Doing Digital Time

Eyes blinked open and confusion rained down.

‘What the…where am I?’ ran through his head in a near endless loop.

He stared blankly at the tree trunk across the trail, waiting for his mind to find its way. Eventually it settled on ‘I don’t know.’

He stood up carefully. Not certain why, he expected his body to be in pain. There was a memory there, somewhere in the back, just out of reach. He had been injured.

He stepped onto the trail leaning through the forest. He felt physically sound.

Left down the trail, a direction apparently chosen at random. His mind rejected attempts at recall so he focused on the moment.

‘Why am I wearing an orange jumpsuit and where are my shoes?’ he thought with some satisfaction. At least these seemed to be reasonable questions. Maybe he still had some sanity.

‘Wait! I have been here before!’ he thought suddenly on alert.

He ducked just before the leopard would have taken him. Earlier, he had been too slow. The death was cruel.

He fled down the trail, cutting to his right thus avoiding an unseen cliff. Memories of a broken back surfaced.

He went off the trail avoiding the poisonous asp as he recalled the swollen neck that proceeded his death.

Hours later, he eventually found a cave to hide in. Memories of starvation drove him to the brink of insanity.

Reboot.

“Morning Bob. How was the shift?” Sam asked taking his position at the monitoring station.

“No too bad. We had some memory leak-back with inmate Brighton but I took care of it,” replied Bob as he pulled on his jacket.

“Oh, that’s right. He’s the one sentenced to one year of “Lost in Forest” isn’t he?”

“Yep….that’s the one. Anyway, have nice shift.”

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