Chapter One
The stars above twinkled, letting light fall onto a small hammock, one which was flawlessly attached to a large tree, it billowed gently left to right as the warm pandorian wind flew flawlessly through the air
Neytiri gently grasped Jake's arm, pulling him closer to her, she gently slid her arm under his and hugged him tight, and then touched his cheek with her other hand. Neytiri simply smiled at Jake, and closed her eyes, both fell backwards from the large tree and fell onto the hammock below, after what seemed like hours Neytiri started to drift in and out of sleep, the feeling of pure bliss, he whole heart was racing just by lying here with him. Jake stared at Neytiri, even when she fell asleep, he was so lucky to have her… His eyes started to well up with tears. This was his life now, one with Neytiri and his people. He no longer considered himself human. He was one of the people now, a na'vi. Jake rested his head against the beauty called Neytiri and closed his eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, sirens sounded. Jake tried to open his eyes and just saw a haze of light, the feeling almost the exact same as when he entered his avatar for the first time. Jake tried to scream, but no voice came out, this felt crazy to him. Flashes of light overtook his body and he felt trapped, as the light shimmered for what felt like hours, a blur of a white room grew in front of his eyes.
"Jake! Jake can you hear me?" called a voice, "Damn, I knew it, he's been in there for too long, look at these scans…" Jake desperately tried to focus his eyes, everything still a blur, he desperately tried to move his legs and yet they weren't responding, his brain was screaming in agony, commands flying throughout his body, willing him to see clearly and to stand. As precious seconds passed Jake's vision finally settled, and he could see the room around him.
The room itself seemed like a lab, drastically different from any of the RDA's on Pandora, there were wires hooked up everywhere, and a handful of people, no more than seven all working on computers, although most were now scrambling from one place to another, looking at screens. One man however looked frantic, even more so than the others, he noticed Jake's glare and set off in a run towards him.
"Jake! Are you there buddy? Can you hear me?" called the man, his face filled with worry.
Jake just growled loudly, his emotions getting the better of him. His thoughts then turned to Neytiri, and his people. As this happened he screamed out, demanding answers.
"Where is Neytiri? What's going on? Where Am I?" he asked angrily, questions simply falling from his mouth. Jake suddenly realized that he was no longer in his na'vi body, and was back in his crippled human form, it took a couple of seconds for him to register this, and as he did his face contorted in fear, and tears streamed down his face in desperation. He suddenly went to lift himself up from what he had thought was a bed, that's when he finally realized… He was sitting in a gigantic link pod, very similar to what he had used to connect to his avatar. The man looked at Jake; his face filled with worry, he turned around and shouted a woman, who walked over. Her hair was auburn brown, and her eyes a pale blue, which were filled with everything but concern.
"How long was he in the simulation?" she asked the man. Her voice had no emotion, and she sounded like she had no soul, nothing representing her; just dull and bland.
The man just clicked his tongue, his trembling hand reached down to his belt where he pulled out some logs. He then passed them to the woman, who had her hand outstretched expectantly.
"5 weeks, 3 days, 4 hours and 28 minutes… Well over the recommended limit, which as you know is only 1 day… It's amazing this man is alive…" she turned to look at Jake, and smirked when she saw his confused expression.
"What do you mean Simulation?" he shouted at the woman angrily, "Where's Neytiri?" The woman burst out laughing when he said that. The man however stood still, seemingly rooted to the ground in shock. "If you've done anything to her, I swear I'll…" The woman laughed again, and turned around, as she walked away she shouted mockingly.
"You'd better pick up the pieces now eh Robert? I'm guessing poor Jake here didn't know what he signed up for…"
Jake screamed loudly, his fists slamming down on the pod he was sat on.
"Can someone please explain what's going on?" Jake pleaded, his eyes filling with tear of anguish. "How did you get me back in my human body… I was one of the people, I was toruk makto…"
The man, who Jake guessed was called Robert pressed his hand to Jake's shoulder, and his dry lips quivered, almost as if he was afraid to speak.
"You…you volunteered, to take your brothers place in our experiment, virtual reality… you said you were willing to give up everything just to continue his work… " he paused for a second before quietly but clearly clarifying a fact for Jake. "Everything you've experienced in the simulation is a lie…" Jake growled loudly.
"Stop lying! Where's Neytiri? I want to see her!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, spit flying form his mouth and hitting a terrified Robert in the face.
"I…I'll take you to her…" he quivered as he moved the wheelchair beside the bed towards Jake, who in turn pushed himself down and clambered in. Robert took the wheelchair in hand and brought him past the computers, each showing both statistics and images and videos of Pandora, some of it what he remembered and some he didn't. Robert led him on, to the desk at the far end; he positioned Jake at the side. Robert hunched down and sat on the lavish black chair. He quickly typed in his username and password on the computer and turned his screen so that Jake could see it. It showed a real time view of Pandora, na'vi moving back, and forward, objects being placed into the world by what seemed like a magical hand. Jake then noticed a small tool in the corner of his screen, it's protocol name was 'Eywa'.
Robert noticed Jake's stare, and simply explained that Eywa was their command prompt, allowing them to change settings in the simulation program. Jake growled again, this time slamming his arm onto the desk, causing Robert to jump up in fright.
"Take me to Neytiri, this is a load of bullshit, I want to see my mate." He demanded, his voice hoarse and raspy.
Robert nodded his head and typed into the Eywa protocol.
'show Neytiri /subject jake sully'
On the press of a button Neytiri appeared on the screen, she was flying her ikran, and then Jake noticed that this was taken from his point of view, this was recorded from his brain…. Jake's heart sank as he realized… Could Pandora just have been one big simulation?