Amias

The third world war was nothing like the ones prior. There were no soldiers ripping each other apart in the name of patriotism, in defense of a meaningless flag. Oh no. The third world war was a whole other story, a cyber kind. The world-wide internet, everyone’s bestfriend-turned-enemy was what killed two-thirds of the human population.

It all started with anonymous commenters, ruthless, malicious, faceless people. The receivers of those harsh words sometimes didn’t make it through the struggle and ended their lives. After some time, appeared ‘the annihilation‘ program. No one knew what the source was. No one knew who was behind it and how they had such information or budget.

The annihilation program was a project of some sort. You’d be scrolling around on your smartphone, on your computer, or watching TV. It would pop up, showing you a person you felt a certain way about. Could be love, hate, envy, adoration. But it was always a person you had bittersweet feelings toward, and the ones receiving the message were almost always desperate in a way. The annihilation program, with the right amount of manipulation and brainwashing, made you so angry that you just had to, at the very least, beat the targeted person up to a pulp.

The governments did everything in their power, but it appeared the damned virus spreading online faster than wildfire, just couldn’t be pinpointed and stopped. The cyber battle continued for two long years. And that was how two-thirds of the human population got annihilated.

Even the richest and the most powerful individuals weren’t safe and so, as a last resort, they turned to a previously avoided offer from an apathetic scientist. An antidote to end the brutal chaos, called ‘The feeling annihilation program’. A vaccine injected annually, to turn all emotions off in the brain, therefore the annihilation program could no longer tickle people’s nerves. Poetic really, if you looked at it from twisted artistic perspectives.

“Feelings have caused wars, death, damaged mental health and ruined families. Human survival lies in the hands of this vaccine. We are afraid there is no other way.” And people were far too exhausted and panic-stricken to put up any sort of fight anymore whatsoever.

Year 2170, one hundred and fifty years after the launch of ‘The feeling annihilation vaccine’. Nothing was the way it once was anymore. People would all wake up at the same time every morning, 6 A.M. sharp. No grumpiness due to the early hour because that, too, was an emotion that no longer existed in the humans’ textbook. An hour of workout, a quick shower, then headed to work. No conversations were ever held, people barely even talked anymore, and when they did, their voices sounded too hoarse. At 5 P.M. everyone would head back home. A light dinner, the news at 8 P.M. And then sleep at 9. There were no longer any occasions, no birthdays, no anniversaries, no nothing. Just pure mechanical existence, a poor excuse of what once was called ‘living’.

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On February 14th, year 2171, a boy was born. Nothing extraordinary, just another baby produced via artificially mixed eggs and sperm in a lab, injected in a woman’s womb whose job was pregnancy. No emotions involved in this process either. They labeled him Amias Valentino. The kid was raised in a facility, vaccinated each year, secure from the once vicious virus that still existed online but was no longer a threat. He grew up to be a good apathetic member of society, doing his part to move forward ‘life’.

June 28th, 2199. It was just another day at the office. Amias, just like his co-workers, had his eyes glued to the screen, typing away at the speed of light. Until, of course, he jumped out of his skin when something fell to the floor and the smashing sound echoed in the spacious room. His heart was beating fast against his chest at the jump-scare when he craned his neck, trying to find the source. Everyone else merely continued doing their job, not giving it a second thought.

There, not far from him to his right, was standing a man he had never seen before. He was tall. Very very tall. Broad shoulders, short brown hair slicked back and his long stubble beard satisfyingly neat, must have trimmed it just this morning. The sun was shining right at him through the glass walls of the office and it reflected on his big brown eyes, making it look as though honey drops were dancing around in the pools of his irises.

Amias watched as the man crouched down, his freshly ironed suit getting stretched and wrinkled over his back, biceps and around his thighs, while he picked up the scattered glass shards with a straight face. A few people passed him by, not looking his way. Amias witnessed one shard tearing through the man’s skin, a few tiny drops of blood running down his finger, and then turned in his chair as the man walked toward the kitchen until he was out of his eyesight. With the same flat expression on his face as the latter’s, he sat properly behind his desk, resuming work. However, he couldn’t even type the sentence until the end as he thought back to what had just happened. His heart had beat so fast and loud in his ears unlike ever before. He put his hand over his chest, closing his eyes, and tried so hard to pick up the sound of the pumping blood again. But it was no longer echoing in his head. So he simply went back to work.

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He saw the man again, the next day and the days after. He couldn’t help it. Whenever he’d walk inside the area Amias worked at, his eyes would automatically follow his every move until he was gone. He learned his name was David when their boss called after him on a Tuesday. Amias thought the name suited him pretty well.

It was a Saturday evening, and he was fresh out of the shower after another day of work. Sitting on the sofa with the towel on his wet hair, he turned on the TV. They had only one channel and it would only ever show the news at 8 P.M. After an hour, the screen would turn black.

The robot voice was informing about the storm to come from the northeast. Amias thought little of it and took a big bite from the apple in his hand, just like every other human on the planet would be doing at this hour in their time zone.

But this time, something out of order happened.

As he finished his apple, suddenly a message popped on the screen. A picture of the man he had in his head for the past two weeks. He blinked, waiting to see if David had done anything worthy of being announced in the news, but as the minutes ticked by, nothing happened. The robot wasn’t talking anymore. Amias took the remote and turned off the TV. Then turned it on again, and the picture was no longer there. He continued listening to the news until the clock showed 9 and the screen turned black.

The next day it happened again. But this time the picture popped on the screen of his computer in the office. David was wearing a dark brown suit. Amias had never seen him in it before.

The doors to the elevator opened and the tall man walked in. Wearing a dark brown suit. Amias, for the first time in his life, didn’t understand what was going on. Why was this happening? Still, he didn’t give it much thought and went back to work.

The same night, the message came again on his TV. But this time it was a video. It showed David in his own apartment, looking exactly like Amias’s place did. The man was munching on his apple, then stood up, walked to his bathroom, brushed his teeth, dried his face with the towel, walked to his bedroom, took off his shirt and sweatpants and laid on his bed, falling asleep shortly after. Amias couldn’t believe his eyes when the TV screen went black and he saw the clock showing 9:30. He had never been up so late before!

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Days went by and the videos kept appearing on his screen everywhere. During the day at his work, during his way to and back from work on the screen of his glasses where originally it should’ve shown him the new items humans would soon get and of course on the TV in his apartment. He was basically watching David go about his life every day and on September 1st, when the screen finally turned off after a long period of him just sitting and watching the man sleep, he saw something strange. Through his reflection on the dark screen, he noticed his lips were in a very odd shape. Like the corners were being lifted by invisible strings. His cheeks hurt.

He looked to his left, on the small data screen on his wall that showed his statistics. He was a little young to die, but maybe he was one of those who didn’t get to live long. Humming to himself, he got up from the sofa and decided to go to bed. It was 11 P.M.

From September 5th, the message started communicating with him. At first, it was just texts or a voice talking about David. But it started getting a little intriguing as days went by.

Today David was called to the sperm donation lab.

And the footage showed the man laying on the bed, naked from his hips down. Amias had not yet been called to the lab, so he didn’t know about the process. But his stomach turned, and he felt his right eye twitch as a nurse put him out by gas, another nurse put something on his private part and then… Amias had to look away.

Why? Don’t you like seeing him naked? You’ve already watched him shower multiple times.

Amias looked back at the screen. David was still out cold, but the device attached to him kept working. He felt his stomach pulsate again and he could only make it in time to the bathroom as he puked heavily.

Aren’t you jealous? Someone else gets to watch him all naked up close. But oh well. David doesn’t even look your way. He doesn’t even know you exist in that office. You’re nothing to him.

Amias sat there panting roughly, his head was throbbing painfully, and he had an awful taste in his mouth. Those words hurt. He had watched David for more than a month now. He had followed him with his eyes everywhere in hopes that once, only once, the man would look his way and lock eyes with him. But he never did. The voice was right. And it made Amias so terribly sad. When he stood up to wash his face, he saw wet trails starting from his eyes down his cheeks and witnessed the drops falling down from his jawline. Was he really dying? Just what the hell was happening to him? And then he felt it again. The rapid, violent thumping of his heart inside his chest.

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The next day he reserved an appointment with his assigned doctor. They took various tests from him, but everything was normal. He had so many questions in his head when the doctor told him he wasn’t dying. Then what were all those symptoms he’d been having?

On his way back, seeing how fresh the air was, he decided to take a walk instead of using public transportation. Something he had never done before and something he had never seen anyone do either. His thoughts were all directed to David, thinking whether he was okay after the horrible thing they had done to him just hours back. Whether he had gone to work today like nothing had happened. Whether he had visited their office. Amias’s heart hurt at the possibility of the man having walked in and looking in the direction of his desk at last but finding it empty. He hoped that hadn’t happened, that he hadn’t missed the only opportunity of ever looking straight into those honey-brown eyes.

Deep in his thoughts, he wasn’t even aware of the street he was walking into. It was only when his foot hit a stone and he stumbled that he finally came back to reality. He was inside the restricted area. Biting his lip, he quickly inspected his surroundings. The buildings were all in ruins, a remnant of the third world war they had studied about in history at school. No one ever came here anymore as it was strictly against the law. And no one ever disobeyed the law.

Looking at his watch, he saw it was 1 P.M. He still had a lot of time before the city would lock down, so he decided to have a look around now that he was there.

As he walked from one building to another, he found so many weird objects he had never seen before. Amias felt bubbly inside his chest while he examined every new thing his eyes caught. Suddenly he noticed the sun was setting. He quickly took the book he had just found and dashed out of the area.

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The message didn’t pop up that night. As though wanting to add to his already troubled heart and torture him. He wanted to see David.

“Hey, Show David.” He demanded the black screen after the news ended. Nothing happened. So he decided to get himself distracted with the book he found.

The author of the book had used way too many adjectives Amias didn’t know the meaning of. He had to look them up, but even then he had a hard time understanding what it was about. Excited, happy, sad, aroused, disappointed, hopeful, confused, scared, loved… Love.

They were all under the category of ‘Emotions’. But… what were emotions in the first place? He didn’t know, so he looked it up on the web as well. ‘A study on human emotions’ was the first thing that came up. He downloaded the file, and he didn’t even notice how he spent the entire night reading the definition of one feeling after another. Amias didn’t even go to work for the next ten days and just kept reading. By the eleventh day, he had memorized every last adjective, every last feeling, and knew what he felt for David was called love. Now that he knew emotions, he started to read the book he had found in the restricted area from the start again.

With the book finished and him having understood the story at last, Amias decided to go back to work. The message hadn’t popped up all these days, hadn’t shown David to him and he ‘missed’ him ‘dearly’.

He saw the man entering the building. Letting his lips stretch in a giant ‘smile’, Amias ran after him.

“David!” He called, grabbing the other’s arm and stopping him from entering the elevator.

David turned around, blank expression and void eyes looking at Amias. He wondered, he himself must’ve looked just as dead until a couple of months back!

“Can we talk?” He said, wanting to make the robot-like human in front of him walk with him willingly to a quiet place.

“I have to go to work.” The latter said in a monotone, turned around and left. Left Amias standing there, heartbroken.

The voice of the message rang in his ear.

He thinks nothing of you. If he had feelings, he would even hate you.

Amias bit on his lip to prevent the tears as he prepared himself for a day of work.

He spent five days bedridden, shedding tears as he watched David on his TV screen. Hearing him talk with other people, however shortly. He stopped going to work altogether after he was ignored by the man several times, his attempts at trying to simply talk all getting shut down by slapdash declines. And all throughout this period, the voice kept hissing in his ear, reminding him how David would never be with him the way he wanted. How he would never sit at the same table with him for lunch. The voice kept murmuring such cruel things to him every day until Amias broke.

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He had everything needed for his plan. Ropes, sedatives, wine, pretty knives, and other essentials. If David didn’t want to be with him willingly, then he would have no other choice but to take matters at hand.

The message had given him the man’s address. So, with one last look in the mirror, which revealed just how much weight he had lost, he left his apartment.

It was 2 A.M. when he arrived. Each human’s apartment code was the person’s birth date, and the message had given him that information as well.

David was fast asleep in his bedroom. Dead to the world.

Soon he will be dead for real and you will no longer be in pain.

Amias’s stomach turned, and he quickly took the napkin and the sedative out of his bag. Walking next to the bed, he frowned, his jaw clenched, as he bent down and pressed the cloth over David’s nose and mouth.

“You made me do this.” He whispered, staring at the unconscious man up close for the first time. “Feelings suck. You suck, too.” Amias stood back up and looked away, throwing the napkin on the bed before turning around and leaving the room. David would never show up to work and be with all those people again.