Most of the people connected to the nets don't bother to read the novels posted in the obscure little forum for fiction tales. I have the time and the patience they lack. I was flipping through them, looking for an eye-catching title, and I settled down in my bed with a decent looking one. It had two hundred and one worldwide views. Soon to be two hundred and two.
The prologue starts by saying, "This is a letter to the people of the past. I wish I could destroy the eyescreen, but it is here, so I will use it to my advantage. The elements of Truth and Peace are growing rare, and I want to find them. I refuse to believe the world is just endless nothing, although the leaders are very good at making it seem that way. No, I need to escape the world of monstrosity the eyescreen has created. I need to go outside, because..."
My eyescreen goes blank. It displays the error message, flashing the word error over and over in red and blue, like a strobe light and a torture device combined. The headset shrieks, "The page you were recently viewing has been removed from the nets." The message repeats over and over, and I go to a different page. Right now, I don't want to read about the latest news and rumors.
I start to write in my Blog, but I don't feel like sharing this with my followers. They can't understand. My mind is slightly different than average, and they wouldn't know what I mean. They wouldn't understand how I know something is wrong. Nothing gets removed from the nets. I don't even know how to remove a single letter, let alone a whole novel. There's something going on here. I need to find out what it is.
My first idea is to look for a copy of the novel somewhere else on the nets. I start to say the command, but then I stop talking. Whoever the had influence to get that book off the nets would have already traced and deleted any copies. My second thought is to research to see if nothing ever has gone off the nets, but I know that. Someone would've complained, and I would've heard. (I have an extensive following.) Finally, I make up my mind.
For the first time in a long time, I walk out of my room, down the hallway. The door to outside, the one door I've never passed through, is right down the stairs. When I reach it, I push it open. A shrill warning cuts through my thoughts, my headset screaming, "Stay there! You aren't safe! Members of the leadership will come to retrieve you immediately!"
It keeps screaming, and I say, "Volume, down!" in the jerky, robotic tone used to command the eyescreens and headsets. It doesn't obey, and I switch it off manually, quite annoyed by the technology's disobedience.
I check my messages as I walk away from the building. One caught my eye immediately. It was from WhatElse. I said, "Open." It obeyed me this time, and I quickly scanned it through.
"This message has been programmed to be sent to every person who opened the novel "Last Chance."
I know you read my novel, or started to. The leaders were trying to get rid of it when I left. If you didn't finish it before that happened, you must leave. Now. Abandon any notion of peace the leaders managed to plant in your head. It is false, I guarantee.
Use caution in the outside world. Take off your eyescreen and use your eyes to help you survive. You will find me if you ask the silver-scaled one. Her name is Airgid, and she soars on midnight wings."
Spoiler
I'm so original 
Actually, "airgid" means "silver" in Irish. According to Google Translate. I really need to learn a language so I don't have to rely on Google. :/
Actually, "airgid" means "silver" in Irish. According to Google Translate. I really need to learn a language so I don't have to rely on Google. :/The message disappeared from the screen. I know I have to listen. "Eyescreen, disconnect." I repeat the words a few times. Theoretically, the eyescreen should have flickered off. That's what they say works, but my eyescreen doesn't turn off. I reach up and pull it from my eyes, hitting the disconnect button on it as I do. My annoying, disobedient headset starts shrieking about the leadership again, and I reach up to switch it off.
I blink a few times and look around me. It's beautiful and strange. There's not another living soul in sight, only buildings. The soil is packed down hard, and my feet are sinking slowly into it. Only a little bit.
Maybe it's due to the rain. I've read about it in books, the rain, the mud, but I've never seen it. Little pools (are they what's called puddles?) collect on the ground. A curious, half-faded little person looks up at me from the water. I wave my hand, and it waves back. At the same time. I open my mouth, and so does the figure. What's going on?
Then I realize it's a reflection, as talked about in more online novels. I have so much to learn...
My eyescreen falls from my hands, into the mud. I leave my shoes and socks beside them and run around, laughing and jumping. The mud splashes up from the ground onto my clothes. I squeal with delight. Everything was made for me out here, the rain, the mud, the air, the sounds and the sights. They're all for me.
A harsher sound enters my ears, a repeated sound, fast and human. I look up. It's a black helicopter, I think. I read about flying machines of the past once.
I can tell it's looking for me. It's the leadership, come to fetch me, take me to safety.
That's what they want me to believe, isn't it? That they're protecting us? They're not. I've been outside. I think WhatElse was outside. I have to find her now.
It's lucky I'm so different. I'm lucky I read all those novels from the nets. I know what to do. It should work.
I drop into the mud and roll so it covers me. I'm freezing and wet by the time I'm soaked in water and dirt, but they won't be able to see me. I crawl near buildings when I can. They won't be able to detect the heat from my body.
It's time to run.
