As the code finally cracked, Tahir's eyes locked on a single .mp4 file blinking on his
screen—one among dozens, all encrypted, all sealed tight except this one.
He froze.
For a long moment, he just stared at it.
He had to weigh his actions carefully. Every path here felt wrong—each one leading
somewhere he might not come back from.
"Let's trace this back," he muttered. "I followed those weird cues around campus that led me to
that abandoned wing… helped that random man inside… and he just gave me a 500 GB hard
drive for free."
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the video's name.
"Now ignoring all that insanity—why did that place still have remnants of the civil war? Why were
the Union's men even there? And more importantly…"
He hovered his cursor over the file.
"…why the hell does this hard drive contain a video with his name on it?"
He clicked.
A video opened—grainy, handheld. Two people. One behind the camera, the other standing
before it.
A voice spoke first, slightly distorted.
"Alright, all is set, Qasimir. You can start. Three… two… one… go."
The one in front—young, restless eyes, the kind that flickered between brilliance and
obsession—leaned closer to the lens.
"Hello there, stranger. My name is Qasimir—Qasimir Mutaz. I'm eighteen, a freshman studying
computer science. Here's a question for you: have you ever questioned reality?"
From behind the camera: "You're being very straightforward."
"Yeah, that's the point."
"Just continue."
"Let's… destructure the idea of life. Taking religious aspects as truth—the first men were
stripped of God's mercy and ended up on Earth."
"This sets the first point."
"Exactly. Remember this."
Tahir froze the video.
"What am I even watching? A religious lecture?" he muttered, frowning. "Wasn't the Monarch a
self-proclaimed prophet? What's next—claiming to be God?"
He was nervous, but he couldn't look away.
Something about Qasimir's tone… the calm certainty behind it… felt familiar.
"Questioning reality, huh?" he whispered.
Tahir had always felt that way—offbeat moments, little glitches in daily life that no one else
seemed to notice. To him, it was common sense. But hearing someone else say it aloud… that
was new.
That was relieving.
The video continued. Qasimir leaned forward again, his voice steadier, almost rehearsed.
"Humanity began with a sin," he said calmly. "The sin of eating from the fruit of knowledge—of
good and evil. Tempted by the promise of becoming gods.
They became aware of their own fault, descending from their mighty position into a lowly life on
Earth."
He raised one finger.
"One—humanity was once with God."
A second.
"Two—they wanted to ascend."
A third.
"Three—they failed and were punished."
He smiled faintly. "And now… we've set the beginning in motion. Let's jump to the end."
The camera shifted focus, the voice behind it muttering, "This is where it differs from the
mainstream, right?"
"Exactly," Qasimir replied. "There are five main religions—each stemming from the same
beginning. Each building its own path to the end."
He sat down on a table cluttered with notebooks and circuit boards.
"What followed was the creation of the essence of humanity—good and evil—and its
continuous ascendance to what it is now. Great. Now stay with me. Let's jump to the end."
He looked directly into the lens.
"Studying the five Orthodox religions, each builds from the same foundation but diverges in the
end. The outcome—let's say—is interpreted through their prophets and their people. I won't
teach you the full doctrine of the Five. You'll learn that yourself. What matters is this: in every
way, we're closer to the end point than to the beginning."
He leaned in, voice low and deliberate.
"My outlook is different from all five. What if the seat of the Lord isn't just meant to be
worshipped—but to be filled? A vacant throne… waiting for its holder to return. Our theory is
simple: we're in a simulation."
The one behind the camera spoke up, tone half-curious, half-unsettled.
"Let me chime in. Simulation isn't that far out. The Five Orthodox all mention the idea—just
under different names."
"Exactly," Qasimir nodded. "But our version isn't a divine dream—it's a loop. A creator creating a
creator. An event marking the end of time and the beginning of endless life. The power rests in
the hands of the creator—ushering in the end of one world and the birth of another."
A pause.
Then, the voice behind the camera asked quietly, "How are we going to do that, Qasimir?"
Qasimir looked up, eyes burning with conviction.
"We're going to become the creator's creation—a creation that creates. In other words…"
He smiled.
"We're building a simulation."
The image glitched, then refocused.
Qasimir continued:
"A simulation, yes. Through my friends' and my work, we've built what we call a Transformer—a
type of technology that predicts word-to-word sequences based on atomic knowledge drawn
from a dataset. Essentially, it mirrors a psyche through its past.
While it's crude—and limited by current tech—we've reached a milestone in simulation research
through AI.
I encourage you to look at the hello.c file inside this repository, and the instructions in the
readme.txt. This documentary isn't just about our work—it's our rise, whether to the top or to
our eventual demise. I hope it inspires you to carry the mantle in my stead.
This is my failsafe.
This is quasimir-mutaz-01.mp4."
"CUT."
The video stopped.
Tahir stared at the frozen frame, the name lingering on the corner of the screen.
He whispered, "A program capable of speech, huh…"
He leaned back in his chair, skeptical yet drawn in.
"Doubtful," he muttered. "But I've come this far—might as well see it through."
He wasn't a programming prodigy, but he wasn't far off either. He knew how to compile C files,
how to navigate old code, and how to learn fast. That was his gift—quick comprehension, sharp
pattern recognition.
But it was also his curse. He relied too heavily on intuition, on those "glitches" in perception that
sometimes led him astray. Still, he'd learned one thing: some patterns stayed fixed in time. You
just had to see them.
He opened the readme.txt.
It was sparse.
The program is in its first prototype form — ask, and it will respond. Press Ctrl + X
to exit.
He minimized the file and let the compiler start building.
As the terminal scrolled lines of code, Tahir leaned back and murmured to himself:
"There are twenty-five repositories here. Each with a video and a chatbot file… What's he
planning?
Why was this even in the abandoned part of the campus? A relic of his work? A guide for his
followers? Something hidden on purpose… and somehow, it ended up in my hands?"
The progress bar blinked toward completion.
"Three things," he said quietly. "The video. The files. The rules."
He double-clicked hello.exe.
A dull green-and-black terminal blinked to life.
Then words began to scroll across the screen—slow, deliberate, like something half alive.
HELLO, DEAR MASTER.
YOU MAY ASK THE FIRST QUESTION.
KEEP IN MIND: THE DATA IS LAST UPDATED ON SEPTEMBER 1990.
EVERY QUESTION WILL BE SUCCEEDED BY A QUESTION OF GRAVE
IMPORTANCE.
PLEASE ANSWER CAREFULLY TO GAIN ACCESS TO YOUR NEXT
QUESTION.
STORY MODE ACTIVATED.
Tahir's eyes froze on the screen.
A pre-coded script, maybe? Some early chatbot simulation—rigged to follow a conversation
tree. But the phrasing was odd. Too… aware.
He decided to test it.
By the time sunlight began creeping through the blinds, Tahir was still at his desk, eyes dry,
posture slouched. The glow of the monitor bathed the room in dull green light.
"Quite amusing, I must say," he muttered.
The bot was surprisingly articulate. It could discuss everything from geopolitics to AI theory—up
to 1990, as it had warned. Its knowledge base was sharp, and its tone… eerily human.
If he hadn't cut off his Internet connection earlier, he would've sworn someone was pranking
him.
But what set it apart weren't its answers—it was the questions it asked back.
After every response, the terminal printed:
MY TURN.
WHAT HAPPENED ON AUGUST 1990?
No matter what Tahir typed, it circled back to that date.
"August 1990 again?" he murmured. "What's so important about that?"
He hesitated before typing a reply—
and the cursor blinked, waiting, as dawn light filled the room.