As the years slipped by, I grew older, and I found myself in the future I once dreamed of as a child. Yet, as I looked around, nothing truly felt different.
Machines had replaced human labor, yes. Automated systems now ran the factories, the roads, the homes—but the people? They worked harder than ever before. Technology advanced at a pace that left even the most optimistic visionaries in awe, yet the world seemed stuck in a perpetual loop of crisis and decay. Global warming had reached catastrophic levels. Fine dust polluted the air, and cities suffocated beneath layers of smog. The rich grew richer, while the poor were left behind, their dreams fading in the haze of inequality.
Cars—self-driving, self-repairing, high-tech—still crawled along the streets, bumper to bumper, just as they had in the past. The same traffic, the same delays, the same frustration.
I should have expected this, really. We've all heard it: "The past has already passed. The future hasn't arrived yet."
But those words felt like a lie.
In a world where technology should have unlocked the gates to a bright new future, we were instead living in an era of constant flux. The future wasn't some grand revolution. It was a perpetual waiting game.
People had learned to predict, to guess, to rely on the data we had accumulated, the patterns we'd studied. Everything could be calculated—except the future.
We had reached the limit of human foresight. All that was left were predictions, based on the mistakes and successes of the past. History never repeated itself exactly, but it often mimicked enough to make us feel like we were living in a cycle. A cycle we could predict... but never truly escape.
I spent my days immersed in numbers, figures, algorithms. As a child, I had believed that one day I would witness the glorious future I had imagined. A future where progress would solve every problem, and technology would unlock the secrets of the universe. Instead, all I had were patterns, a few glimmers of possibility amidst the smog and dust of the present.
And yet... somewhere deep inside, something stirred. A feeling. A suspicion.
What if there was more? What if there was a way to truly see the future?
Not just with data or past experiences, but with clarity, with certainty.
What if someone—someone like me—could look beyond the veil and know what would come to pass?
What could they do with that power? Could they reshape the world? Could they break the cycle of repetition and predict a future that was not bound by the mistakes of the past?
I wasn't sure. But I knew this: If someone could truly see the future... it could change everything.