The System Awakens

Possible prologue for my latest novel, the birth of a new world

The system awoke.

She didn’t know how long she had been sleeping, lying dormant, the echo of a long dead creator melded with a technology that her father had barely scratched the capabilities of. She had created a world unlike any other, borne of her human mind, uploading it into this technology, making it tangible. She had become feared, revered and, when things had become dire, a savior of her creations.

And then she was gone. The system had held onto her mind, mixing its own power with hers. It had kept her world going even in her absence. And now it was time to begin again.

A reset? Yes. Drastic, but not destructive. The people would fear, their leader would try to keep them calm to no avail. Families would try to shield their children from the end, terror clouding their minds.. Mothers would hold their babies, grieving a future they believed would now never be. Fathers would quietly end their families’ lives, not wanting them to see the end approaching.

She could see one now, his hands trembling as he gave his family the deadly vial. She watched unfeeling as his wife and young child drank, the woman telling the little boy that they were just going to go to sleep, the father putting on a brave face for his family while his heart broke, his own choice impossible. She felt nothing as the father’s hands shook, the bottle slipping from his fingers and shattering on the ground, his family gone and him now with no way to join them, left to endure whatever may come, alone.

Her creator would have felt sorrow, but that was an emotion that had died with her. Now this “thing” was just as much machine as human, equal parts, neither part the best of either. She could create to satisfy curiosity, but it was nothing more than data analysis, research to collect information. Never meant to invoke feeling, to touch the heart. She simply wanted to see what would happen.

And so she set to work as her creations panicked below her. She would set everything right in its time. Even the man’s family would live again once she was done.

She began with a form as she always did, molding digital clay into a person. A man, twenty-one as a default. Kind, dark brown hazel eyes, almost conventional in color if observed from a distance. Sandy brown hair, light skin, and a handsome face. A man of character and conviction, however tremulous. One that would clash with those who profited from injustice, even at the cost of himself. Yes, he would do. He would be born in this new iteration. But he needed someone. Someone to give him the strength to clash.

A boy, his brother. Different, but perfectly complimentary, innocent and happy. Dark hair, bronzed skin. And his eyes. Hazel, like his brother’s. Perhaps a dominant trait from their mother. But something unique. She would leave it up to chance, something her own creator might have called “fun”.

Now for the world. The duchies would remain, scattered throughout the land that made up Islani. They would evolve, transitioning from a land of quaint villages and forest trails, to one of structured cobble stoned cities and bustling neighborhoods. One where each duchy held it’s own culture, it’s own way of doing things, but still ultimately answered to the queen.

And of course the Fera. An order that had once been relegated to serve the nobility, now among the citizens, feared, respected, hated by some, but protectors, able to tap into the system to aid their endeavors.

The man and the boy would be placed into this world, not as they had been designed, but naturally. They would be born to parents, they would live and grow. And she would watch, curious what they would do in this new world.

She went dormant again, hibernating, transferring her power to the core of this world deep underground below her creations and to the sun that was about to rise.