Harmony

She had been dealing with tired eyes and blue highs for hours until, finally, she bypassed the coding and found herself applying the dome to her own.  It strapped beneath her chin and pressed to her skull.  The surface was cold yet it was bliss, knowing what the potential was.

Her eyes squinted at a lifeless screen.  Unnamed was squatted in bold letters at the top of the page.  Beneath that, there were three buttons: Go, Stop, and Menu.  Her finger hit the first option before she put her phone down and sat back to let the app work its magic.

She endured for minutes, trying to ignore the discomfort of emotions being drawn out from her body.  There would be spikes of fury and overwhelming sorrow, impatience and shame.  There would be intrusive thoughts encouraging her to cause pain to something, telling her to rip all of her work to shreds, to do something evil.  But she remained in that chair while the technology stripped her of her negativity.

Ten minutes had passed and she rose to her feet feeling revived.  There was a refreshing sensation running through her body.  Pure joy.

She pulled back the cabinet door and instantly reached for the apples instead of the chips.  Her teeth bit through the skin of the fruit and for a moment, she paused, lingering on each bite.  Pure delight.

As the sky fell dark and the moon overtook the horizon, she laid herself down and found herself falling to sleep almost instantly on command.  It was the first night’s sleep she’d enjoyed in years with no disturbance and no terrors.

When her eyes fluttered open, she felt invigorated.  She could run a marathon or cure a disease.  There was no stopping her when all she felt was this power and no sense of wrong.

She lifted her head to find a blue hue echoing through the room.  An error code.

Ecstasy continued to rush through her body as she eased herself to the side of the bed and approached the computer.  Her head felt clear and ready to focus on the issue.  Her eyes scanned the words:

“Error 0626 Existence”.

Those digits lined up perfectly with those on her identification card.

All she felt was peace as she tried to type up a solution for the strange, unknown error code.  Despite her best efforts, however, there was no progress and she could not access anything but this blue page on her screen.

Her mind could not wrap itself around this issue and find a resolution.  So instead, she reminded herself that a break will reset her mind and thus, she walked off to read a book.

Thirty minutes later, she returned to her dark bedroom and found a new phrase upon her screen.

“You Did This To Me”.

The terror of the situation was numbed by the extreme contentedness she constantly felt.  And as she stared at the screen, she could see her reflection, a beautiful woman with a dark shadow.  Something hidden in the foreground, something lurking in the background.

Thirty minutes passed and another code had made a reveal on the surface of her computer.  “I Can’t Take This Anymore”.  She had been staring at the screen, completely lost yet feeling no irritation as she reasoned that there was no issue to be solved.

The reflection of herself was changing.  It was scowling.  It had rushing rivers from her red-tinted eyes and a face contorted with rage.

“Put On The Helmet”.  A new message from someone who wasn’t the girl sat there nor the girl who originally invented the device.

She couldn’t break this smile from her face nor could she run from this horror.  She sat there instead, unfazed, simply staring as this image morphed and broke out into its own reality, standing up and reaching for something to her right.

It was the emotion-removal helmet.

“Don’t do that.”  Harmony said, cocking her head sweetly at the screen.

“You deserve to finally feel the suffering that I feel!”  Her reflection spat before putting the helmet on with a huff.

“I don’t deserve that.”  The inventor sounded like a robot, painfully calm as she watched herself take over.  It was like she was gritting her teeth; she wanted to do so much but her emotions only allowed so little.

“Yes you do.  You ruined my life and it’s my turn to ruin your’s.”  The woman in the screen replied before hitting a button on her phone.

It was a mere zap at first.  A sting of reality that, like venom, coursed through her veins rapidly, infecting every corner of her flesh and bone.

Harmony broke out into screams of terror.  Her skin was covered in the pinprick of goosebumps, terrified by something unseen.  Her tongue was tied and she had a million things she needed to yell out but found herself gagging on her own despair as tears flooded; she tugged on her hair and collapsed to the ground, backing herself into a corner.

“I hate you!”  She hit herself in the head with her fist.  “I hate you!”  She repeated, looking up to a photo of an older couple, sweet smiles sent from serene scenes.  Her fist connected with the glass of the frame before she pushed herself to her feet.  One good look was all she needed to justify attacking her work next.

Like a sputtering speed-wagon, she stumbled over to her desk and let all of her belongings rain onto the floor.  Pencils pattered, screws spread, and her lucky rubber duck lucked out, bouncing off the carpet before getting stomped on in all it’s frustratingly plastic glory.

Her head spun off her neck as she saw the helmet.  That hell-ridden helmet.  There was no rage like that which she felt in that moment.

All it took was one swift movement.  Grab the hammer from off the floor and swing it down.  It was easily broken but that wasn’t where she stopped.  She smashed it again and again, watching the metal melt beneath her madness.  It felt like there was no end in sight to this rampage she was on.

Then, electricity rushed through the sockets and overloaded, sending sparks soaring through the air before everything shut off.  The room was pitch black as the dust settled and she felt herself reset.

She wasn’t guilty nor was she exuberant.  It was a delicate balance, even in this moment of what felt like anguish.

She drew back the curtains to let the light leap in and take over the sad scene that had played out mere moments before.  There was a bitterness to the broken bits and pieces of her months worth of work.  There was no more pure pleasure.  There was pain, too.  Perhaps that was a good thing.

She pulled back the cabinet door and reluctantly reached for the apples instead of the chips.  Her bones ripped through the flesh of the fruit and for a moment, she paused, lingering on each bite.  Pure delight.