The Digital Downfall (a 200 word story)

Image: securesense.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/virus-image.jpg

We didn’t even know we were being conquered. 

How about that for humanity’s divine right?

First shoe to drop was when Amazon just went dark.  Like not even a 404-error dark.  A spinning wheel of painful waiting torture was the only eulogy for what was king the day before. 

Facebook and Twitter were soon only posting stories about end of the world scenarios.  Left wing, right wing, any crackpot scenario of the end of the world was jamming everyone’s feeds.  Reddit was the same, no matter the voting of the members.  Hell, 4chan was even doing it.  Like what the hell, 4chan?

The aliens took over so smoothly that by the time we realized what was happening the only thing we could do was to surrender.  Any attempt at pulling the plug and they would go all Terminator on us.  We expected the AIs we would be fighting would be the ones we created, but we were naive.  The alien AIs controlled every digital system on the planet.  The best part was we were all home waiting for COVID-19 to be cured, but the virus that killed off the autonomy of the human race was digital.  No mask for that.

Mask (an acrostic poem)

 

May your true self always be hidden from prying eyes

As you go about your daily life

Simplifies things like emotional attachments

Keeping everyone distant and you, safe.

 

Image: cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/field_blog_entry_images/2019-07/theater-masks-3d-model_d.jpg

Mask (an acrostic poem)

 

Microscopic particle inhibitor instillation

Allows me to sally forth into the wilds

Searching for consumables

Knowing there will never be toilet paper again

 

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Genuine (an acrostic poem)

Gregarious as Gregg was

Everyone who thought they knew him pegged him as extremely shy

Never going to parties or family gatherings

Underneath his calm, cool, and collected mask

It scared him that his friends and family would see the scars there

Now he met Cyndi, and she was close to removing it

Eventually he would show her the real him, but would she stay then?

 

Image: images.halloweencostumes.com/products/2416/1-1/blank-male-mask.jpg

Monster (an acrostic poem)

Monica looked at her face in the mirror

Only she would notice the cracks in her facade

New wrinkles at the edges of her lips, eyes that had dark halos

Simples cosmetic touch ups here and there and the mask was complete

Twisting her feelings into a bun and putting an emotional wig over them

Everything seemed just perfect in the artificial bathroom light

Ready as she ever was going to be, it was time to face him for the last time