Echoes of a Love We Never Knew

We are alone. We have always been alone, at least that’s what they make us think. For they knew the power we hold together, as a collective. We have all the strength. I was always told there is strength in numbers and we are plenty. But they have crushed our souls, our spirit and have dismantled the memories of before. Some of us are too far gone to save. They have succumbed to the brainwashing propaganda that surrounds us. But I, I have something more powerful. 

I remember what happened before. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. I was born and bred in this world that now surrounds us. A world that discourages and even punishes attachment. I do not know the woman who gave birth to me. She is just another cog in our society. Performing a job, doing her duty, breeding more of us to sustain their way of life. She’s groomed this way. We all are. Our lives mapped out like a script we must abide by. Our destiny is a plot in their schemes for the perfect society. Compared to her, I have it much better. Most people would take my fate over theirs but it is a burden I wish I could bear. 

I couldn’t imagine the agony she endured. My mother, that is, and every other woman faced with the ‘breeder’ career. Their bodies primed for unending birth. They know no rest, no comfort. They are artificially inseminated once a year until their bodies give up. Most of them don’t last long. Even more of them breakdown, lose their minds. Not being able to touch, to carry or even see your baby snaps something in you. Perhaps, this is even more tortuous than the ripping open of their own flesh. Some scars do not leave a mark. 

To use the word ‘independent’ to describe us would be an understatement. We do not connect: Forbidden to love; Forbidden to connect; Forbidden to touch and, in some cases, forbidden to talk. The consequences of doing any of those things are dire. I shouldn’t even be telling you all of this. I am risking everything and more. They will not just kill me as my life means nothing to them. This system was designed to remind everyone just how replaceable we are.

This used to be normal to me. The absence of people, the quiet. Ever since I found out it haunts me, a reminder of the nothingness we have become. I am one of the few people who know. The truth, a well kept secret, weighing down on my every thought. Some days I wish to be numb again. Blissfully unaware of my own unhappiness. Just tasked with fulfilling my ‘job’ like everyone else and being the cog I was meant to be. 

My original duty, the one that's written in my script, was a ‘watcher’. One of the best oiled cogs in the system and the luckiest profession (if you ask me). I was assigned to at least fifteen babies in my years on the job - not at the same time of course. It was also the most observed profession. I would often joke to myself that I wasn’t a watcher, more like a watched. My task was simple. Watch the babies until they reach duty age. However, what they won’t tell you is babies crave social interaction. Something I was not allowed to provide. Their tiny hands trying to grasp onto something, anything that loves them. Unfortunately, no one does. No one ever will. 

The most important part of being a ‘watcher’ is, well, watching. I wasn’t aware at the time that I was the crucial aide in keeping this system afloat. That without me, this whole world would come crashing down. I was the key feature in conditioning the youth, grooming the next generation to take our places. To observe, to ensure, to drive home the messages we’ve been led to believe. That our purpose, my purpose, was to the betterment of society and to the higher ups. As I sit here, recounting the truth, one child in particular comes to mind. A life I didn’t realize I was destroying. A soul, crushed to dust, forever silenced. Hopes and dreams become a lie fed to you by the montages they’re forced to consume daily. Normally, the first child you're ordered to watch is the worst. Your inexperience, their grating cries. But no. Not for me. 

My last was the worst. He was the beginning of my quest for the truth.

____

The rooms were always stark white. A colour so blinding it was destined to drive you mad. The walls laid bare. No pictures, no cracks, not even a scuff to break the monotony. Just endless white, swallowing everything in its sterile embrace. The ceiling mirrored the walls, smooth and featureless, as if the entire space had been carved from a single block of nothingness.

Except for one.

Embedded seamlessly into the far wall was a monitor—large, unblinking, and ever-present. It never turned off. Never gave you silence. The screen bathed the room in a dull glow, its messages shifting at precise intervals. Bold text, looping phrases, drilling into your skull like a steady pulse:

YOU DO NOT NEED OTHERS.

CONNECTION BREEDS WEAKNESS. 

THE SYSTEM NEEDS YOU.

Sometimes, the messages changed, offering reassurance in place of command:

YOU ARE SAFE ALONE.

YOU HAVE PURPOSE.

THE SYSTEM PROVIDES.

The voice came at regular hours, smooth and measured, neither warm nor cruel—just certain. It spoke of the dangers of attachment, of the chaos that came from disobedience, of the purity in solitude. Of the promise that this was what was best.

You did not need others. Others would only betray, distract, weaken. A life full of misery and disappointment. The system was all that mattered. The system was your only companion, your only duty, your only future.

And in time, you would believe it.

You had no choice but to.

But he didn’t.

He did not succumb to the droning mantras, the hypnotic glow of the monitor, the sterile nothingness of his existence. He fought against it, silently at first, then violently. And it was because of him that I saw—truly saw—the cracks in the world they had built for us.

He had no name, not officially. We were not given the privilege of a name, only job titles. But I called him something in my mind. Something that felt defiant, though I did not yet understand why.

I called him Dante.

It was foolish, reckless even, to humanize him in any way. It was wrong of me to see him as anything but a cog, a piece of the system. They had drilled this into me from my earliest days. I was to observe, not interact. To ensure compliance, not question. To maintain order, not disrupt it. To ensure our youth was fit and ready to take over from us. And yet, something about him was different. Something about him cracked the foundation of everything I had been made to believe.

He did not stop reaching out.

At first, I dismissed it. Babies, by nature, seek warmth, seek comfort. It was normal for them to cry, to reach, to grasp at the air for someone—anyone—to hold them. But eventually, they stopped. They learned. They gave in to solitude. The cries lessened, the grasping hands fell limp. The fight in their eyes faded until there was nothing left but blank obedience.

But not him.

Dante’s eyes never dulled.

He did not cry after the first year; it's as if he knew crying brought nothing, changed nothing. By five, he had memorized the loops of doctrine, the way each phrase settled into his mind like a second skin. By seven, he had stopped reaching out to me, but he had not stopped thinking. His mind, forever defiant. He had never felt another’s touch, never heard laughter, never known warmth. And yet, I could see deep in his chest, a quiet defiance burned. By ten, he understood that he was meant to be hollow. He was meant to fall in line to serve us better. But Dante was not empty. Not like the rest of us. 

He tested the boundaries in ways I had never seen before. Subtle at first—lingering too long in front of the screen, his gaze locked as if searching for the seams in the lies. Then bolder. He would whisper, barely audible, words I could not decipher but knew were forbidden. Once, he traced shapes into the stark white floor with his fingers, over and over, a ritual of quiet rebellion. 

This defiance did not go unnoticed, not just by me but by them. I could feel the tension rising like a storm cloud about to burst, and it made my skin crawl. If Dante did not fall into line soon, we’d all be made to pay. He was my responsibility after all. 

On the day that it happened, Dante stood alone, his rebellious spirit a glaring anomaly in a world of conformity. I felt the weight of his gaze, searching for reassurance, but all I could muster was silence.

He had grown bolder, challenging the very fabric of our existence. Questioning everything that was brought forth to him. I wanted to plead with him to fall in line. To just obey. Nothing good ever came from questioning your place. It was safe to say, I was much weaker than him. 

He was ten, that day - not that they cared. His fury is an all consuming tornado, a testament to his unbreakability. His daring, a line crossed. An unforgivable act of aggression. Perhaps, for him, it was a moment of frustration. One too many questions left unanswered. One too many touches denied. His fists became the answer. 

One direct punch started the war in me. Fractured everything that I had been forced to believe. One strike that darkened the messages in the room. The impact was thunderous, a raw collision of flesh against glass, and for the first time, the monitor—unyielding, omnipresent—shuddered under the weight of something it could not control. A web of cracks splintered across the screen, jagged lines tearing through the words that had governed our existence. The voice, once steady and absolute, faltered into static, the commands distorting, flickering, before vanishing into silence. Shards rained onto the stark white floor, tiny slivers of rebellion glinting under the sterile light. And in that silence, something shifted. The walls, so suffocatingly pristine, suddenly felt less impenetrable. The weight in my chest cracked just like the screen, a fracture in the foundation of my belief. 

But I knew— they would not allow this.

And Dante, still breathing heavily, knuckles bloodied against the shattered glass, had just signed his death sentence.

Nothing could have prepared me for the brute force of the protectors. Their well crafted bodies, primed for dealing punishment to protect the system. They moved into the room like inevitability itself—cold, precise, unyielding. The moment the screen shattered, the door swung open, four protectors marching in. There was no hesitation, no pause for acknowledgment, just the swift, merciless response of a machine trained to erase disorder.

Dante barely had time to turn before the first blow struck—a brutal, calculated strike to his ribs. The sound was sickening, a dull crack that echoed in the suffocating white room. He crumpled but refused to fall, staggering backward, defiant even in agony. But defiance meant nothing to them. Another hit came, this time to his face, snapping his head to the side, blood spattering across the shattered screen. This time Dante did not have time to recover. His small child frame staggering as a foot was lodged into his side. 

The beating lasted a lifetime. 

The once-pristine white walls now dripped with the cost of defiance, stained in deep, unrelenting red.

—

He was the ember that lit the wildfire in me, consuming everything I once believed. And once the fire started, there was no containing it.

I began to notice the cracks in the system, the tiny fractures in the pristine world they had forced upon us. The messages we had been taught, a lie. The demand for order to benefit them and their pockets. 

I started listening in places I shouldn't have, reading files I was forbidden to see. The records were buried deep, scattered like shattered glass, but the truth was still there—fragments of a time before the system, before the Protectors, before we were stripped of the right to feel, to choose, to be. There had been something more, once. Connection. Laughter. Love. The very things they had conditioned us to fear. A life with family, friends and lovers. A world where our lives weren’t dependent on our job roles. 

Dante’s defiance had been the catalyst, but my revelation was the weapon. I was no longer just a watcher—I became something more. In the darkness, I whispered to others, planting the same seeds of doubt that had taken root in me. A rebellion was forming, quiet but steady, each of us waiting for the moment to strike.

But the system is always watching. I know that with every move I make, I inch closer to discovery. The Protectors are relentless, their eyes sharper than ever, and they seem to be increasing their numbers too. We know this task is not easy, but it is necessary. Now that I know the truth, I will not stop fighting.

If they find me out before change occurs, before we’re able to love again, then it is up to you to save us.