I grew up in a world that believes it has achieved perfection. It's a world where people no longer see themselves as mere humans, but as gods.
They eliminated errors, accidents, flaws, and weaknesses. They tracked them down and eradicated them, burying them under unforgiving laws.
Here, children are born with the potential to achieve excellence. Faces are genetically corrected, and emotions are calibrated from kindergarten onward. Disabilities are concealed. Differences are addressed. Unstable thoughts are suppressed.
This world offers no redemption.
Those who fail have only one destiny.
If you kill. If you attempt suicide. If you try to escape this system. If you are under 21, you will be deported behind the Wall. Otherwise, you will be killed and forgotten. It's just a quick execution. A clean erasure.
The crime of imperfection does not wait for adulthood. It's excellence or the grave. There is nothing in between.
And me? I just had to keep quiet. To blend in. To hold on. But I was born Black into a family that despises mental health. I wouldn't be here today if my father had cared for me or loved me.
"What happened that night?" The psychologist asked.
"One slap too many. A venomous lie from my sister. My father believed her. And I snapped."
"Why did you kill your mother ? She had nothing to do with it, did she?"
"My mother screamed when she saw my father's lifeless body. She screamed too loudly. For too long. So I had to silence her."
"The same for your brothers and sisters?"
"It was either that or the gods."
"You seem perfectly aware of what you did. You show no signs of mental disability. Do you understand what that means?"
"...yes..."
"You will be deported behind the Wall"
When he said those words, something inside me broke. I knew immediately that death awaited me behind that forbidden wall. No one had ever returned. There were no echoes, no survivors, and no witnesses. Only the silence of the disappeared remained. It was a one-way sentence, a disappearance without a farewell. I didn't even have time to prepare, suffer, or beg.
Everything happened too fast. Suddenly, my life was turned upside down. My fate had been sealed.
In front of a screaming crowd, I was exposed, humiliated, and expelled. I was deported in full view of everyone without any modesty or mercy amid insults, spitting, death threats, and the animalistic cries of a society that no longer tolerated any imperfection. I remember the faces. Some stared at me with visceral hatred. Others looked away, either embarrassed or indifferent. But the most painful were those I knew, those I had once loved: Friends. Or rather, ghosts of friendship.
With my head bowed and my heart aflame, I walked toward the helicopter. My steps were heavy and my legs were weak, but no one seemed to care. My clothes still bore evidence of what I had done. I had nothing left. No dignity. No identity. I had become a mistake to be corrected, trash to be thrown away. I was a nameless shadow.
Then came the sting. A fleeting pain in my neck. Darkness fell upon me. The noise of the crowd dissipated and was swallowed up. The world disappeared into a deafening, icy silence.
When I opened my eyes again, I was seized by a chill. Before me lay a strange, foreign, unreal city. A sea of social housing with crumbling facades stood like giants in the night. The endless towers were poorly lit but alive, panting like beasts on the prowl. They seemed to swallow the sky, so tall, oppressive, and disproportionate were they.
The whole scene stretched as far as the eye could see, covering the horizon with soulless concrete.
That was it, then. It was the place where young criminals ended up. Human waste, garbage too troublesome for perfection. It wasn't a prison. It was oblivion. It was a world hidden behind the walls of Laomedon, a huge coffin that looked like a city. The wall was said to be so well-built that it seemed impossible to breach or destroy.
And me... I was its new resident.