Roles Reversal

 

"Are you really sure it's working?"
"I told you, be patient for another second!"
"Wait, I'm starting to see something ... Ah ah, here she is!"

Annoyed by those voices, I woke up suddenly. Why wasn't I in my bed? I was sure I went to sleep a few hours earlier, but then why was I sitting there with those three weird guys talking nonsense? Disoriented and with my vision still a bit blurred by sleep, I couldn't help but ask in an uncertain voice:

"W-where am I? And who are you?"

The blond man wearing glasses, who also seemed the strictest among them, answered me:

"You really don't recognize us? Yet you've spent a lot of time in our company, lately."

"Wait, don't tell her more! Let her understand by herself, I want to see her expression!"

Then the three guys standing in front of me just continued staring at me with that irritating half-smile. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but at least it gave me some time to look around and reflect. They were right, I had seen them many times before, but never like that. It was impossible for us to be in the same room, simply impossible.

I was still trying to make sense of that absurd situation when, by chance, I saw the condition of one of my hands. And then of my arm, my feet... All of me, to make it short. Only then I surrendered to the evidence, and panic took over me.

"Is it a joke? What the hell have you done to me?"

"Don't you see it by yourself? You are a sim now, just like us."

"What? But this is impossible! You are not real people, you are just characters from a video game!"

"That's what you say. "

"Turn me back to normal immediately, otherwise I ..."

Those three openly ignored all my complaints, and just continued chatting to each other.

"Lazlo, go ahead."

"With great pleasure, bro."

Having said that, the sim on the left, who in the meantime had sat in front of their PC, typed some apparently random commands on the keyboard, and they announced:

"Done. And I'd say it works too, look at that!"

"What else have you done to me?"

"Look up, we are sure you will understand by yourself."

I had chills down my spine, their sadistically satisfied expressions made me expect the worst. What could possibly be above my head?

"Oh no, no no no! Take it off me NOW!"

"With all the effort we put into coding it? You can forget about it."

"What the hell do you want from me?"

"Up to now you've always enjoyed commanding us as if we were mere puppets. You have been cruel to us, to say the least. This situation had become unbearable to us, and therefore we decided to give you a taste of your own medicine!"

"It isn't as funny when you are on the other side, is it?"

Before I could argue in any way, the guy (actually, the sim) who sat at the computer pressed a few more buttons, and everything went black.

"Loading screen command triggered successfully."

_00101010_

When I opened my eyes again I found myself in front of a tiny house, I couldn't see anyone else around. That strange green diamond kept spinning over my head, just out of reach. Even on tiptoe I couldn't touch it, let alone get it off somehow.

I had no idea how those three sims had managed to drag me into their video game, I didn't even believe such a thing was possible. Yet everything I saw around me, and even the fact that I was undoubtedly made of pixels, only confirmed what they had told me.

On the other hand, I understood all too well why they did, and I couldn't help but fear for my safety. What could they have had in store for me?

_00101010_

"All controls are stable, we can proceed."

"What could we make her do?"

"I would say to send it inside the house, then we will think about something."

_00101010_

Suddenly, I started walking toward the house. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't stop. I felt like someone else was telling my legs were to go: it was horrible, one of the worst feelings I've ever experienced.

I was completely helpless, all I could do was throw a glare of pure hatred at that damn green diamond that kept spinning over my head. How I feared, those three could control me as if I were any sim and they were the players.

And if they could really control me like any sim, it also meant they could force me to do pretty much anything. In the time I had spent playing that video game I had learned that it was not difficult at all to humiliate sims making them run all over the neighbourhood in underwear, eat until making them explode, or starve them to death. With a little more effort, I could even send them into the fangs of werewolves, vampires, or a cow plant.

Every hypothesis that crossed my mind made me feel the shivers down my spine, what could they have planned for me as part of their revenge?

As soon as I stepped inside the house, I noticed with disappointment how bare the furniture was. The few pieces around seemed to be quite uncomfortable, but at least I didn't see anything around me that I could seriously hurt myself with.

A few instants later, I heard the next order arrive. It was a harmless order, I just had to start cooking some mac and cheese. Trying to ignore the awful feeling of being controlled like a puppet, I headed to the kitchen and began fiddling with bowls, ladles, and pots.

"Ouch!"

Damn, it hurt... For sure, when I was the one playing that video game I had never thought that sims could hurt themselves so badly even by just cooking. And I didn't even think that preparing a dish like that could be so complicated. A distraction of a second was enough to— Needless to say, I had burned it.

The taste, if possible, was even worse than the appearance, it was like eating burnt charcoal. If it hadn't been for the order that forced me to do so, I would never have been able to throw down even a forkful of that junk.

For the rest of the day, my jailers had fun seeing me struggling with cold showers, uncomfortable chairs, incredibly boring TV channels, and so on.

The diamond on my head was turning yellow, from how I felt I was sure a lot of my stats were dropping already. I felt miserable, but above anything else what I just couldn't bear was the feeling that accompanied the arrival of each new order, it was horrible. How did sims get used to it?

_00101010_

"I think this introduction will suffice. Let's move on to something stronger."

"Do you already have something in mind?"

"Maybe. Switch to buy mode, I want to make her run for a bit."

_00101010_

Suddenly, I saw a treadmill appear right in front of me. Those three must have just bought it from buy mode to spite me.

"Forget about it, this is too much! I have absolutely no intention of running like a fool on that—"

No use, the following order arrived well before I could finish complaining.

As I feared, they made me run over that trap until I was exhausted, dirty and hungry. I didn't need to look up to know that the spinning diamond had turned red. I had never felt this bad in my life, at that rate I risked collapsing and fainting, if not worse.

_00101010_

"She won't last for much longer. If we want to send the others to her, we have to do it now."

"You're right, call them now."

_00101010_

Oh no, what were all those sims doing in the garden, all of a sudden? Judging by how the three who had dragged me into that stupid video game were treating me, I highly doubted they would have been friendly...

As if that wasn't enough, I felt coming the horrible feeling of what would have been the last order of that absurd day. At that moment I was so resigned and tired that I didn't even complain, and I simply walked among all those people silent, my eyes on the ground.

They all stared at me with hostility, for sure they all hated me. And after everything I'd been through that day, I couldn't blame them anymore. When I was the player controlling them, sitting in my comfortable chair in front of my PC, I had never paid much attention to their needs, desires and attitudes. And, without even realizing it, I had hurt all those people. Because that was what they were, and not just clusters of bits that up until then I had naively called sim. How had I not noticed it before?

Suddenly I saw one of them take a step towards me with a stern look. I was afraid she was going to hit me or something, but instead she just asked me, severely: 

"Why did you do that to us?"

"I ... I didn't know! I didn't want to harm any of you, EXCUSE ME!"

_00101010_

Suddenly everything turned black again, and when I opened my eyes I found myself trapped in my bedsheets. I immediately turned on the light, I was so relieved to find I was back in my bed and, above all, that I was no longer made of pixels, I was finally back to normal!

I never knew if that was just a dream or if I've really been a sim for a day. I just know that since then I have been playing that video game with a completely different attitude, treating every sim (or, actually, person) with a lot more respect and attention than ever before. And I also advise all of you to do the same.

Then don't tell me I didn't warn you!