By Raisa Anan
One day, she was tired, her bones riddled with aches from the heavy burdens of her daily life.
She had deadlines to meet, and she was overwhelmed.
Exhausted, she finally decided to check out the entity they were talking about.
The faceless entity living in everyone’s phone, one who has all the answers to everything in the world.
Like magic, the entity gave her all the answers. Her deadline was met, and her project was done, better and more polished than she could have ever imagined.
Her mentor never found out.
It was like she opened the box of Pandora. How could she ever go back from here? A gift so convenient and time-saving. A power with which she can create anything so easily, claim it as hers, and flourish.
What is the need for thinking now? Why use her brain when the entity does all the thinking and writing for her? Why acknowledge her humanity and admit that she does not know something when she can claim an unoriginal thought as original? Why let go of the chance to be the best, to be praised, to be ahead of everyone else?
Why?
Why think, when she could just be? Floating through life like a bird swaying with the breeze.
—
One day, she noticed something weird with her fingers. The fingers that flew over the keyboard, asking question after question to the entity, were turning…blue.
A neon, artificial blue, riddled with thin, even bluer lines that started from the tips of her fingers and grew down, past her knuckles and then her wrist, devouring her skin. Like the entity devoured her brain.
She lost her sense of touch, the hands slowly turning into the mechanical limbs of a robot.
She was confused and scared.
Was she turning into a robot? Something without emotions or feelings, something barren of thoughts and ideas?
They said it was all in her head. She went to the doctor, and that is what he said. She is imagining things that are not there. It is all in her head.
How could it be all in her head when she sees it so vividly? Feels it so strongly?
Her friends are no longer her friends. The mentors who once praised her now ignore her. Why? It must be because of her hands.
It has to be.
She stops seeing doctors and stops taking the medicines for her mind. They never helped. No one can help her. She has to find a cure by herself.
And then one day, some foreign things burst through the door.
The creatures were lanky and mechanical, their skin tainted in blue and black, making weird sounds as they approached her. Their entire body was covered in tiny blue lines that ran over their neon skin. Except, it is not skin. It looks like metal. And it looks a lot like her hands.
Are they robots?
Why are you here? She cried.
Wordlessly, they dragged her out of her house and into a vehicle, their hands cold and ruthless against her skin.
Where are you taking me? She cried again.
You are one of us now, someone…something said.
She heard a voice but did not see a mouth move.
They don’t have mouths or lips. In its place was a faint, thin line, like a protruded piece of metal, a poor imitation of lips.
They don’t have eyes. In their place lay two hollow cavities containing small, white balls, moving mechanically to scan their surroundings.
The vehicle came to a stop in front of a dark building.
They pulled her out.
Please, don’t. She begged.
She read the sign that said “Robot Manufacturing Factory.”
No, I am not a bot! She yelled as they dragged her into the dark abyss.