COTE: The Best Version of Me

Chapter 0.1 - Beautiful Soldier

                                                         𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖊𝖘𝖙 𝖁𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝕸𝖊

"That's all for today. Return to your room." The voice carried neither impatience nor kindness, just a sense of duty.

I remained motionless for a few seconds, not out of hesitation, but out of habit. Waiting for visual confirmation was always safer than reacting to the first verbal instruction. Three men in white coats were watching me from the other side of the glass partition. None of them showed any apparent tiredness, irritation or interest.

I nodded. The door opened with the same controlled sound as always. I walked down the overly lit hallway, where each step echoed as if the entire building needed to register my existence. No decoration. No windows open to the outside. Just impeccable surfaces and a white so dominant it seemed to try to erase any unnecessary thought.

The door slammed shut behind me with a dry, definitive click that didn't feel like imprisonment because there had never been the illusion of freedom. My room was a logical extension of everything else. There was no color, texture or irregularity. It's just white. An absolute, continuous white, almost aggressive in its purity.

I went inside and sat on the floor, leaning my back against the wall. The surface was cold, but that didn't bother me at all.

Ignoring the uncomfortable feeling in my back, I closed my eyes while waiting for time to pass.

Silence.

I performed tasks with excellence because that was what was expected. I surpassed limits because limits were treated as temporary failures. I withstood pressure because pressure was constant. My growth wasn't a choice, it was an expected outcome.

And yet, at some point in the process, a curious thought invaded my mind.

I have no motivations or goals.

There was nothing I wanted to achieve on my own initiative. No ambition that arose from within rather than from without. There was no genuine curiosity about the world beyond these walls. There were no dreams. no fantasies and no desire for rebellion.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing was the absence of rebellion. Young people generally tend to resist. To question. To show frustration when deprived of something. I never felt that urgency. Not because I was strong. Not because I was too disciplined.

But because, in order to resist, one must believe that there is something to defend within oneself. I didn't know if there was.

But is that really true?

The question lingers in my mind. Perhaps it's just a sum of correct answers. A set of perfected reflexes. A body trained to react with millimeter precision. If all of this is preparation for a future, what is the nature of that future? 

Do I even have a future? 

If tomorrow they decide I'm no longer needed, that another 'model' has produced marginally superior results, what will remain of me besides the archived reports?

Well, that doesn't matter.

Over time, I learned not to associate it with suffering. Suffering is an emotional response. And emotional responses were noise. I know how to define empathy. I can describe it with academic precision. But that doesn't mean I understand the genuine impulse behind those actions.

Sometimes I wonder if there's something inside me. But it's not that I feel sadness. Sadness implies loss. I've never had anything to lose.

I opened my eyes and stared at the wall in front of me. The absolute white reflected my image almost imperceptibly, but the soft reflection of the light on the polished floor revealed my outline. Perhaps this is the closest thing to a personal truth.