Smileflower

By: Natalie Cheung

Like the sky is high and the wind is cold, like the ocean is blue and wide, I'm afraid you will also turn into something I take for granted...

It was the hundredth day of entering the perfect world. The skies are blue, not one cloud in the sky. The beautiful voice of birds chirping traveled from the open window, the ugly singing of cicadas was nowhere to be found. The garden within our backyard was full and luscious, flowers bloomed, looking like stars in the clam night skies, and the grass reflected a rich hue of green, so green that it seemed like they were painted.

I left the company, briefcase in hand and thoughts running through my head. I walked up to my car and unlocked the car door, stepping in as I started my journey home. On my way back, I noticed the beautiful sunset on my right. Of course, I have seen it more than once, but it felt so nice to be able to admire a sunset.

Back in our old world, the air pollution had been so severe that smoke filled the atmosphere, and dark clouds of smog covered the sun. The entire Earth was dark and every second felt like hours. There was no longer any Sun, Moon, or days. Without my family, life within such a hideous world would have felt like endless days within the big abyss, with no way to tell time and location.

I drove into a small shopping center car park, where I found my wife waiting for me. I looked at the mall, built with a simple color scheme and structure yet somehow still looked grand. Seeing this made me fall back into those painful yet important memories.

I remember when my wife would leave our small home, if it could even be called that, and would leave to the underground market. Due to the extreme conditions within our old world, we had to walk down past the top layers of the earth’s crust just to get the living essentials required. Although it would usually be my wife who went down, there were those rare times where I went down.

The further I walked down memory lane, the feeling of hot air running down my throat strengthened and the smell of oil stung my nose. It felt as though I was underground again, the heat radiating from the core slowly burned my skin. I shook off the feeling, breaking myself out of my imagination, and started driving again.

Everything should be or should have been perfect, but one thing was off.

“What’s the matter, Hunny?” A voice rang from behind me, causing me to panic and look back.

“Huh-? No- Nothing,” I mumbled as I sighed, knowing very well that I would not be able to hide anything from my wife.

“I get it.”

The sudden and out-of-context sentence startled me, due to both the relief of her being so understanding and the shock of hearing those words coming from her. She was the one who agreed to go into the perfect world, yet here she was, disliking this place.

“This surreal world is too surreal… It hurts to stay within this world, especially know that it isn’t real…”

She was correct. The thought of not knowing that this world wasn’t real stirred deep anxiety within me, and having the knowledge that this world wasn’t real only worsened the feeling of insecurity and shame.

“Have you ever thought of leaving?” I muttered, staring into the empty blue skies.

“Of course I have, but I can’t.”

Her response seemed off, as though she had something that she couldn’t reveal. The words stood at the tip of her tongue, yet she chose to bite them back.

“Why not?” I asked, yet secretly knowing what she feared.

“If we leave, what will happen to our precious daughter? It doesn’t feel good to know that our daughter is only going to be alive in this world, but I’m too afraid to return to the actual world…” Her voice faded towards the end, her eyes slowly glossed up during her speech.

I pulled her into a warm hug, gently patting her back while she cried.

I understood how she felt. Staying within the digital world and staying as we were now would keep our family together, even if it meant forever carrying the guilt of knowing our daughter has died within the real world.

Yet leaving the digital world would leave a small hope for us, the hope of saving our child in time. The chances of being able to find a heart donor would be slim, which gave us more of a reason to stay within the digital world, but I would sacrifice the world to be able to actually hug my daughter again.

I held onto her tighter as I felt my heartache, hearing the light sobs coming from underneath me. I sighed, knowing that there was only one way to resolve this.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, revealing a small figure.

“Mom… Dad…”

“Honey… I’m so sorry… I know- ” I fumbled as I started to panic, worrying about how she would respond.

“You don’t have to be sorry… I understand. I didn’t want you to go back because I was worried about losing you, about not being able to see you again, but it hurts me, even more, to know that you’re in pain because of my decisions.”

Hearing her say those words made me realize a few things. Hearing her analyze and care for us like this made me understand that she was no longer a child I had to constantly baby over, but rather an adult who has her own perspective and was able to take responsibility.

Hearing those words has also made me realize the reason why I wanted to leave. The sky being high, wind being cold, and ocean being blue and wide were things we often see, yet being in this world made me realize how much I’ve been taking these things for granted.

We expect these things to exist, and when you stay within a perfect world where this becomes “the normal,” it gives you more of a reason to overlook the beauty of it.

I was afraid. If staying within the digital world meant that everything stayed perfect, would it mean that I would one day take my daughter for granted? I was afraid that by staying here, I would lose the love and patience I once had for her.

I looked at my daughter, who had tears in her eyes. I gave her a soft kiss on the forehead, restraining myself from crying.

“There's only one issue. How do we get out?”

I watched as the look on my daughter’s face changed, as something entered her stream of thoughts.

“I remember seeing something on the professor’s laptop once,” she stopped, “There was something about a portal underwater, and it is said to be able to bring us back into the real world, but…”

Her words trailed off, the inability of hearing the end of that sentence sent chills down his spine.

“But?” I asked, curious and desperate for the answer.

“But if you die on the way to the portal, you would end up dead in reality as well…”

The air went silent. No one dared speak, the clouds stopped in their tracks, and even birds stopped chirping. It was as though we took this moment of silence to subtly make a promise, a promise to make safety their first priority.

“How do we get there?”

“There should be a cave deep under the ocean, set out northeast from the pier the Mayfair Building a couple of miles and start diving down a couple of miles, we should find a small cave. Within the cave lies a teleporter of some sort, and that should be the machine that brings me home.”

We shared a glance, I leaned down to match my daughter’s height as I whispered a soft greeting as to ask her if she was sure of her decision. After receiving her firm answer, I met the gaze of my daughter and my wife, one calm and the other worried.

I dashed out the door, rushing to my car as my family followed. No words were spoken, only sounds of the car door opening, seat belt buckling, and the engine starting.