**CURRENTLY A FEATURED STORY**
highest ranking: #11 in Science fiction
❝true happiness is only achieved without freedom.
There is a girl who wakes to a world that she was supposed to protect. Instead, she fights it.
There is a man who is cursed wit...
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To me, there is great shame in surviving.
Some may call me a man of honour, others one of truth, but I believe that after what I have done, I am neither- certainly not a man of candour.
I have lied, I have stolen, and I have cheated the one thing that has redeemed me- the one place and the one people who have allowed me to rise and to be saved from a pit of endless, endless grief. They have saved me, in which they have taught me to evade my grief and shut it out, because I cannot outrun it.
They have saved me, and I have betrayed them. But nobody will know of it, and every night I will ask for forgiveness- because Tetrahmon is my beginning and it will be my end, for I refuse to die for a barbaric cause.
I don't know why I did it- perhaps it was to convince myself that they have a point, that somehow, Keira's death formed a piece of this puzzle of a global, catastrophic wipeout; a serial, instantaneous homicide, but their cause is too little and Tetrahmon's perfection too great. I refuse to end up like them. I won't be a virus, I won't allow my 'systems' to go into overdrive. I will not become her.
Maybe I did it to save myself.
They will have to let me go, now.
▿
Seven Hours Earlier
"Morning, Adamík." We're both early to work, which is, frankly, not a surprise, but although I so desperately want to talk to him, I can't bring myself to so much as look him in the eye.
"Good morning, Vance." He offers me a smile as he sets his chip down on the circular table and sits down, proceeding to set his screen up.
I take my place beside him, mirroring his actions. "Do you think we'll be covering the file again?" I ask cautiously.
"I don't know. Malcolm seemed quite set on not discussing this girl... Although, if you'd like to tell me something about her, since you seemed to know a little bit, feel free to share it with me." Adamík gives me another one of his lopsided grins. "Please don't feel obliged, though," he adds, cutting me off before I've spoken.
I simply nod. "I suppose it'll be back to our ethical decisions on completing the Wall."
"That would certainly be a more pleasant discussion, but after the execution-" He takes in a breath. "I'm not so sure."
What we do end up talking about is the Wall, yes, and the need to eliminate a threat, because something clearly drove NW-60 mad for him to have killed a coworker, a friend.
"Today begins a new age." Malcolm is on a live broadcast as she speaks to us, her porcelain face blown up on every glass building, firm and fragile-looking, although her eyes say otherwise. "Today begins a safer age, in which Tetrahmon will be free of all threats- both inside and outside. However, we will need every individual's cooperation in Project Chrysalis." The irony of the name is the only thing passing through my mind as I try to take notes.
