Status update (7/12/2018) · 6:50am Jul 12th, 2018
My Own Reality: Chapter 3 is currently in the works, and is the first chapter to fully diverge from the story's Pony-Me counterpart. As such, it's quite a bit harder to work with. I'll post what I've written so far below for feedback.
Lisa awoke to the grumble of her stomach, a growing pain creeping back into her mind as the last of the sedatives wore off. Her hand slowly inched to her side. No tubes. She thought, brushing her over her clothes. No more telltale lumps of the tubes and wires snaking from her body.
To her delight, one final, wide-eyed check under her sheets confirmed that she was, in fact, finally untethered from the now powered-off machine. The room now sat in complete silence, save for the background noise outside the girl’s window.
She turned her attention back to the pain in her stomach. Though it was still hardly an annoyance, Lisa could feel the pangs of hunger calling out to her. As she crawled from her cot, her foot brushed past a paper bag. Picking up the bag revealed a hastily-scrawled label across its surface.
“Food”
Lisa opened the bag, scrunching her nose from the smell that wafted from its interior. A quick glance inside revealed a small, clear bottle filled with a pasty-beige liquid, complete with small flecks of solids drifting within.
A quick whiff, surprisingly, didn’t result in the girl gagging. Rather, it instead smelled… sweet. Slowly, she raised the bottle to her lips, and drank.
--{}--
Empty bottle in hand, Lisa returned to simply staring out the window from her cot. The blazing rays of sunlight had since dimmed into the oranges and yellows of sunset, but continued to shine bright enough to force the girl to turn away. She let out a sigh, once again running a hand over the former location of the tubes and cables on her body before rising from the cot.
Lisa’s attention turned to the only other prominent feature of the room besides the window and the hulking machine: A single, solitary door.
Slowly, she made her way towards the fixture, her hand outstretched as she reached for the doorknob.
Escape. Her mind screamed out, Escape this place, and return…
Lisa threw the door open.
…Home?
There was another door in front of her, identical to the one she’d just opened. The girl glanced to the side, revealing a short hallway leading to a flight of stairs. A quick look in the other direction revealed the same.
Lisa stepped into the hallway, one hand still on the door. Another step. The sound of conversation faintly echoed through the corridor. Another. The voices grew louder by the second as the girl drew ever closer to the stairway.
She broke into a sprint, descending the stairs in a mad dash. The clatter of her bare feet against the cool metal stairs filled her ears, footsteps growing as rapid as her own racing heartbeat as she finally reached the bottom.
The brilliant light of sunset flooded her vision as she turned, leaving the bottommost hallway and facing the outside world. Lisa blinked, her eyes widening as she stepped onto the concrete sidewalk in front of her.
Conversation filled the air. Cries of confusion and anger swirled all about in the autumn breeze.
Others like me. Lisa remembered, peering into the street before her. Men and women, the young and the old. All around her were others who had, just a day prior, been enjoying their peaceful lives in a simulated existence.
“Hey!” The girl cried out, running towards a gathering crowd, “What’s going on?”
I feel like portions of the chapter come off as a bit awkward, especially given Lisa's circumstances in this story as opposed to Pony-Me.
Nothing else for today.