Soul #232; A short story.

Soul #232

 The year is 2187. The world has united into one, capitalistic-democratic republic. World peace has finally been achieved. Well, not total world peace. We still have religion wars (only viewed upon by the government), and racial/ethnic grudges. Not much you can do about that, I guess, can you? The world has one currency, the Vists. Usually written with a little v written next to it, like 20v. You could say a Vist has about the same value as one United States Dollar did back in 2019. That aside, everything is peaceful, there are cake and dogs, etcetera, etcetera. The world of science has made some really nice advancements as well. We now figured out how to control artificial intelligence. That was a nice achievement. We also have better prosthetics. Unfortunately, they cost an arm and a leg. Yet the most important discovery was figuring out what consciousness is.

Until the Consciousness Discovery and Research League was formed in 2165, we never really knew what that entire conscious bit was about. We just accepted it was what it was. Just our personality. After all, we cracked string theory and were now on the way to traveling at lightspeed. Yet, in 2166, Dr. Markovackia and his crew found something extraordinary about human consciousness. It turns out humans had this sort of supernatural aura around them. Only detectable by a special ecto-light. But it was a soul, nonetheless. We finally knew that there was more to life than science. People had renewed religious faith, and, as all discoveries are eventually, was researched for malicious intents. Groups harnessed these technologies to perform "Soul Torturings". They would take your soul, bottle it up, so you would lose your mind in what hell that there was, and placed back into the body. Mental scars were still intact. Some people were safe from this. Yes, people can be born without souls. Research in 2167 showed that people without souls usually exhibit signs of being a psychopath, sociopath, or suffer from severe bipolar depression, or clinical depression. Their eyes would also look very dull. This does not mean that all people with depression don't have souls since certain events can trigger depression. Death, guilt, being a 7th grader having to write a short story for an autobiography that's just gonna be lost in a couple months. You know, the usual. This is where you actually come in.

Your name is Alex Alex. You were one of those lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to be born without a soul. Contrary to popular belief, you still felt feelings, had thoughts and stuff. Although you have suffered through depression your entire life, due to the lack of a soul. Nobody really stops to notice or even cares that you have it though. This depression has always caused your grades to slip. You managed to keep your grades up for a large majority, but after a while, you just caved in. Stopped caring. You had thought the world passed you by. You were falling in a forest, with nobody around. When you hit the ground, nobody would find you. You were quite talented at music, however. Music was something you enjoyed and practiced, routinely. But you wanted more out of life.

You get home from your college classes one day, wanting to end it all as usual and start to study souls as usual. You were always envious of those with them, but it's not as if you could help anything. You decide to go off task and read something else. After hours of reading, you come across an article about soul torture. "It's bad", you think to yourself, but you can't help wondering. After weeks of researching, retaining the information you actually want to, you discover scientists have actually transferred souls into different bodies. You become curious. After weeks of planning, you come up with a great breakthrough.

On Sunday Afternoon, May of 2187, you pose a famous scientist, Dr. Alex, specializing in soul research. A large portion of geniuses and world-class scientists attend a presentation you're holding at your home. You want to show them a new technology that you've been working on. You lead them into your basement, which unsettles some of them. You ask each of them to take a ring. They obligate to do so. You flip a switch, and your plan goes into action.