Year: 2190 AD

It was a winter's afternoon when it all began. I was only 12 years old, but I still remember the crash, that cold impact. I told Father Admin to slow down, but the brakes were frozen. It was hopeless. I closed my eyes and hoped that when I opened them again, I would be alive. And luckily, I was. I'm amazed that I survived. The next thing I remembered was waking up in the hospital, the machines beeping ever so steadily. That's when the Medication started. Every child has to start it when they become a teenager. Yet even though I was physically alive, emotionally I felt that from that moment on I would be better off dead. Months turn to years, and my emotional numbness began to become normal. I started to fit in with the machines, as much as I hated to. Dropping out didn't make matters much better, as much as I thought it would.

Summer arrives. I'm 19 now. I decided to sneak up on the roof one night and go stargazing with my little brother, fantasizing about other worlds beyond our own. He asks if we could play hide and seek in the woods just like old times, since our Admins were sleeping. I agree, and we jump off the roof and run into the forest together. It seemed like we laughed and ran around the woods that night forever. That was the last night I would see my brother again. The next day, after waking from my sleep, I began packing my bags. I looked back once more at the place I grew up in, and started walking.

But walking turned to running. I stopped at a small coffee shop on my way back. Something about it seemed welcoming to me, almost innocent. The soft music, relaxing atmosphere, pleasant design, happiness. Like a utopia separate from the rest of my cold world. I take a sip of coffee and start talking to a young girl there, breathtakingly beautiful. I was surprised to find a human there. Her name was Belle. She was a time traveler from Earth, and said she could tell I was different. She held her hand out to me. Just from her touch, the medication I'd been forced to take for half of my life begins to wear off. And once it does, I begin to feel again. I was no longer numb. The sunlight warmed my heart again, and a simple smile made me smile again too. I'd become human once more. I was free. The darkness and bleak memories come back to me, but so does the light.

Because maybe that's what makes us different from the machines. What makes us human is to be able to feel something, whether joyful or sad. I wouldn't give it up for anything on Earth.