A few weeks later, Sherry found herself back in the mountains.
The train ride felt familiar now. Snow still clung stubbornly to the higher peaks, while spring slowly crept into the valleys below. Patches of green had begun reclaiming the landscape, but winter had not fully surrendered its throne yet.
For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, she had accepted Wyler’s invitation without much resistance this time.
Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the mountains. Or maybe it was the fact that spending a few days around someone who wasn’t constantly trying to unravel the mysteries of existence felt oddly refreshing.
Holly, however, had decided to stay behind.
“I’ll hold down the fort,” she had announced dramatically while lounging upside down on Sherry’s couch.
“You just don’t like Atlas.”
“I like Atlas.”
“You rolled your eyes when he said productivity was spiritual.”
“He called spreadsheets sacred, Sherry.”
“Fair point.”
By the time Sherry arrived, Wyler was already waiting outside the cabin.
The mountain air carried that crisp scent only forests seemed capable of producing; pine trees, damp earth, melting snow, and cold water flowing somewhere nearby.
After dropping off her bag, Wyler suggested a hike. Sherry agreed immediately.
A few hours later, they were winding their way through dense woodland, following a narrow trail that cut between towering pines. Sunlight filtered through the branches in scattered golden patches, painting the forest floor with shifting patterns of light.
The conversation had been easy. Comfortable. No discussions about simulations. No consciousness theories. No attempts to save humanity. Just walking.
Halfway through the hike, Sherry suddenly stopped. “Lake.”
Wyler looked over. “What?”
She pointed through the trees. A small alpine lake shimmered between the branches, its surface perfectly still.
“Lake,” she repeated.
Wyler narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I know that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that ends with you doing something unnecessary.”
Sherry grinned. Twenty minutes later, both of them were standing ankle-deep in freezing mountain water.
“This was your idea,” Wyler reminded her through chattering teeth.
“It builds character.”
“It builds hypothermia.”
The swim lasted less than five minutes. Sherry considered it a complete success.
After drying off and regaining feeling in their limbs, they continued their descent toward the cabin as the afternoon sun slowly disappeared behind the mountains.
By the time they got back, the temperature had dropped noticeably. Wyler headed straight for the kitchen and began preparing dinner while Sherry escaped into a hot shower.
Meanwhile, Atlas had already taken charge of the cabin. The red hologram quietly kept the fireplace burning, filling the living room with warmth and the comforting crackle of wood.
When Sherry finally emerged, wrapped in an oversized sweater and feeling human again, the cabin smelled of food, pinewood, and smoke.
Outside, the mountains disappeared into darkness. Inside, everything felt warm. Safe. Simple.
Halfway through the meal, Sherry finally broke the silence.
“You know… I watched a nature documentary recently. Do you know what I realized?”
Wyler glanced up from his plate. “What?”
“That I’ve spent so much time focusing on humanity’s shortcomings that I completely overlooked the animals.” She paused. “Probably because they’re cute. I gave them a free pass.”
She waited for a response. None came.
“Anyway, the more I watched, the more I realized how survival-based their lives are. Find food. Stay alive. Fight rivals. Run if you’re prey. Hunt if you’re a predator. Reproduce. Protect your offspring. Repeat.”
She shook her head. “There’s so much violence built into the whole thing. If survival is already difficult enough, why are members of the same species constantly fighting each other too? Why are they competing for status? Why do they perform elaborate displays just to impress mates? It’s all so validation-based.”
Wyler continued eating.
“Like this one group of chimps,” Sherry continued. “The younger ones found honey and forgot to tell the dominant male. Forgot. That’s it. The alpha found out and attacked them. Wounded them. Over honey.”
She frowned. “The poor guys were just absent-minded and overexcited about honey.”
Still no reply. “I found brown bears much more reasonable. Sea turtles too. Penguins seem alright. Don’t even get me started on orcas. Orcas are a bunch of assholes.”
Wyler almost smiled.
“Anyway, astrophysics suggests we’re all made of stardust. Stardust everywhere. Humans, animals, plants, rocks. Same ingredients, different arrangements.”
Sherry pushed her food around her plate. “And if that’s true, violence isn’t just a human problem. It’s embedded in most life on this planet. Predation. Competition. Dominance hierarchies. Survival. It’s everywhere.”
She pointed toward the window. “Then there are plants.”
Wyler looked outside.
“Plants are fascinating. Most of them are completely self-sufficient. Their roots reach deep underground for water. They photosynthesize. They don’t chase anything. They don’t hunt anything. They don’t fight. Give them sunlight and water and they’ll quietly do their thing.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Honestly, that’s the level of evolution I aspire to. Imagine how many problems would disappear if everything worked like that.”
Wyler simply looked back at her. Sherry sighed.
“See? This is what I’m talking about. Nobody ever follows me down these rabbit holes.”
“I’m listening,” Wyler replied.
“Good.”
She leaned back in her chair. “So I’ve been thinking. If we’re all stardust, and this solar system originated from a supernova, then everything here inherited something from whatever created it.”
Wyler nodded.
“Now here’s where it gets interesting.”
It rarely got less interesting after that sentence.
“I don’t think the supernova was the beginning.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“Exactly. I think the physical event we call a supernova was just the three-dimensional reflection of something that happened in higher dimensions.”
Wyler took a sip of water.
“In my theory, two conscious beings merged together. Completely merged. The energetic impact of that union echoed downward through dimensions and eventually manifested physically as the event that created this solar system.”
She became more animated as she spoke.
“And if conscious life emerged from that process, then everything here carries traces of those original beings. Humans. Animals. Plants. The stardust itself.”
She paused. “Which leads to a slightly uncomfortable conclusion.”
“Go on.”
“If this entire system is built around survival, competition, scarcity, violence and dominance, then maybe the consciousnesses that created it were operating from those frequencies too.”
Wyler blinked. “You think the creators were traumatized?”
“Exactly.”
She pointed at him triumphantly. “Thank you. Finally someone follows.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”
“But you understand the logic.”
“I’m aware of the logic.”
“Good enough.”
Sherry sat back. “So now I have a new objective.”
“Of course you do.”
“Once I get out of this simulation, I want to find a solar system that originated from a completely different energetic event. One created through peace, love, harmony, cooperation… something healthier.”
She gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. “Because honestly? This one feels rigged.”
“Rigged.”
“Absolutely rigged.”
She crossed her arms.
“And to make things even stranger, I don’t think I belong to the original Earth this simulation was based on. You know, the actual one that existed before the machines copied it and built endless simulated versions like this. If my theory is right, whatever solar system I came from wasn’t this one, and whatever world I came from existed long before this one was rendered. Which would explain why I feel so alien.”
The room fell silent. Wyler finished his dinner. Sherry resumed eating.
A minute later, he finally spoke. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll have Holly help me rewrite the underlying system.”
Wyler laughed softly. “Of course you will.”
“It’s my Earth. The second I became conscious inside this thing, it was over for whoever thought trapping us here was a good idea.”
She stabbed a potato with unnecessary determination. “Even if it took hundreds of simulations to wake up, the game ended the moment I figured out it was a game.”
Wyler smiled. “Sounds ambitious.”
“It is ambitious.”
“Have you considered letting all of this go and just living your life?”
Sherry looked genuinely confused. “No.”
Wyler laughed. “Not even a little?”
“My brain constantly notices the parts that don’t fit. The contradictions. The distortions. The things that feel fundamentally out of alignment.”
She looked toward the dark forest outside. “Even if I’m personally doing fine, knowing the rest of the system isn’t… I don’t know how to ignore that.”
Wyler considered her answer. Then he nodded.
“Fair enough.”
To be continued…
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