I was once a Scientist

My name is Sam. That is the only thing I know, and I am lost.

I trudged blindly through the acid rain, cold, sick, tired, incoherent and just about to give up hope. The elements blocked almost all vision in front of me. I had no idea what the ground or the sky or the area or really anything around me was. I could only trust destiny that I wouldn’t accidentally walk off a cliff or into a volcano.

The winds let out a ferocious roar and there were sharp metallic noises of objects crackling and collapsing. The world was shaking, ever so slightly. It did that occasionally, sometimes more violently than other times, but would always stop abruptly. The pitter patter of the rain had become second nature, almost like the white noise a ceiling fan would make. Although the force of the wind sometimes tried to push me in another direction it was never so strong it had knocked me over. It felt almost like the elements of the earth were laughing at me, cackling at the fact that there was still a human alive in this shithole.

Thankfully I could not feel any wetness on my body. Somehow, even though I have no memories of anything else, I know about shivering, and that I should be doing that right now. But I’m completely fine. I don’t feel hot or cold or anything. It's odd. The lightning earlier should have burned me, but even then I didn’t feel even the slightest thing, and as far as I can see there isn’t any weird burn marks on my body.

Soon enough I would need to face reality and die. I knew that, and yet I could not downright accept it as fact. I had no concept of time, I could only really remember today, and the last few hours had been the same. Just walking forward, endlessly, while the world dismantled itself. Sometimes there would be rain and heavy thunder, sometimes there would be fire coming from the sky and the world would be covered in ash, and some of the time there was snow. I saw snow the least so far, though. Only for a second.

I was in deep thought about this hell of nothingness when suddenly my head, the most outward part of my body, hit something hard. It was completely unexpected. I could not stop myself from grunting. Instinctively, I took a step back. For just a split second I thought it could have been something dangerous, but then I realized that it had been a stationary object, something like a house or statue.

My mind leaped. If it was a house then that meant that I’d wandered out of the countryside/forest/where I was and back into a town. That also meant I’d have shelter, at least until the hurricane made its way over here, or the acid rain burned a hole in the ceiling of the house, if it wasn’t already burned. If these things really did apply to the logic of this catastrophe stricken world.

Carefully, as to not get them wet, I outstretched my arms as to touch the object I front of me. I had no sense of touch, there was no texture to the house of it, but obviously the thing in front of me was not a statue or anything like that. It was too big, too wide, it had to be something else. I somehow deduced that the thing was not wooden or concrete; there were no indentations to it at all.

Since I couldn’t discern the object by touch I tried to look at it. I thrust my face nearly against it. My vision wasn’t that good, but I should have been able to make out what it was. Somehow I still couldn’t. I wiped my hands against it, and finally saw that it was a window. The rain was beating against it so it was pointless to look through, but my heart jumped. I’d scream if I could, but I had no voice. It was a window. A giant human-sized window. And where there was a window there must surely be people, right? I outstretched both of my hands and tried to move myself around it until I found the entrance.

But even if I found people, so what? I still wouldn’t know who I am (besides the fact that my name is Sam) and we’d probably still die in this hellhole. It depressed whatever rational part of me might have been left to know that I might never find out who I was...Hell, I didn’t even know what I looked like. I was probably a mess.

At once there was a cacophony of rain, sleet and fire, and I wondered if God was perhaps mad that I found this place.

--

My name is Sam. I’m on the way to school and really excited. Today is show and tell day! I told Ms. Berrychunks yesterday that I was way excited for it, and she said I could even go first! I peeked in the bag, making sure that Mom was concentrating on her phone call and the road. She and Dad wouldn’t have wanted me to bring what I brought to school, but I just had too. It fit the teachers instructions so perfectly - “scientific, and something that would be cool even to your own friends.”

Even though it was cool as heck I was bummed that I couldn’t even bring it with me to recess. Dad would probably kill me and spank me a zillion times if I so much as got a scratch on the outer shell of it.

Mom let me out at the usual place, and I walked carefully to class. When I got to class everyone was already in their seats.

“Oh Sammy, you’re here. I was just about to send someone else up, but I promised you that you’d go first.”

I was excited, but not excited enough to run. I went up to the large desk that the teacher had supplied, put down my backpack, and pulled out a small box. Then I opened the box, and pulled out the globe-shaped thing. It was raining inside.

“Does anyone know what this is?,” I questioned the class.

“A snowglobe,” yelled Mark Hammleton. Always a boasting little son-of-a-b. I hated him.

“No Mark, this is not just a regular snowglobe. My Dad calls it the snowglobe 3000! And soon he says it will revolutionize the snowglobe market.”

This caught the attention of the class instantly, and even the teacher walked a little closer to see it in its full beauty. As she got closer she just looked just a bit alarmed.

“What is that,” Ms. Berrychunks said. “What’s moving in that thing?”

“That’s the best part Ms. B. There’s a person in there.”

I know, I thought to myself. Isn’t she beautiful?

Berrychunks stood silent for a second and squinted.

“Sam, there really is a little person in there. How?”

“It’s not real Ms. B, it’s just computer, or as Dad said, AI controlled. But it’s supposed to copy the movements a real live person makes. Dad even said that when she first wakes up I should introduce myself, so I did.”

By this time a lot of the class had gotten up from their seats to get a closer look. I was beaming.

“The coolest part of this is that I can change the weather, and the lady in there kinda reacts to it too.”

I demonstrated all the different controls and knobs at the top and what they did. The different settings for fire and acid rain, and even plain old boring snow. The class was amused, so much so that freaking Mark Hammleton tried to yab at the controls and I had to stop him and tell him that my Dad told me nobody could touch the prototype but me.

“So you see my Dad developed this. He’s a scientist.”

“Why thank you Sammy for the wonderful item,” said Mrs. Berrychunks. “I might just have to buy one for my grandson when they go on sale.”

“But shush about it for now,” I said. “For my Dads sake.”

“Oh, I will. Hey wait a second, what’s she doing?”

I looked down at the snowglobe 3000 and saw that my wife was right against the glass. She’d gone so far, with her pretty dress and beautiful teal hair, that was trying to stare through the window.

“Dad says when she goes like that I press the clear button. It’s boring cuz there’s no weather effects, but she’s supposed to move around more when that happens.”

“Well thank you very much Sammy. Now, if we could have Jessica come up...”

I went back to my seat and looked at her. She even looked back up at me, for the first time since I got it 2 days ago. She was so pretty, so, so, gorgeous. For the past few nights I’d fallen asleep thinking about the things I’d say to her if we actually met.

“Hi, my name is Sam, and I think you’re beautiful. Will you marry me?”

--

The weather cleared up for the first time I can remember. It took a moment for the mist to fade, but soon enough I was presented with a blurry version of myself. I had long blue hair, red lips, and was wearing some sort of white long thing.

I’m a girl, a teenage girl by the looks of it. Somehow, it didn’t seem right. I had no idea who I really was, but I had these inklings, these flashes that I was someone important somewhere. That I was doing something for many years that I devoted my life too. In my earliest moments of fear I even imagined a beautiful girl to sort of ease myself. That I was one was too shocking of a revelation.

But I could only marvel at my reflection for some time. There was a mass of colors and shapes and moving things behind it. It should have made me really dizzy, but since I couldn’t feel anything I just marveled at it.

Then the static imagery fixated itself into one, large picture. I felt like I’d seen him before. maybe the second I woke up, but just attributed it to just another one of the feverish thoughts like the beautiful girl.

He was a monster. Big and disfigured his proportions looked all out of whack from where I would standing. They seemed to morph whenever he moved, and I was frightened beyond belief. I ran away from him, as fast I could go. I would not get tired.

I kept running until the acid rain started again. It was depressing.

But today wasn’t a total loss. The weather had cleared up momentarily, giving me some semblance of hope and I had found out about myself and even saw a glimpse of what I assumed the vengeful god of this world looked like.

So now I know two things. I wished I could have said it aloud. I pictured the giant monster thing and made a declaration of the two things that I knew.

“My name is Sam, and if I ever get out of here I swear I’m gonna kill you.”