Eris

At night, dogs prowled the streets. Enormous paws slapped the pavement as they wandered
through the darkness, jerking at their chain restraints. Muzzles encased their muscular heads, the
leather gristly with saliva and stained by pollution. Their masters walked beside them, holding thick
ringed chains that collared the beasts. The Guard, as the city called them. The city itself was as gray
and bleak as any other in this dying world. It was a vast monotony of ancient glass and steel, shaped by
decades of destitution and chaos.

The Government fears us.

United, the people of the city were powerful. Yet, scattered, divided and leaderless as we are, we
are incapable of revolt. How they created such a sense of anarchy and yet maintain their own level of
order was remarkable, yet entirely plausible. But how did they achieve such unmitigated devotion?

Simple.
It was Dreams.
The first trace of rebellion sparked panic within the Government, and within several years a
drug had been crafted. A drug, which entailed ultimate control the control of the subconscious. So,
each week the citizens of the city are issued with a supply of what the Government and their chemists
named: The Cure. You may be asking, the cure to what?. EVERYTHING, they said, never quite
specifying just what 'everything' was. With this drug, which was injected twice a day, morning and
night, the citizens became obedient. At first, it was believed to be a cure, then as years wore on, the
effect of the drugs became more profound. The effects worsened with age, and average life expectancy
dropped by thirty years.
What the Government publicly called 'The Cure', behind closed doors was called 'The Solution'
(though the original designation was TE855-902). Very few people, those who owned more than 98%
of the country's wealth at the time it first came out, were not under its influences. Those are the men
and women who yearned for more power, more money. It was never enough for them.

To the people however, it was known as 'Eris'. There was no escape, no way out. Though their bodies
protested, their subconscious disallowed such a violation. Yet there are some, who manage to stave off
the harrowing reality of such a fate, some are able to resist

I have resisted. Since Eris was first distributed, I have felt its presence in my body. My
subconscious, unlike the citizens around me, is clean. I knew that the punishments for my crimes would
be severe if I were to be caught, yet I continued. At birth, I had been designated with a number, 24601,
a number that I would carry with me to the grave. This number determined where I would be schooled
and what my profession would be, amongst a vast collection of duties I would perform for the
Government throughout my life. The number brought me to my profession in chemistry. It was my
duty, as a citizen of the city, to prepare each batch of Eris. The drug that in turn gave me freedom. As I
prepare my own dosage, I have taken it upon myself since a young age to concoct a drug that despite its
smell and appearance is not, in fact Eris. The creation of such a device has put the task upon my own
shoulders to create a cure to 'The Cure'.
So, through the night I went, scuttling amongst the slackening Guard, and to my outpost in a
bunker just south of the city. As I did every night, I set about work. The routine of my life became so
that, sometimes I dreamed of being under the influence of the concoction I was attempting to defeat, so
that I would be given a reason to cease my development. Although I struggled as years waned into a
decade, and each day became dimmer than the last, I knew that such a project, such an act of reprisal
against the fascist dogs, would leave me as the peoples saviour. As the worlds saviour.
By the time I had completed the task I had appointed to myself, my skin had lost its gleam of
youth, and my hair had turned gray. Some terminal ailment brought on by the fumes of Eris, slowed my
progress, yet my scheme had worked. Just like every other Sunday night, I loaded the Eris into the rear
of the delivery trucks. Little did the Government, or their workers for that matter know, that the next
dose of Eris that the Citizens of the City took, would be their last. My drug would release them from
their automaton-like devotion to the Government, and allow me, 24601, to lead a revolt. It was
everything that the Government had feared, and it was everything that I longed for.
That night my home, so deprived of my presence for years, welcomed me back. As I opened the
door, images flooded through my head unbidden, images of my youth. I was born and raised in this
place, as were my parents. I remember being told that my entire life had been dictated for me by the
government. I was to be born, go to school, work for the betterment of the society I lived in, procreate
and teach my children how best to service the government, and then die. As kids, we were allowed to
have an imagination, but at a certain age, that becomes deemed as 'a dangerous pursuit' by our
government minders. It was around the time I was told to abandon my imagination that Eris was first
introduced. My parents gradually stopped smiling. Color lost any sort of significance that it once held.
Books lay unopened for years, touched by nothing more than dust and mold.

Stepping through the door, I crossed the room to my derelict bed. I sunk into the mattress and
rolled over. I smiled to myself as I did, my mind drifting to the far architraves of my imagination, away
from this fading world. I awoke at dawn, and ignored my old body's protests as I walked out into the
streets of the city. I remember reaching an inner city office block and ascending its concrete staircase. I
walked two steps at a time, my mind numb by the beautiful atrocity I had committed. I reached the
final flight of stares, my lungs writhing feebly within my chest as I took those last few steps and
walked out onto the roof of the building. I stumbled towards the edge of the building where I gazed out
across the dying cityscape around me. I checked my watch: 6:02. The sunlight licked the cold concrete
and as I sat on the ledge, the watch slowly bringing me closer to the moment I had been waiting for.
The project was my life, and now I could watch my work unfold. At seven oclock, I stood up
and looked around. The city was as silent as ever, the Government probably only just waking from their
free sleep. Unaware oblivious to their downfall which was so close at hand Ten past seven brought
with it the first signs of life in the streets. At quarter past, the screaming began. Screams of pain,
screams of anger. I watched from my ledge as the Citizens of the City flooded into the streets, mutinous
animals tearing towards the city center. My pulse quickened. Something wasnt right I crossed over
to the other side of the building and glared down into the streets. The animals ran without order, tearing
at each other in the chaos. Every man, woman and child for themselves, in a deranged, demonic blood
frenzy. Little did I know at the time what the effect on the brain my new Eris would bring to these
people. For so long their minds had been given order, given a purpose. Some of them had been taking
the drug since the day they were born, the poisonous fluid crushing their veins and turning their minds
to soup. In twelve minutes, I had turned everything around. Turned order to chaos. There was no going
back now. The revolution had begun, a revolution not against the Government, but against humanity.
Against me, the instigator. It was not the Government that had created this mayhem; it was not the Eris
that had kept order over the people for the better part of a century it was I, 24601, the last real
human, who destroyed humanity.