What if Neo Never Took The Red Pill? A Matrix Fanfiction

Original movie subway poster

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"Remember, I can only offer you the truth... Nothing more."

Neo paused as he reached for the red capsule lying in the right palm of the speaker's hand, staring at his own reflection in the man's weird dark glasses. Morpheus was a legend, and as the man himself had said, Neo had spent the better part of his adult life searching for him. For the truth. Now, it was one strange pill away from his grasp.

But did he really want it? For a long time he had though he did, and the events of the past few days had shown him that he really was on to something. There really was a secret. He just hadn't realized how dangerous it was. Was that how his life would be from now on if he took the pill? Morpheus had said he could only be shown the truth about the Matrix and not told. DId he really want to see?

Slowly, delibrately, he moved his outstreched hand to the man's open left palm on which another pill lay, this time a blue one. The man's face, composed so far, twitched ever slightly.

"Remember also," he said. "Once you take a pill, there is no going back."

Neo paused again. "And this one," he asked. "I won't remember anything?"

"You will remember some, but not others. And you will never forget the Matrix, that splinter at the back of your mind. But it is ultimately your choice. I can only show you the door. You have to open it."

Neo nodded, and made up his mind. His hand closed over the blue pill. "I'm sorry, sir. I want to know about the Matrix. But after the past few days... heck, I don't even know how many ahve past or if it's the same day! After all that, I really just want to wake up and see things back as they were before. I need the world to make sense again."

And with that, he threw the pill in his mouth, grabbed the glass of water on the small table between them, and washed it down.

Immediately, everything became woozy. Things became more dreamlike than before. he blinked, and Morpheus' face swam before him.

"I'm more disappointed than you'll ever know," the man said, his voice fading in and out. Behind his words, a strange, shrill beeping started. "But perhaps you are not the one I believed you were. Perhaps, I was wrong."

The beeping reached alarming levels and Neo bolted up from his bed. His hand snapped out and hit his alarm clock blaring out the noise that had interrupted his dream. Again.

He sat up, angry and confused. he couldn't remember ever going to bed. The last time he woke, had that a dream too? He was tired of this happening. What was real and what was not? He tried to sort through the images flying around his head, but the only one he could grasp was being assaulted by the feds in his office. And he had the strangest sensation of a face accompanied by an overwhelming sense of trust...

He shook his head and got up. He had no time for this. If he didn't hurry, he would be late for work again and his Boss had made it clear that the next time that happened would be the last. Or had that been part of the dream? Regardless, he had to move.

However, he had barely taken a step when his door, 3 inches of Iron, blew in.

"What...?!" He gasped.

In walked the three federal agents who had come for him earlier in their impeccable suits, eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Apparently that part was not a dream.

"Hello, Mr. Anderson," the one in the lead said. Neo's heart thumped unevenly at the words. The man's voice held no threat, but it was so calm it was scary. And he carried an unmistakeable aura of menace.

"We heard your conversation with Morpheus," he continued. "Seems we were mistaken about you."

"Conversation with Morpheus? What are you talking about?" Neo asked. That wasn't a part of his dream or any reality.

"But of course, they wiped your memory of them. Nothing to help us find them. This makes you of no use whatsoever to us. But Morpheus said you are important to them... and anything important to Morpheus is a threat to us."

Instinctively, Neo attempted to run, but he couldn't move. He looked down at his legs and almost collapsed. Instead of feet, his ankles were firmly fused to the concrete ground in such a way that he diddn't know where one ended and the other began.

"What the..? How is this possible?" he shrieked.

But, calm as ever, the agents merely raised their sidearms in unison.

"Goodbye, Mr Anderson." The one in the lead said again.

There was a sound. A brief flash of pain.

And then, there was nothing.

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The iconic trilogy 'The Matrix' was created and directed by The Wachowski Brothers and stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving

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