GOD GAME

What number did I roll?

I woke to another Monday morning, to another painful gorging, and another day at school. There has to be something more to life than this. I toyed with my pencil as the AI lectured more about the history of Wikipedia and how it caused false information to be spread through the masses and how making things called "memes" caused wars of mass proportion against the people who believed everything Wikipedia said. It lasted until those people who wrote the false information on wikipedia told those believers it was fake, tortured for false truth, and died that those wikipedia believers began to think that those meme guys are sorta cool. This was idea was quickly discarded, however, when another meme went out that poked at the Wikipedia believers' knowledge. In the middle of the lecture I turned my head to the back of the room, looking at the people behind me. Most stared ahead frantically, trying their best to copy down as much information as they could. Others slept and watched the AI, doodling in their notebooks. That's when I fully analyzed the room, I couldn't see its walls. The endless place was filled with people, people, I suddenly realized, that had been in here for years. They had been taught the same lessons every day, but were too far away to see or hear them. I had gotten high enough scores on tests so that I didn't have to worry about staying in a lesson for more than a school week, but these people have stayed in this room for most of their lives. Why do I care... it doesn't... it shouldn't matter to me, right? I felt something vile and heavy form in my stomach. It clawed at my esophagus and attempted to crawl out, pulling the flesh around my neck towards the ground. I tried to get it to let go but it wouldn't. My eyes got moist from the pain, or was it the feeling? The pain or the sym... sympathy? Such a moral was unspoken of in our time; we were to live for ourselves. Only to rely on our parents so that "you don't bring the world down". We were taught to keep our ideas, good and bad to ourselves as not to cause conflict against such things. For someone else's right was bound to be another's wrong. But why? Why, tell someone to let others suffer and not pay attention to it? Just to sulk in your own pains so you "don't bring the world down"?!

"We will be switching you to science AI 00009328. Please wait while your lesson is loaded," the AI buzzed.

Why now?!

I noticed the students around me started glancing at me when the AI dissipated, all of them curious, but not scornful. That when I realized their posture and eyes held no emotion behind them at all. We have been told since birth the best way to learn is to be silent and observe with our eyes, to let emotion escape and focus on the lesson. I looked at all of their hands, smudged with graphite and other note-taking inks. The crevices in their skin held the ink in mechanical lines and ridges, graphite causing the limited light in the room to bounce off their fingers. They look like robots... unliving, unfeeling robots... Fear pierced my heart, the monster that laid undisturbed in my stomach grabbing it in his fists and pulling it down as he tried to escape out of my mouth.

"Urck," I choked.

The science AI appeared before the classroom and the surround students went to writing down notes. I stared in shock for a bit. Fortunately, the stomach troll gave up on his freedom and calmed down. I resumed writing notes with my classmates.