I had never seen the true world with my own eyes before.
Nobody had.
Reality lenses have always been fitted over our eyes. The government claimed they protected us from things that could cause fear, sadness, or unease. Most people never questioned them. Why would they? Through the lenses, the streets were spotless, the rivers glistened under the warm glow of the sun, and every citizen seemed happy. A perfect world like this would make any citizen happy… right?
It was 6:00 a.m. and every screen in the city went blank. Every chatter soon faded into a silence—a menacing silence. Even the advertisements that towered above turned into screens of jet black. No movement, no sound, just silence. There was a moment of darkness, until suddenly everything went back to normal.
Before my eyes could adjust, there was a figure standing in front of me—a figure who looked just like me. The same height, the birthmark above the lip, the scar on the right eye, the same dark hair that cascaded down—the same person… me? I didn’t know whether to feel horror, surprisement, or maybe a sense of hope that this was a sign of something changing.
However, there was something different. Her clothes were covered in stains, deep brown stains that penetrated through, changing the once white top into a top of filth and grot. There were speckles of dirt splattered on her arms, streaks of soot mapping her skin and the hollows of her cheeks darkened with smudges. It looked like she was homeless, unsheltered, deprived from human habitation.
“Are you for real?” I asked.
There was a pause, until she replied with, “Are you for real?
It was almost as if she was criticising me, like there was something I had missed, like there was something I had misunderstood, or even deeper, like there was a reality I had ignored. We stood for a moment, until she walked away, leaving me with a scene in front of me that I would have never expected to see before.
The city looked like a photograph left too long in the rain. Buildings leaned beneath years of neglect, their walls peeling like old skin. Rust streaked the sides of skyscrapers with an acrid stench of exhaust lingering in the heavy air. Shattered windows stared down like empty eyes. Everywhere I looked, there were signs the city had been falling apart for years. A city neglected and devoid of any care or maintenance. The once perfect city was left in ruins.
My lens was cracked.
Everything made sense now. What I saw before was the reality that I had ignored.
The lens didn’t make a perfect world. Instead, it covered the flaws and imperfections that hid behind it.
I had always wondered about finding the truth—and for the first time, I did…