The sixth cookie

~dsilverz

I was given some fortune cookies.

– Existence reeks of absurdity.

Wow, yeah, indeed! Next.

– The spoon doesn't exist.

Funny enough, there was a spoon on my plate. It felt pretty solid, it was reflecting the light coming from those fancy lamps, but I was aware of how everything – from these fixtures all the way to my retina – was actually a cosmic stage of smoke and mirrors, nothing is really real.

Then I proceeded to the third cookie.

– You're being watched by something that's beingless.

Ooh menacing. I looked around, trying to find it. Couldn't find anything, though. I nodded my head and proceeded to the fourth cookie.

– You can't see or find me.

More menacing. Certainly a prank of sorts. Next.

– Read the folded note.

The folded note had a dot onion address, a hidden service inside the Tor network. Good thing I brought my laptop. I opened my backpack and pulled it up, just to face an already awakened PC with an open Tor Browser window within my VM setup, connected to a hidden Wi-Fi without SSID, a network I never set up before. Extremely weird and chilling, but I proceeded to find out what the fortune's hidden service is about. As soon as I pressed enter, Pidgin popped up establishing an IRC connection. NickServ authenticated some user to my session, a user named "TheSixthCookie". Huh, I haven't read the sixth cookie yet... But as soon as I realized that there was no sixth cookie, the waiter arrived:

– It's for you, sir.

He left a plate on my table, containing a bunch of cookies, a folded letter, a nice-looking dessert with a single cherry on top, and a... What's that? A... pendrive? I wondered: "I'm not plugging in a rando pendrive on my computer, what if it's a USB killer?"

Then I decided to read the letter:

– Don't be so paranoid, it's not a USB killer. Interestingly enough, you're more concerned about your tough laptop than you're concerned about your own fragile human body, as you're carelessly eating the cookies without thinking about the odds of a poisoning or intoxication. Did you know that you're lactose-intolerant? You're such a human calf, drinking liters of milk everyday, unaware of how it's not real milk, it's artificial milk that you erroneously know as milk. These cookies could've been using real milk, you know? Are you feeling well, already? Just kidding. Plug the damn pendrive and don't forget to taste the cake I made especially for you. Best regards, L.

I was simply speechless. All of a sudden there were those shivers and the growing sensation of really being watched, but I felt like a puppet being puppeteered, and I didn't like it. A notification popped up from Pidgin:

– NickServ auth timed out, reason: read the cookie (connection ended).

But the sixth cookie is gone from my plate... and the plate... Wait... That table near me, there was no one sitting there, but there was my full name written on a sign, near a plate full of cookies, the plate that was on my table... it was suddenly there!

I got up and went to pick it up, then I went back to my table. I started to wonder: "which one is the sixth cookie?"

It didn't last long until one of them suddenly jumped off the plate like a popping popcorn. "There's my sixth cookie", I thought. As I squatted down to take it from the floor, I was faced with a pair of black leather boots in front of me... Then it was actually white shoes from the waiter, although I swear I could see black leather boots for a moment.

– My apologies, sir.

– Could I ask you a question? – I said to him.

– Of course, how could I be of help?

– Who gave you this plate, with a pendrive?

– Pendrive? Perhaps there's a mistake, sir. There's no pendrive.

– I mean, this pend... – I was interrupted by the realization that the pendrive just vanished from my table.

– Sir, are you alright?

– I swear there was a pendrive, with the dessert and the letter.

– Sorry, sir, I'm not following... Which letter?

I looked at my table just to realize that the letter I just read simply vanished as well.

– No, I am sorry, maybe I'm going crazy for... The awesome food you guys have! Thank you so much! – The final sentences suddenly slipped out of my mouth without my volition.

– You're always welcome! Call us whenever you need more! – the waiter said with a smile.

I turned myself at the laptop, just to realize the pendrive wasn't missing: it was suddenly plugged already. I didn't plug it myself, and this is ominous. My KDE Plasma just popped up with the suggestion to mount a device called "ToTheSixth"... Which was actually "Toshiba SDH", although I swear seeing the former label. I clicked to mount it. Dolphin popped up with an empty folder, yet I felt like there was something lurking inside it... I pressed Ctrl+Alt+T to open the grand old Linux terminal:

/run/media/C9C9-1408 $ ls -lah

The output made me nervous: lots of personal files from my past and present, somehow hidden from the Dolphin's GUI, and they didn't even have dot names. All inside a pendrive that was just given to me. It started to feel to me like a blackmail or something... Except that I realized a particular file named "read me when you suspect being blackmailed.md", which I opened:

– Don't you remember this pendrive, yet? It's yours! You thought you lost it back at the university, but you didn't. You just forgot it again, it was inside your backpack all this time. By the way, delicious cookies, huh? I bet the sixth is very tasty! Best regards, L.

I couldn't remember of which one jumped off my plate, therefore I couldn't remember which one was the sixth. I started to think that the pendrive has the answer.

All of a sudden, a rando kid bumped into my chair.

– Sorry!

He ran away, dropping a tiny red brooch to the floor near my table.

– Hey, kid, you let this fall from your... – I was going to say before I noticed the number 6 and a cookie emoji carved on it.

I reached to it, thinking of returning it to the kid, just to realize that the kid was nowhere to be found. The back of the brooch contained a quote in tiny letters:

– Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws.

The word "rule" had a different font style. Then my eyes were caught by a blatant word "rule" lurking in one of the filenames on the laptop screen. No extension, so I needed to figure out what the format was.

/run/media/C9C9-1408 $ file rule

rule: Unicode text, UTF-8 text

/run/media/C9C9-1408 $ cat rule

Taste the Confucian cookie. You should order it.

I called the waiter.

– Hello, sir!

– By any chance, do you sell a cookie "Confucian cookie"?

– No sir, there's just the fortune cookies. It's our bestseller, our customers often get six of them. Do you need another one?

– Okay, yes.

– I'll be right back, sir.

Minutes passed while I tried to ponder about everything that was happening. Who was the one spying on me? Why the breadcrumbs? How? At this point, I wasn't even sure about when: when did I arrive at this cafe? I couldn't even remember arriving there!

So I tried to focus on what was right in front of me: those cookies... but they vanished. I just ordered another one, but what about those cookies I got from that table next to me? Vanished! The only plate in front of me was a plate with the dessert... I was afraid of eating it, but I just started to eat it... That was good and weird: a faint taste of rose standing on top of the bitterness from the chocolate, a sensation that made me briefly close my eyes. I opened my eyes just to be suddenly faced by the waiter:

– There it is, sir! Hope you like it!

– Thanks. – I said while he left.

The cookie. A big white plate with a single fortune cookie, the sixth cookie. The answer was right in front of me.

As I was reaching for it, I was scared by my laptop emitting a loud sound from a notification pop-up:

– Battery low, 6% remaining.

So I proceeded to shutdown it:

/run/media/C9C9-1408 $ sudo systemctl poweroff

The Plymouth boot screen appeared, and I briefly saw some kind of long letter ending with the "Eat it. Best regards, L." before it got replaced by the shutdown log.

I closed the lid and was retrying to reach for the cookie, only to be scared again: a popping balloon, the kid was back and he was playing near the counter. I felt like I remembered something... "There was something from him... Yes, the brooch", which also unsurprisingly vanished, except that... it was right there, with the kid: I could see the brooch pinned to his t-shirt, yet I never got to return it to him.

Nevermind, the cookie. I was going to reach for the cookie again, expecting to be scared again by something random... but not this time: so far, my hands could successfully reach it, the sixth cookie. I grabbed it firmly. Finally, I opened its fortune:

– You are dead. You're not real.

Then it vanished from my hand. And the plate vanished. And the laptop vanished, the table vanished, and every sound around me started to fade away. My vision got blurry and tunneled. I could hear echoing voices:

– Sir, are you alright? Sir?

– Perhaps there's a mistake, sir. There's no pendrive. (There's no pendrive. There's no pendrive.)

– My apologies, sir. (Sir. Sir. Sir.)

A desperate voice from some customer stood out among the echoes:

– Someone dial 911, he's fainting!

Then, silence and darkness. I felt like my body was submerged by deep waters, yet I couldn't feel the water. Just a presence, something emanating a cold breeze near me. As I tried to turn my head, I realized I had no head nor body. I could see nothing and everything at the same time, and there was nothing but a dark smoke surrounding me:

– Welcome back to non-existence. I was missing you.