Heart/Matter

I hate my body. 

It's all I've ever known. Nothing contrary has been shown to disprove that thought. From the indigo tint of my hair to the crust of my lips, it was all the same. You can't change your nature is what I thought. 

I looked at my reflection in the muddy liquid that I stood in, surrounded by the rubble and darkness of the tunnel. A single light illuminated from above which only permitted a small trace of sight to be had. It gazed back at me. The liquid rippled as I started to move my feet, and I watched myself shift along with it. My reflection, it looked alien. It made my skin crawl. It made me feel like I was wearing a costume, something that didn’t belong to me.

 It was dark, covered in the obscurity of knowledge. There was something there. Something that I hadn't seen in all the years of staring back at this person that I had always thought was me. You can't change your nature, it's not possible. 

"Huhhhhh, man. Man, oh, man. It's been a long day coming. Experience II, Exper-Daiya. It's been a long time coming. You don't even know." Dr. Vex began as he continued to lean against the disfigured wall. His voice echoed throughout the tunnel.

"I chose this path a long time ago, yes. Yes, oh, yes, I did! The path of Experience! We had no idea, and largely still don't, of the repercussions. We know that memory is a lost agent at this point. But that in and of itself isn't very interesting. I mean, look! I'm a scientist! I live for, no! My purpose IS these sorts of things. It was what was lost due to memory. About 700 years ago, there was a collapse."

"A collapse?" Daiya asked.

"Sure, a glitch, a collapse, whatever you want to call it. But it happened, yes! An unfortunate collapse indeed. The structure of the world became light driven. Environments became light. Everything was projected by light. It's not hard to believe, the human eye is conditioned to see light. A retina, if we are technical, only projects light! It's as if we were made to harness this energy! We don't have to self-nutrient, sleep, or recover energy anymore. We're eternal batteries. By focusing all your energy into a single part of your body, you can manipulate it do anything. Light beams, teleportation, astral or light projection, we age slower. Some control their light energy better than others."

Even knowing all of this, it won't change anything. I'm still who I am. I waded out of the water and sat on the edge like the both of them. Daiya looked at me and motioned her hand to come closer. It felt magnetic, the invisible radiation that existed between the two of us. I felt likeness in her, yet she wasn't who I was. She wanted to change. I walked a few steps forward and stopped just shy of her. This was close enough. 

 "When it became known that we could gain these functional abilities, it was standard. Going 1000 years back, every child once they reached the age of 8 years old, the neuron in the brain was removed. Every person went through this procedure. It was taboo to refuse it. And, to a certain respect, I sort of, well, eh, it makes sense. It was genetic progress on our own terms. We wouldn't have to wait millions of years for humans to evolve. We discovered evolution on our own. 700 years ago, Nolan was built and that is the furthest history that is known so far."

"I have a question."

He looked at me, bewildered, but he looked at me. It wasn't a stare or blank face, he simply looked at me. "You have questions now?"

"Why do you remember me?" I don't know what compelled me to ask, but I felt a surge within me. The chills that ran down my back started to dissipate and become warm. I thought of the girl who looked like me, my body double. How she looked so hollow...is there reason that I have to remember such a thing?

"It's a great question." he paused, "I wish I had a complete answer. How? I don't know. Why? It's in large part due to the government. 500 years ago, I, along with 3 other scientists took part in an experiment." He continued.

"I suppose it would be inefficient to have scientists who could never remember anything so one day, thoughts became known to me. It was strange. There was no fog. What I did yesterday, the days before that, the labs, testing, everything. I remembered it all. It was like a string had finally connected all of the loose threads in my mind. Had I been living like that forever? And for how long? Why me? Why was I the one who should be able to remember and others no? Days on end I tried to interact with people in the street, talk to them, ask who they were, nothing. It drove me mad. It was then that I started to work for the government."

Why me?

Why me?

A question that had no answer to me. A question I still couldn't answer. Why did I have to be this way? To feel like a stranger in my own body?

"Did they ever stare at you? The people."

"If so, I didn't notice. I suppose it didn't matter, nope! Not a bit! But it seems to matter to you. Only natural, given your...condition we'll say." he stopped for a second, floated in the air a bit and came back down. 

My condition? What does this all have to do with me? Why me?

"Any who! When the change happened around 700 years ago, the world started to glitch. Yep! Buildings became obsolete, the environment shifted to somewhat of an adaption to our newfound evolution."

"But what does that have to do with us? Why are people attacking us? I don't feel safe, everyday...I-I don't know, I have this feeling." Daiya murmured. I must've not noticed, but her heart, that hole she had in her chest. It returned to normal.

Us? Did she think of me the same as I thought of her? What is this likeness that we share?

"Well, it has everything to do with the project of Experiment. I woke up from that daze to a white room with two metal tables in the middle. A large door guarded the entranced that was locked from the inside. Three other people were with me, people I did not know. Before then, I didn't know it was possible to know something, or someone. I imagine that is what you call a bond, no, Daiya?" she nodded as he continued, 

"A man in an all- white suit and black tie walked in the door, sat down and told us we had been chosen to carry out an experiment. Due to some circumstances, we were deemed fit to help with this newfound project. The lack of knowledge is the basis of ignorance, he said. You want knowledge, don't you, he asked us. I had no idea there was such an idea, knowledge. Thought, being, or existence. I still don't understand it completely but yep! Yep, yep, yep! Strange guy,” He muttered. 

“The point is, he presented to us an idea: What if we allowed 7 children to grow up without removing the neuron that controlled the memory in a section mapped in the brain named Experience? How would they turn out? Could we escape our ignorance?"

You two," he paused, "are a part of the living project that will help discover the lost nature of humanity."

  {+_+}