Prompt

To shake off the day's fatigue, she was going to browse through the stories on Reedsy prompts, as she always did. She grabbed her coffee, settled into her armchair, and opened her laptop. While scrolling through the prompts, she came across an interesting title: "Write a story about a character who believes something that isn’t true." A stale idea, she thought — after The Matrix, no one had managed to make this concept truly interesting again.

But as a philosopher, The Matrix held a special place for her. Because through that film, people had become aware of a philosophy called idealism. All the world's philosophers combined could not have achieved the impact The Matrix had. Still, she no longer wanted to see new Matrix clichés.

And yet, the short opening sentence beneath the title somehow caught her radar. "Maybe," she thought, "this time the writer has framed Plato's cave not as a digital prison, but in an entirely different form." The chronic curiosity within her was enough to set her prejudice aside. She slowly moved the mouse and clicked on the story. A few paragraphs couldn't hurt.

But the very first lines she began reading had a disturbing sincerity — far removed from the cheap sci-fi tricks she'd expected. Despite a relatively calm opening, the setting described in the story before her was her own room. The position of the window, the specs of the computer, the hair color, even the reason for the character's inner unease — all were identical. Frowning, she focused more carefully and kept reading.

For a moment she thought about modern technology and digital surveillance techniques. "Cookies," she murmured, "they definitely accessed my data." Perhaps the app she was using was a new AI experiment that converted data gathered from the user's camera or social media history into a real-time story. But the story was transcribing not just her outer world, but also that melancholy thought that had passed through her mind just moments ago while she sipped her coffee. Had Reedsy perhaps developed a new AI technology and was running a test drive this way? She felt both unsettled and excited. She refreshed the page to check whether the text had changed. No — the text was the same text.

As she scrolled further down, she saw that the story mentioned the character's neck pain in that very moment, and the coffee growing cold. This could no longer be just a matter of data mining. It was as though the screen had become a mirror, copying not only her outer world but her biological rhythm in that instant. "If this is a prank," she thought, "it's an extremely professional one." As the text progressed, it stated that the character would "succumb to fatigue." The story described the character taking a slow, soothing deep breath and then a long, relieving yawn. As she read the yawning paragraph, an intense urge to yawn welled up from within her. A few seconds later, just like the character she had been reading about, she surrendered to a long, relieving yawn that came from deep within. She felt more relaxed now — but just as the story before her described, she was tired.

She wanted to keep reading, but fatigue was winning. Her head had begun to tilt slightly to one side. Her eyelids were growing heavy; her entire body was loosening. She had trouble sleeping, and what she always wished would happen when she got into bed was happening to her right now. But she knew that if she got up and went to bed — if she moved at all — this sweet sleep would abandon her. And the story she was reading wasn't bad at all. She forced herself to read a few more lines, but the pleasant heaviness over her was growing with every second, like the comfort of a warm blanket wrapping around you on a cold day. Whatever the reason, she didn't want to waste this intense desire for sleep she had always longed for. What harm could a short nap do?

She had just barely drifted off — or so she believed — when she suddenly woke up. She was wearing a white doctor's coat. On the computer in front of her, the story from moments ago was still open. She checked her surroundings, her clothes, left and right. How was this possible? Hadn't she just been sitting in that old velvet armchair at home, wearing her cardigan? She looked carefully at her hands. Her fingers were slimmer, her nails trimmed neatly. Her eye caught the nameplate on the desk: Dr. Aras – Neurology. With horror, she turned back to the screen. The story on the Reedsy page continued from where it had left off, but with one difference: the text was now telling the story of the philosopher who had fallen asleep at home. The life she'd had moments ago had been transformed into a fictional character written as the result of a prompt.

"No, this is a delusion," she whispered, "it must be from exhaustion." Just then, she caught the sharp smell of medicine drifting in from the hospital corridor. Everything was too real. Her eyes were growing heavy again; when she reached the line in the text where the philosopher fell asleep, Dr. Aras felt the same heaviness at her desk. "No, I mustn't fall asleep…"

Her eyes closed.

One second later, she jolted awake to the clang of hard metal. In her hand was a greasy rag; she was wearing a heavy work jumpsuit. She was in a factory. On the dusty monitor in front of her, the same Reedsy page was open again. She read the text quickly — the story was now about Dr. Aras, who had just fallen asleep at her desk.

She wanted to call out to someone but her throat was dry from the dust. She pulled her ID from the jumpsuit pocket: Chief Engineer Deniz. Again she checked her hands, her arms, her clothes, her surroundings. She looked at her own body as if wearing a stranger's clothes. Her physical existence changed each time, but that cursed story would not let her go. The character named Deniz in the story was wiping the sweat from her brow with the rag in her hand. At that moment, Deniz — as if a puppeteer were pulling her strings — raised her hand to her forehead and wiped away the sweat. Her arms ached as if she'd been lifting weights in the gym for hours. However uncomfortable the environment, sitting in that creaking chair felt like a reward right now. Just as the text described, she gave a long, relieving yawn and let her head fall to one side, eyes closing. It was just a stupid story in front of her, and a few minutes of rest couldn't do any harm.

Her eyes closed.

She woke again. Or could she not have slept at all? No, no — she had not slept… The things she was certain of were a momentary lapse in attention and the act of yawning. She looked around, checked her clothes, and felt a vague, quiet sense of relief. Everything was as she knew it. On the laptop in front of her was that same title again: "Write a story about a character who believes something that isn’t true." She had also reached the end of the story. And she hadn't understood what the author was trying to say either. The character at the beginning of the story was different from the one at the end, and she hadn't quite been able to grasp its connection to the prompt. She got a little annoyed and thought, "What a stupid story."

I wonder if I missed something, she thought, and resolved to read the story again from the beginning. But once more, a desire to yawn arose from within her — the muscles at the base of her throat tightened. This time, however, she resisted that urge and pushed the feeling back down into the depths.

She didn't want to spend any more time with this story; she had other stories to read as a Reedsy juror, and most importantly, she had no desire to relive those unsettling experiences from a few moments ago. Whatever happened, going back to a psychologist and getting mired in antidepressants again were the last things she wanted. A vague, quiet curiosity stirred within her. She wondered — what might the other character inside the story have thought by the end?

But she pulled herself together and pushed those thoughts away. The other characters in the story were fiction; she was the one who was real. This was certain. It could not be any other way.