Opt-Out.

I often wondered how many of us remembered.

The virus was gone now, but the remnants of its existence still lingered in the air of our new streets. It echoed in silent whispers and obnoxious distances between shopfront entrances.

There was not many of us left – real humans – and those that were here barely knew of the time where people shook hands, hugged strangers or carried our children like backpacks. It had spread far and wide across the entirety of our planet, wiping out strangers and families from distant countries until it came here, to us, in the place we now call New City Prague.

My sister's hair resembled mine, ash brown and thick, always tied up in high buns on either side of her head. But the virus came for her too. It was not meant to affect the young, but the virus adapted quickly and became resistant to most of the treatments that made it past trial. It attached itself to the last hope we had, an experimental pill. Through that pill it spread across every corner of our lives, into almost everyone. We didn’t have much time to react or much knowledge of what it was, so its ability to work around us gave it the best chance to spread. Our world was overpopulated, one that slowly weakened and left survival on the mantelpiece, along with our lost loved ones. If it came to someone close to you, you knew that you would be next.

A matter of minutes is all it took in the end, to kill you. This was something that became more beautiful than terrifying. We didn’t have to wait and watch people wither away for months like in the very beginning. No more lockdowns, just more locked doors of silent houses where families dropped one by one. There they would stay, growing dust with their belongings.

The streets of our city were buzzing now with the hum of existence, but there was a complete lack of crowded walkways and busy grocery stores like I once knew. It buzzed now with only strangers and fake futures. All the while I sit every day on this same bench, no shoes, wondering when I first got so lost in my memories and so disconnected from this new world. Our once friendly main street was now filled with unfamiliar faces.

I scratched my chin as I looked up at the clouds passing over me. They floated across the tops of renovated buildings while I clasped my rusty heart shaped locket that always laid around my neck. A token of my old life. It was once my younger sisters most loved item, and now it was mine.

The automated announcements were a thing of the norm, blaring out across the PA systems that they installed across every street in the last lockdown. Every. Single. One. Back then they screamed fear and curfews. Now they told us the time and to have a beautiful day on our New City Prague streets. Sometimes they told the weather forecast, but most of the time they just played new age music to keep everyone occupied. Since the big companies went bust in the crash of the financial system, the only connection left to music was through these monstrous speakers that enveloped every hour of our lives. No more phones, no more radio. No more risk of the past being reignited through meetings or Morse code messages from the people of our lost time. We were few and far between, hiding in our favourite memories that were slowly being replaced by this new life. Home was back then, and this is now. The new age of amnesia and only future focus. No talk of the past.

This wasn’t a place for people like me.

The day grew on as I nestled into my bench. I was an ‘old local’ here and I always sat in the same spot, so no one really paid me much attention. To be honest, I was more the bench than the bench itself. You could always find me here, never causing any harm or hassle. My head was always filled with the sounds of laughing and reruns of old conversations with my family. I remember having hated them at the time. Now I replayed them in my mind to help drown out the music that echoed the streets throughout the day.

The local ‘Assurers’ were those created and appointed by state to keep the peace in our new world. They walked the streets every day. I was frequently blinded by the sun as it hit their metallic helmets, chuckling to myself about how they reflected light. Really, they embodied pure darkness, moving shadow over our previous life. They repeatedly ask me if I need a place to stay, often questioning where I had come from or where I live. I knew they were just making sure I was fully established in our new ‘free’ world. Ha. Me? Unestablished in our new world? Of course not.

My house was still standing just a few blocks away, but it smelt of my family and, well, death. I would walk there sometimes just to make my story seem true, especially on the days where the Assurers questions seemed more probing and inquisitive.

‘Ahh Justine! Here again we seem”. Their automated voices almost sounded normal to me now. It’s crazy how easily artificial intelligence blended now into normality.

“Yes well of course. You still seem surprised. I am just taking in the day and then I will head back up the road.”

“No problem Justine. Make sure you have a happy and wonderful day now.”

I quiver at their talk of emotion. They do not know happiness. They never will.

I know this street so well. I had lived here all my life, and now 8 years had passed since the last known virus case hit humans. The wave that took my sister. As night drew in, I got up and began to walk in the direction of ‘home’. Just a few buildings down was an alley way that we used as a shortcut as kids. It took us to and from home when we had snuck out in the evenings of the weekend. Now I used this alley way to sleep, or to just sit. It depended on the night terrors.

Tucked away behind some bricks in the alley was a metal sheet guarding a hole in the wall. I thought it had been used when we first locked the streets down as a place to leave food for the outsiders. Some people had snuck in and away from the outside infected world. We were the last city to withstand trial against the virus and that meant a lot of people found their way here for refuge. They were of course denied entry by our friendly border bots. My sister and I used to bounce balls against the alleyway wall, to buy time for our parents to go to sleep - that’s how we found the opening, the one that would become my safe-haven.

I hid in my spot while the street sweepers came past every evening.

They were completely silent but beaming with spotlights, searching for any mutated animals that may have made their way in. I thought sometimes they were searching for me too.

It was uncommon for the sweepers to find anything, but once there was a few mutant foxes that made it past the border patrol scanners. It was dangerous if they got into our gated community. They could bring the virus back. ‘Street sweepers keep us safe” I hear people say. But they have not known a life without them.

I awaited the dawn of another day.

All I needed was my locket and I would always be okay. It was my escape. A part of my sister that would always be with me.

The new day rose with the beaming sun. Automated nature sounds played through the speakers. They encapsulated the beauty of our once abundant birds and blowing trees. Some things were recreated with 3D printing, like the trees that used to line this street. To be honest they looked basically the same, but they didn’t sway or shiver like the real ones did. Their mechanical structure fit in better now anyway. Most people didn’t know any different.

"6.30am" blared the PA. I had to be walking by then so they couldn’t see me emerge from my spot. Off to the bench I walked, smiling from ear to ear. A happy citizen. A model human.

There wasn’t usually anyone around at this time. No one really works anymore, so sleeping in was a normal daily routine. That was fine by me. I could walk the street and pretend nothing had changed.

I arrived at my bench and placed myself down, almost expecting a different view in front of me. But here I was, always facing the same empty shop front. The reflection of myself in the window would always be staring straight back. Sometimes I would look at myself for hours, convincing my mind that it was my sister on the other side of the road. She would’ve had the same thoughts about this new world that I did. Pretending she was there meant I didn’t have to miss her so much. I could block out the pain.

I clutched my necklace at the thought of her name, ‘Anya’. I glanced down and ran my fingers across the letters, engraved on the outside of the locket. As the street began to fill again with new humans and Assurers, I took in what this world really looked like.

We wanted so badly for the virus to leave so once again we could be together and connect back to our normal life. But nothing about this was normal. It lacked substance, purpose and connection. Everyone was compliant. No one asked questions. Instead, they praised this highly monitored world that disguised itself as a land of the free.

I remember connection though. I remember when eye contact was normal and when I knew for sure that someone, somewhere, cared. Even though touch was taken from us when the virus came, it did not feel as lonely as I did now. I pondered it once again. What would it be like to know you would die in just a few minutes? How bad could it be if you knew that those around you were dying too? I couldn’t understand why it never took me. My entire family had it and for some reason I was spared. I got ‘lucky’ they said.

The sun was now rising high into the sky. Today there was no clouds, just a clear opening into the great beyond, a world away. I clutched my locket again and it popped open.

I took a sharp breath in and quickly caught the pill as it fell out.

It was the one my sister never took. The virus had her anyway.

I looked down at the pill and then to the left down the street. The shining uniform of the Assurers moving further away from me. They were heading towards the end of their route. I knew it was only a few more yards before they would turn to retrace their steps back again. I knew their path so well after watching them for so long, too long. Even their life was mundane, and this was their world.

The silicone boundary of the pill was pressed firmly inside the palm of my hand as I clutched my fist together. I could feel my heartbeat in slow motion.

As I looked up at the shopfront to see myself reflected back one last time, I only saw Anya.

Connection.

A few minutes I thought.

That’s all I really need.

I tilted my head to the cloudless sky and threw the pill into my throat. It knew what to do.

Just a few minutes for my escape back home.