Work Text:
The monsters huddled around the dim monitor, some pixels dead and others discolored. Finally, a human computer, which needed electricity, was able to be powered on and the content existing on the archaic digital remains was accessible.
The progress bar slowly filled and as a collective breath was held, the last bit finished ... the entire room sighed in relief, then tensed again as it began to load. Human textbooks documenting computer usage called the screen before them the desktop, with icons scattered. A gasp. Eyes filled with wonder as the sight of expanse of blue and puffs sky, above the rolling, lush grassy hills...
They merely stared, entranced. Is this what the surface really looked like?
Time passes.
A strangled cry interrupted the diligent quiet of the laboratory. All eyes on the assistant, the source of the sound. A glance would indicate their attention fixated on the screen, hand over their mouth. A closer look would find tears streaming down their cheeks, swathed in a warm orange glow of the monitor. Several doctors and assistants scurried over to look over their shoulder, faces scrunched up in focus for mere moments, before erupting into astonished, choked emotion similar to the one that called them earlier. A crowd grew behind the monitor, all staring in reverent stupor as they processed the visual before them.
The desktop background had been changed. A black, uneven stripe, with only the smallest smear of yellow peeked over the darkened expanse. Below the black appeared to be water, reflecting the radiance emanating from the candied horizon. Light filtered through clouds as slender fingers, grasping the sky, teasing and kneading the frothy vapors into a prism of fire.
Their red-tinged faces glowed in the flickering luminance a stunning orange and crimson, yet only a mockery of the reality it depicts. This is all they had. All they would ever see. Mere glimpses of a world in which they'd never be, through the flickering window of the computer screen.