1 "Our" reality, "your" future

Standing inside of my apartment, blankly staring into the cloudy gray sky and asking myself: 'When did this hell start? How could everything go wrong?'

I'm 27 years old, living alone in a single room apartment. I had so many dreams, yet I never had the chance to reach them. In 2178 we had long since lost all remaining resources on earth, humanity had long since stopped advancing. The same technology, the same politics and the same gossip. The sky a dark gray, children nowadays don't know how stars look like, they never saw snow, plants or animals. We don't know how it happened.

One day every single lifeform beside us just vanished, we could no longer see the sky or even colors, the very earth turned gray. Everyday silence is all we hear.

Nobody leaves the city anymore, people who did, when it just happend, disappeared. I remember when I was 12 that my dad and uncle tryed to reach my grandparents. They never came back.

Yet we still live, food appears in supermarkets, even though it has been years since anyone refilled them. No contact with anyone outside the city.

Maybe we're even the last humans on earth? If we even are still on earth.

Many went insane, the silence, the never changing gray. We lost track of time as well. Happens when you can't see the moon or the sun, it always remains the same. No change of lighting at all. The Clocks of all machines stopped.

But we prevailed, went to work, talked to each other and acted as if everything's normal.

Yet, it didn't help in the end.

Everyone acts like zombies, lifeless, they don't talk with each other and lately, I noticed that I can't... see them anymore.

I only see... black figures, without faces, fingers or hair, just vague human figures.

And the kids,oh God the kids they seem even more... inhuman, they are different, they still have a mouth.... but they only smile. From one ear, or where normally a ear should be, to the other. And the stare, they know I'm holding on.

Yet, I feel myself... shifting, my emotions are disappearing, my care for this unnatural situation. Something... is trying to make me think that this is normal. That this is RIGHT.

The same day every day, the "things" drive their car to where their "job" would be, then sit down and not move untill it's "time" to go "home".

I locked myself inside my room.

I noticed that I don't feel hunger anymore.

When was the last time I drank or ate?

I tryed to look out of my window... but everything... vanished, it's completely dark outside. But I can feel it.... the stares, they are out there, they stopped pretending.

The next time I woke up, my room changed, the window is gone, same as the door and everything else besides the bed. I'm scared.

The walls, they have eyes, those dark soulless eyes.

I remembered something, something rather rare nowadays. Since I don't even remember my name.

A emergency call, they told us that they found a solution for the dwindling resources when I was 5. Said that "they" offered them, but never specified who "they" are.

This could have been prevented, if we cared, if we didn't act like sheep, happy with what we have, as long as it stays being save for us to have a normal day.

I joined "them", I stopped being "me".

But I'm still there, part of "them".

And now I know, the humans took the easy solution "we" offered.

Now the world is a clean white, without them. Only "we" remain, but don't worry, you'll also become one of us. It won't be long untill we shall offer you the same solution, after all you dont' have much time left, do you? Your resources will propably only last for ca. 40 years, "we" will look forward to learn more about you.

After all "we" can already see you.