Better than my life. Chapter 5

5

On that Sunday morning my life was going to change, but I didn’t know that. We arrived at Bill Shepherd’s place by pneumatic road, it took us 15 minutes. When we entered the computer room, he was there. His body in a C-suit looked like a huge doll. That wasn’t very pleasant to see, so I didn’t look at him for a long time. I had a job to do. I put on my special C-suit and waited for Andrew to connect me to a game-port. Usually gamers are connected to game-ports directly, but we had to use a special interface. It helped me to communicate with Andrew and gave me some unusual things, too. I hope one day it will save my life. But I also hope this day will never come.
Sweet dreams Inc had a beautiful gate. It looked like a nice door which you open to enter a house of your dream. For me it looked like a door in a small country house. There was a small garden in front of it. The smell of trees was beautiful. I didn’t know the names of the trees. They had some pink and white flowers which gave that beautiful smell. It was very nice but I remembered my mission, so I opened the door.
We sometimes do thing which change our life. Do we always know that before, that this thing is going to change everything? I don’t think so. And I opened it, and went in. Strange. The room was absolutely round, and it was big. I didn’t understand how a room of this size could go in a small house. I looked at the doors. They were identical. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about Bill. Which door did he open? Or was it different for him?
I stood in the centre and looked at the doors. How many of them? Many, about fifty, maybe, sixty. I didn’t want to count. I wanted to know where to go. I wanted to know where Bill went. But how could I know?
I decided to do something. This something was easy – I had only two ways. The first– to open any door, and the second – to choose. The problem was I didn’t know how to choose. So I just started to go round. All the doors looked the same. But then I felt something. The doors were different. I liked some of them and I didn’t like the others. It was like an ancient fairy tale, when you come to a stone, and read on it: If you go left, you will lose your head. If you go right, you will find love but you will die. But there was no stone for me, just the doors I liked and the doors I didn’t like.
I thought about Bill. He was successful and clever. Was he practical? What would he choose? I decided to try one of the doors I liked. I thought Bill would do that.
So I made another circle concentrating on the doors I liked. One of the doors which I came to called me. Of course, it couldn’t speak, but it was like it called my name. “Alex!” – a pleasant voice from far away said my name. I couldn’t understand if it was a man, a woman or a child. Just a voice. But I was sure I knew it. I knew the person with this voice. That was my door. Now I was sure.
My hand opened the door easily. I looked in and saw darkness. Somehow I wasn’t afraid. Anyway, it was too late to stop. My feet and legs were going through that door. They were driving my body into that friendly darkness. Have you seen absolute black? That was an absolute blackness. It was like going into the sea. I went into it, and blackness got me. I went into it, and it went into me – first my feet, then my body, and then my head. My mind. Everything went black.