Looking back, I guess it's not such a unique position to be in.
Apparently there have been hundreds of thousands who came before me,
but back then, I couldn't imagine anyone else thinking the way I did.
Hell, just figured I was loosing my mind. Maybe that would have been
easier.



Thin clouds of smoke hung drearily near the dark ceiling tiles and
wafted lazily through the small club. Black lights hung on the walls
set a somber tone to the night that was interrupted intermittently by
sharp cuts of burning white light. After a few drinks, the piercing
flashes weren't so bad though. They didn't even make him squint
anymore. Quick heavy beats pulsated through the air, manifesting in
movements on the dance floor and people all around him seemed to be
having a good time.



'Seemed'... That's where all the trouble started, perspective.



For months things had been off. The world had felt wrong somehow. It
was as if he had been dreaming and was unable to wake up. Questions
loomed at the edge of his conscious mind, just beyond reach and no
matter how hard he tried, he couldn't capture them. Night after night,
he spent his time and money in this club, sitting in the same chair at
the same table, drinking the same bad scotch. Night after night, he
tried to forget, tried to go back to how he used to be. Night after
night, he failed.



In the morning he would get up, go to work and coast through the day.
Nothing he did there mattered. No one noticed him, no one cared what he
did. He wasn't even entirely sure he'd be missed if he just stopped
showing up. But that's not how it worked, that's not how adults behaved.



He wondered silently when he had started thinking of himself as an
adult. Or why it should matter if he was an adult or still a kid. It
didn't change anything either way. It was simply a perspective. To
some, he was still a kid, to others, a man. But neither classification
effected his daily life all that much.



It was questions like these that had started him thinking about the
fiber of reality. What was real? What, in this world had true
substance? Everything humanity claimed to know was based on
perspective, and perspective is based on certain assumptions. So, in
essence, all knowledge is an assumption, which means humanity knows
nothing. How many people really had ever taken the time to think about
what knowledge truly is, at its core? When it's broken down, it comes
down to one assumption, empirical experience. Things that will happen
in the future are assumed to happen as they did in the past. This was
the foundation of all knowledge, and this is what had been plaguing him
for so long.



And just when he thought he couldn't get more confused, he was
approached by a woman dressed in red vinyl. She had offered to help him
find answers, but something about her wasn't right. He couldn't trust
her, but he couldn't figure out why.



"Lucen." He looked up from his drink to see her standing there, arms
folded before her, adorned in the same outfit as the last time. "We
need to talk."



He laughed lightly. "I told you, my name is Damian. And we have nothing
to talk about. What you offer is impossible. There is no such thing as
truth."



"I know," she replied as she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat
in it. Her movements had an ease to them that most humans couldn't
possibly hope to match. She was beyond graceful. "All knowledge is
based on the assumption that the future will be like the past, so we
don't ever truly 'know' anything, and thus can never find 'truth.' " She
reached for his glass and took a sip. "But there is more to know than
all of this." She gestured around the room with her free hand as she
placed the glass back down on the table.



"And what would it matter?" he asked, sliding the glass to his side of
the table. "Nothing you can show me could possibly make me feel as
though any of this made a difference in the grand scheme of things."
He took a sip and placed the glass back down in front of him, keeping
his hand on it this time. "We live, we die. Our children live, they
die, it's an endless cycle of waste and false hope. What's the point?"



The woman smiled briefly. "You aren't the first person who ever
wondered that. And you definitely won't be the last. But I can tell you
this: if you trust me, and give me the chance to show you, I'll prove
to you that you can make a difference. There is something out there
worth living, even dying for. But it's not something you will ever be
able to see if you won't let go of this existence."



Damian finished his drink in one powerful gulp and stood up. "Last time
we sat at this table, you told me I was the one being too philosophical.
Now you start lecturing me on existentialism?" He reached down and
pulled his jacket off the chair and slipped into it. "I don't care what
your 'truth' is. I don't care about your purpose or 'reason to live'.
I've come to realize just how pointless this world, this 'existence',
as you call it, is. Nothing we do will be remembered in 100 years.
Nothing you say to me will matter to me when I walk out that door." He
threw a twenty-dollar bill down on the table. "Have a few drinks on me.
Then stop bothering me." Without another word, he walked across the
room and out the door.



The woman at the table just smiled. Pulling out a cell phone she
pressed a few buttons and brought it up to her ear. "Anu, find me an
exit. We need to start formulating an extraction plan. He's almost
ready."



Yeah, going insane would have been much easier.