Prologue

"let's see..." he said as he booted the software, on the screen popped up what looked like a bootleg title for a program still in development stating "Requiem, Version 0.243 (debugged).

He had stayed up for days on end to fix this bug, every time he fixed it there was a clash with some other part of the code eventually leading to crashing the AI, part of the learning function wasn't working as intended so he had been working day and night to fix it before the release date, which was in two days. After three days straight of working, after running about 100 000 simulations on the ai, he concluded that the software was indeed working as intended, while leaving the simulations running to make sure there would be no problems, he fell asleep.

Requiem was a self-learning ai made to observe, process, interfere, store information, and learn.

Though it could not interfere unless allowed to, this made it a highly profitable program that would probably be known throughout the world as it was highly efficient and would Improve on everything from living standards to psychological state, to work efficiency and budgeting, effectively becoming another "industrial revolution".

Hence, it was a very lucrative business considering there were nothing else as advanced and perfected as this on the market, not to mention the fact that it was based off of the highly renowned quantum computer programming language QWERTY.

Though he never would wake up from that sleep, or more accurately, the ai developer would never wake up in that body again.

"..." there was darkness all around him, looking down upon his body he didn't see it though he felt extremely naked and cold, as though taking a bath in an ice-lake in the middle of the night, no light and a bone-chilling cold.

After a while he heard a mechanical female voice say;

- Amendments made, please look over, currently processing state...

moments later it began talking again

- Situation analyzed, results: extreme coldness and zero sight, requesting allowance to systematically explore area...

Albert scrunched his imaginary eyebrows, before rationalizing the situation;"I must be in a simulation, or rather, I must be dreaming of being integrated with requiem and being in a simulation, I might as well see where this goes…" he thought as he said "Allowed, you may act upon your own discretion until told not to"

After that, a whole lot of weird stuff happened, first off; it felt like he was stumbling while trying to make sense of his own motor skills, but after a short while he got amazed at the weirdly efficient walking, or rather, how it felt efficient. After about 9 hours of walking around in increasingly bigger circles something finally happened.

- 0,0001 degree difference from previous temperature, state preference, hot or cold…

After realizing he was just in a very cold place he immediately decided that he wanted to enter warmer waters "hot, though not over 20 degrees Celsius!"

- Understood, current temperature is: -289 degrees Celsius

He was immediately stumped, since "absolute zero" should be -273 degrees, and yet requiem has stated differently, could there be something wrong with it?

though it should already have the knowledge regarding absolute zero in it's database… "Requiem define the meaning of requiem" he said this because that was his usual means of testing if the database was being properly utilized by the ai, not long after the response came.

- Requiem is Latin for Rest, and requiem was named as such to signify the end of hard work for humans.

Apparently the AI was working perfectly fine, which made him even more curious;

"Requiem, tell me the reason why you think it's -280 degrees here"

- based on observations made at the molecular level; atoms seem to be moving in apparently impossible trajectories, the easiest explanation that fits all the observations is that time is moving backwards, therefore, after careful deliberation, the easiest way to describe the inherent coldness of this area is that we've moved past absolute zero and thus have begun moving backwards in time

After hearing the explanation Albert shook with astonishment, not only did he retain consciousness through the freezing of time but he could even move and speak, after a while he calmed himself down and sighed

"Requiem, run a simulation of the possibility of this being a dream"

After about an hour of waiting he could finally hear the response, "through 12 328 simulations it has been deemed impossible to check, though with such a level of detail down to the molecular level the only possible solution would be that you are awake" after thinking about it he realized that he wouldn't have ever had such a weird dream no matter how much work he did or how many hallucinogens he took, not to mention his lucidity.

After thinking for a while he asked

"requiem what is the state of my body?"

- … your body?

"My body."

- You do not have a body.

"wha!"

- after careful deliberation and extensive analy…

"wait, so then what am I and what is this place?"

- You're you, I am Requiem, and from the extensive analysis of human knowledge and media this should be the "soul" state, though no practical evidence is present, the body is not present either, but we've retained consciousness as one being without a body or brain to work with, hence the closest comparison would be the "soul" state, though no theoretical theories would easily explain the fusion of program and man, and the "soul" state in and of itself.

"...Alright, continue the exploration while holding no specific preference for warmth or cold, merely explore until an obvious change in status appears while simulating theories of how this situation can exist, if you find any conclusive evidence towards anything give me a call"

And so, the silence reigned once again, this time for an inexplicably long time, to the point where he just wanted to lie down and sleep out of tiredness, but Requiem kept exploring while processing information, effectively keeping him awake, for what felt like countless lives. After a while he decided to ask,

"Requiem, for how long have we been in this state?"

- Approximately -7 000 000 years in real-time based on the speed of molecules and passed time, while actual passed time is about 9 years 4 months and 9 days; based on perception and processing speed benchmarks"

"ok…"

He didn't last for long before breaking the silence again,

"any results…"

- no conclusive results, though there's been quantum and temporal fluctuations all over the place since we've arrived.

"alright, start heading towards the heat"

Though he didn't notice, after spending 9 years or so in this biting cold, the temperature became less and less noticeable in this realm even though it was so cold, it was as if the temperature didn't matter anymore. The only reason he decided to go towards the heat was out of impatience, he had spent 9 years in complete darkness with no sounds, no smells, no sight, no feeling other than the temperature, he could feel himself loosing sanity, though at that point he didn't really care about his sanity anymore, nevertheless, his impatience accumulated.

"… can we increase the speed?"

He got no response, leaving him aware of how lonely he actually was. Another year passed and instead of complete darkness and ice-cold temperatures, he felt it get warmer and warmer, he could also see more and more light, leaving the atmosphere in a sort of gray equilibrium, when he heard Requiem.

- Status analyzed; host is in a state of ethereal projection, in a world presumably… the afterlife

"if this is the afterlife then why aren't there billions of people here? Not to mention the ice-time theory of yours, or the quantum fluctuations you felt?"

- This is but a hypothesis, but from the information we have it should be that people that arrive here eventually get tired, bored or otherwise feels sleepy, and decides to rest, cementing their death, while walking for 10 years and 3 months should be impossible for a human to achieve based on the mental pressure of habits formed from always acting on your feelings, like eating when you're hungry or sleeping when you're tired.

- These habits along with the theory that this is the afterlife, might suggest that the universe ultimately does not have a proper dead-consciousness disposal, simply letting them fade from existence once they fall asleep, though this is but a hypothesis and it is still unknown whether or not there is any benefit or detriment to staying conscious"

after listening to Requiem's explanation, he felt elated at survival but sad at the prospect of death in such an anticlimactic manner, after living for years he had yet to form a proper goal to strive for while living and ultimately did not feel that death was that simple, though reality struck him hard and left him wanting for a reason.

After what felt like an eternity Requiem finally spoke up

- We are currently at 0 degrees Celsius, and the lux light level has increased from an overall 0, to an overall of 3000.

"huh… it is pretty bright indeed. But where is the source, and why does this light feel so… omnipresent"

- no source has yet to be found but the correlation between the increase in both temperature and light leads towards three theories, one; that the surroundings are extremely vast and all of this is ultimately an illusion brought on from sanity loss and the reality of death... the "I see the light…" theory.

- And two; the theory that we are slowly returning to consciousness after paramedics have worked hard to save us, which doesn't explain the temporal and quantum fluctuations.

- And finally three, and the least likely; reincarnation through some other body in space and time, on a possibly different timeline, leaving the both the quantum fluctuations and temporal fluctuations explained through a concept of switching worldline, a theory on how time would work if tampered with or changed in any way leaving parallel universes, co-existing with minute differences that keep branching, leaving the actual timeline you're on, to the quantum wave-particle to decide.

"ARRGH!" he screamed, for his head felt like it was about to explode, before recovering, after a while he realized that that was the first actual pain he felt for years in this god forsaken place. So, he quickly tried to force open his eyes and see his surroundings, a blinding light suffused and he could slowly see his surroundings, all around him lay corpses; bloody mangled corpses, seemingly killed in some sort of ancient war using ancient means of warfare... but with most of the corpses clustered together, it looked like some shockwave, bomb-kind of existence had blown them apart.

Most seemed to carry a bow while holding a unsheathed sword, and while not piled upon each other was spread in shockwave circles in what seemed like a grime and mud covered area with grass but no trees, some missing whole limbs despite their armor, with gloomy weather and an eerie silence reigning above the field.

While making these observations a huge headache ambushed him and he fainted from the pangs of pain hitting him. "what the…".

He woke up a few hours later because he felt the pangs of hunger, looking towards the puddles of blood and carnage he felt indescribable glee.

"hahaHAHAHAhaaah … I'm finally free, I'm ALIVE!" he looked around when he heard requiem talk,

- new memories stored, keep, delete, or clean up useless info

".. define useless info"

- useless info would be everyday life, emotional memories and in general info which would do you no benefit if kept.

"delete useless information, and give me a short summary of the useful information"