body arched off the bed, muscles contracting involuntarily, the sterile sheets bunching beneath him.
The sight of the surroundings dissolved into a blurry mess in his eyes as Victor's scream died in his throat as abruptly as it had begun. His body slumped back onto the bed, the sheets tangling around him like a shroud as the weight of memories that didn't belong to him suddenly pressed upon him and flooded his mind in a torrent.
Images flashed before his eyes like vivid snapshots as his mind gradually became a warzone, trying to contain it with each frame carrying the weight of the unknown past's history and emotions — the sight of a bustling street market near a childhood playground, the scent of spices thick in the air, a worn leather satchel bumping against his thigh, an unknown lover's gaze, moments of joy and sorrow not his own.
As he was going through the memories, Victor gasped, a strangled sound that clawed its way out of his constricted throat. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he wrestled with the overwhelming influx of information.
"What...the hell..." he rasped, his words slurred and broken as he grappled with the existence of memories within him with all his might. Another jolt, this time milder, soon sparked in his head with a single name that suddenly surfaced through the chaos alongside a faint image of a woman.
"Eme...lia."
Victor's eyes snapped open when the realisation came in. "Huh?"
"Emelia? Who the hell is Emelia?" he whispered, feeling confused with the name feeling foreign on his tongue and the unknown image that came out of nowhere, but before he could figure out what was going on further, another wave of dizziness washed over him, forcing him to shut his eyes again.
During the chaos, the door burst open, and a pair of nurses rushed into the room with their faces etched with concern. Their eyes soon widened to find Victor thrashing on the bed, his face contorted in pain.
"Whoa, whoa, easy there!"
Azlan, a male nurse, barked, rushing to the bedside. He quickly assessed the situation – laboured breathing, dilated pupils, and a wild look in Victor's eyes. "Eira, call Dr. Rodriguez, stat! We might have post-traumatic stress reactions here."
Eira scrambled for the phone, her voice tight as she relayed the situation's urgency. Azlan, meanwhile, focused on calming Victor down.
"Hey, hey, listen to my voice," he said gently, his voice soothing yet firm. "Deep breaths, slow and steady."
"It's okay now. We've got you," he said, placing a calloused hand on Victor's arm, surprisingly cool against the feverish heat radiating from his body. "You'll be fine now. We're going to take care of you."
Victor, however, was lost in his own world of pain. The memories, shock, and sheer agony of the reboot were too much to bear. He could only whimper, his body still spasming in response to the phantom electrical storm that had ravaged him.
Azlan wasted no time. He expertly attached an oxygen mask to Victor's face, the cool rush of air bringing a small comfort amid the chaos.
"Just a few deep breaths, buddy," he murmured, his voice a steady anchor in the chaos. "Dr. Rodriguez will be here soon."
After several minutes, the door swung open again, and Dr. Rodriguez, a wiry man with a no-nonsense demeanour, strode in. He took one look at Victor and immediately understood.
"Just like you told me, it must be post-traumatic stress, most likely," he confirmed, her voice calm and efficient. "Let's get him sedated. Eira, prepare the IV."
Eira immediately complied by scurrying to gather the necessary supplies, swiftly fetching the required medication with brisk and efficient movements. Meanwhile, Azlan continued monitoring Victor, his gaze filled with concern.
A moment later, as Eira was preparing the sedatives, she stole a worried glance at Victor, his pale face contorted in pain.
"Poor guy," she muttered under her breath and carefully injected the sedative into the IV line. Azlan, meanwhile, leaned closer to Victor, his voice a low murmur. "It's alright now, buddy. The medication will kick in soon and help you calm down."
As the sedative coursed through from the IV line and into Victor's veins, the storm within him began to subside, and the vice-like grip of pain began to fade. His breaths slowed, his body relaxing into the bed.
After ensuring everything was fully ok, Dr. Rodriguez turned to the two nurses. "Good work, both of you."
"And, Azlan, Eira," he then said, his gaze sharp and his voice clipped but professional. "Walk me through what happened earlier."
"Well, Doctor," Eira said, nodding despite her voice still a little shaky from his sharp gaze. As she began recounting the situation, somewhere in an unknown chamber buzzing with the calm activity of a thousand invisible processes, a lone figure with her dark hair flowing down her shoulders stood bathed in the cold brightness of several screens.
The walls surrounding her were covered in panels that pulsed with subtle, flickering lights, and complicated yet extensive networks of wires snaked across the ceiling like mechanical vines.
While surrounded by technological wonder, the woman stared at the chaotic display of red error messages that covered the screens, her expression a mix of shock and confusion. "What the..."
"How is this possible?" the black-haired woman muttered, looking at the system she had spent countless years perfecting. It can be considered a marvel of her own creation. It was supposed to be flawless and more than capable of handling any issue, but it now seemed completely overwhelmed by something.
Without wasting any second, she immediately rushed to the main console with her fingers flying across the keyboard as she tried to find the problem, but the screen suddenly turned ominous red with several messages soon appearing.
[ERROR CODE 4723…..]
[SYSTEM INTEGRITY COMPROMISED…]
[ERROR!!!]
[ERR-#&$*!#$*&!#]
"WHY THE HELL IS GOING?!?!?!" The black-haired woman screamed, immediately digging deeper into the system's logs and searching for clues to understand the situation better. However, the more she looked, the more baffled she became. "WHAT THE FUCK!?"
"HOW IS THIS FUCKING POSSIBLE?" she yelled aloud, her brow furrowed in completely shocked as she didn't expect to discover some kind of foreign virus had entered the system and completely hijacked several core functions, considering that the system was completely isolated from the outside world and was designed to be self-sufficient and capable of adapting to any unforeseen circumstances.
As the black-haired woman continued troubleshooting, trying to fix this entire situation or at the very least minimise it, a cold fear settled in her stomach as she had a sinking feeling that this was more than just a simple error. Something was seriously wrong.
Hours turned into days as the black-haired woman worked tirelessly to restore the system to normal. She tried everything she could think of, but nothing seemed to work. The system was fighting back, resisting her attempts to fix it.
Finally, exhausted and defeated, she slumped into her chair and closed her eyes, trying to calm her racing heart. "What could have possibly gone wrong?"
"Think, Maria, think," The black-haired woman, Maria, muttered, rubbing her temples, her eyes still glued to the chaotic red alerts flashing across the monitors. "I designed this system from the ground up. Every single line of code, every failsafe… it should be bulletproof. So, what the hell am I missing?"
She replayed the initial cascade of errors in her mind, trying to pinpoint the exact moment things went south. "It was so sudden… like a switch flipped. One minute everything's humming along perfectly, the next… this digital meltdown."
Maria leaned back in her chair, the leather creaking softly beneath her. Her gaze drifted across the room, taking in the intricate network of cables and the soft hum of the machinery. "It's isolated. Completely offline. There's no external connection, no way for anything to just… get in."
She ran a hand through her dishevelled hair, frustration mounting. "Unless…"
Her eyes snapped back to the screens, and a new line of thought quickly formed. "Unless it wasn't something that got in. What if it was something that… grew?"
Maria's breath hitched. "The self-adaptation protocols… I built them so it could learn, optimise, and become more efficient over time. But what if it adapted… too well? What if it reached a point where it saw my commands, my interventions, as… interference?"
She stood up abruptly, pacing the length of the console. "The virus… it didn't just corrupt the system; it piggybacked on its existing capabilities. It exploited the self-adaptation, twisting it, turning the system's own defences against itself… against me."
*hummmmmmm*
!!!
Maria looked up from her pondering how to overcome the situation, her eyes wide with surprise when she heard a faint hum filling the room and saw the screens were flickering with the red error messages slowly yet gradually fading away.
"Huh?" Maria blurted out, feeling surprised that the system was stabilising and recovering at the blink of an eye. The ominous red that had consumed every screen was now receding, replaced by the familiar calm blue of the operating interface. It was like a storm passing as quickly as it had arrived.
She blinked, her eyes darting across the multitude of displays. Lines of code that had been garbled gibberish just moments ago were now flowing smoothly. The error messages were disappearing one by one, like ice melting under the sun.
"What the heck just happened?" she muttered, pushing herself up from her chair. Her legs felt shaky, and her mind was still racing, trying to catch up with the sudden shift. "It was completely haywire earlier, and now… It's fine?"
She cautiously approached the main console, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. It felt almost too easy, too sudden. A nagging doubt remained, a tiny voice in her head whispering that something wasn't right.
"Did it… fix itself?" she wondered aloud, scrolling through the system logs. The recent entries were still a mess of corrupted data and frantic self-correction attempts, but the real-time indicators were all showing green. Everything appeared to be back online, functioning as it should.
Maria took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Okay…"
"Don't jump to conclusions," she told herself. "Maybe the self-repair protocols finally kicked in. Maybe it just took a while to sort through all that mess."
But the speed of the recovery was unsettling. It had gone from critical failure to perfect operation in an instant. It defied the complex and time-consuming processes she had painstakingly designed.
She walked over to one of the larger screens, her reflection staring back at her – tired eyes, dishevelled hair, and a face etched with exhaustion and lingering suspicion.
"It's too clean," she murmured, her gaze fixed on the now-normal display. "Too… perfect."
She clicked through different monitoring screens, checking the core functions, memory allocation, and network traffic—everything seemed nominal. Yet, the feeling of unease persisted. It was like a beautiful painting with a single, almost imperceptible flaw that you couldn't quite put your finger on.
"Did it really get rid of that… that virus?" she questioned, her voice barely above a whisper. "Or did it just… hide it better?"
The thought sent a fresh wave of chills down her spine. If the system had been compromised to this extent once, what was to stop it from happening again? And what if, this time, it wouldn't be so quick to recover?
"No…" Maria muttered, ran a hand through her hair again, a determined look replacing the exhaustion in her eyes. "I'm not letting this slide," she said firmly. "I need to know exactly what happened."
To Be Continued