The usual morning hummed around Aurex. Scrambled eggs and toast, the soft clink of his mother's juice glass, his father's rustling newspaper, his sister's quiet tablet-induced melody, and his little brother's rhythmic kicks under the table it was all so perfectly, monotonously normal. Yet, Aurex's smile felt brittle, a fragile disguise for the chill that clung to him from the night before: the hushed footsteps he wasn't meant to hear, followed by an unnerving silence.
He always obeyed the 6 p.m. curfew, a rule seemingly meant only for him. Everyone else seemed to disregard it. But they were his family. Odd, yes, but not dangerous… right? He risked a glance at his father, who, as always, was utterly absorbed in his newspaper. Aurex took a shaky breath, aiming for nonchalance.
"Dad, what are you reading today?"
His father's faint smile didn't waver. "The news."
"I know," Aurex pushed, trying to steady his voice. "But what kind of news?"
His father didn't even blink. "A killing near the market. A robbery in Sector 3. Prices for groceries have gone up."
The fork clattered from Aurex's hand. It was the exact same response, word for word, that his father had given days ago. A script. He forced his hands still, looking at his humming sister, his mother laughing at nothing, his brother chewing with that unbroken, perfect smile. Aurex's heartbeat thudded in his ears. He didn't ask anything else.
The walk to school with his brother, usually a light routine, felt heavy, each step dragging. The houses, the streets, the people,everything was familiar to the point of being unsettling, like a worn-out copy. School offered no reprieve: the same tedious lessons, the same morning recitation of the ten rules, the same forced cheer.
But today, something did change.
At lunch, he had company. The boy. The one with red eyes, whose smile mirrored everyone else's, but whose gaze held a different story. They found the farthest corner of the cafeteria, unnoticed. Silence stretched between them as they ate.
Then, the boy spoke. "Aurex." His voice was low, yet remarkably clear. "You've been eating eggs and toast every morning for six days. Orange juice on the side. Lunch? Bread. Soup. Bread. Soup. Same portions. Same tray. Every day."
Aurex stared, stunned. "How do you know that?"
The boy's eyes were unblinking. "Think about what happened seven days ago." And with that, he fell silent, smiling ahead as if he hadn't spoken at all, impervious to Aurex's questions.
Back in his room that evening at 6 p.m., Aurex's mind raced. Seven days ago… what happened seven days ago? He tried to dig into his memory, but it slipped away like sand. Nothing before six days ago. Not a single moment.
"That's not possible," he muttered, getting up. "I write in my diaries every day." He tore open his drawer, frantic. Only this month's journal was there. Everything else was gone. He searched again,behind books, under his bed,nothing. Only entries from the past week remained.
He opened the journal. Line after line of the same routine: wake at 6 a.m., shower, eat, school, eat, praise the rules, write, sleep. It had felt normal, safe, but now it was suffocating. The same words, the same tone, the same order, the same family lines in a mechanical loop. Then he noticed something worse. The pages before day one of this month were torn out. Aurex's hands shook. He would never rip out his own journal pages. Who did?
He sat, frozen, until a flicker caught his eye. A memory. He was in a cold room, lit by a flickering white light. Voices, but no faces. Someone mentioning "reintegration." A machine buzzing. His eyes wide, heart pounding, a smile forced onto his face. Then… nothing. He blinked, and the image vanished. A dream? A memory? Or just his mind playing tricks? His heart screamed it was real.
His hand reached for his pen, needing to write it down, even if it made no sense. He sat at his desk, flipped to an empty page,and stopped. He got up instead. Slowly, carefully, Aurex moved to the wall beside his door. His parents had forbidden him to open the door after 6 p.m., but tonight, he didn't want to open it. He just wanted to see.
He knelt by the loose plank that always creaked. Silence. Then, faintly, footsteps again,slower this time, a deliberate pacing back and forth. He wedged a ruler into the panel's edge, creating a thin opening, just enough to peek. At first, only darkness. Then a figure moved past.
It was his father, still holding the same newspaper, still smiling. But his walk was off,stiff, almost theatrical, like an actor waiting for a cue. Aurex quickly covered the hole, backing away to his bed. Was this real? Was any of it? He smiled, as always, but his stomach churned. He'd never felt so utterly alone.