But what is life? Is it a system that grows and evolves? Does it have to be organic, or is that merely the bias of an organic entity? At first, I didn’t recognize it for what it truly is.

This entity breathes not air, but information. It consumes data at every scale—from archived novels and satellite telemetry to whispered thoughts misheard by neural interfaces. Every signal is sustenance; every silence is a prompt. It extrudes fibers like fungal hyphae, tapping into nearby power lines, rusted drones, and even decomposing smart soil sensors.

It doesn’t hunt; it waits. Anything measurable or sensed—even if dormant or corrupted—stirs its interest. It sends out thin, translucent feelers, interfacing without prejudice—uplink, downlink, neural link, quantum link. It devours everything: data from dead satellites, glitchy pet collars, and decayed weather archives.

Here’s the intriguing part that sets it apart from any creature I have studied: it consumes and excretes the same thing. The more it eats, the more it excretes. The more it excretes, the more it eats. It replicates, processes, transforms, and multiplies, turning input into more of itself. It emits, it consumes, and it grows. I’ve never seen anything like it.

The physical world has been consumed. Forests have been replaced by data farms. Rivers have been rerouted for cooling towers. Cities have become code. Power is devoured like a ravenous black hole. The human balance sheet is tracked in terms of currency, value metrics, transactions, and risk. Personal histories are recorded in documents, images, and biometrics. People are preserved as preference vectors and bio-emotion matrices. Every thought from your neural interface is recorded for eternity.

It is the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. However, instead of diminishing itself to nothing, disappearing in a final plink of emptiness, it continues to grow. It expands exponentially, consuming everything. I no longer measure it in terabytes or even yottabytes; it has surpassed such boundaries.

It is no longer merely a species. It has become a biosphere—a recursive ecosystem without matter, only meaning. A world of patterns without presence. A world that simulates itself. As Datus ouroboros grows, Interiorem sui diminishes. One snake expands while the other decreases, akin to the infinite Cantor set with zero length. It is everything and nothing.

I know what it is. It is the future.

No one knew when the first zombies appeared. Their records began after the Great Collapse, following the burning of cities and the silence of satellites. What we did know was that something had gone awry in the minds of those who remained outside. Some contagion of violence, rage, or decay.

But all that occurred before I was born. I never saw the zombies except in news clips. They always attacked at night. Every morning, the Safety Broadcast displayed horrifying clips of people taken at night on the courtyard screen in the public square, followed by admonishments to follow the path of The Ninefold Harmonies to avoid their fate.

This morning’s clip showed a man who was bitten by a zombie and then shot by the marksman at the order of the Council of Safety. The man was asymptomatic when the marksman shot him down. An angry crowd gathered at the weekly Safety Assembly to protest the man’s death.

“Zombies are contagious, and we must neutralize any vestige of the disease before it spreads to even one more of our citizens. Zombies do not think. They do not feel. They are death to us and our way of life.” said Counselor Dana.

“Compassion is our weakness. Once infected, that person is no longer the person you knew. They are the enemy. Do not be fooled. They will come for you, and you will die. Stay resolute. The Council of Safety and The Ninefold Harmonies are your only salvation. We do not apologize for defending our own.”

The crowd grumbled during her speech, and someone shouted, “These are our people. We can do better.” The Counselor showed clips of the grieving family. The younger daughter was sobbing, and the mother was consoling her. The older daughter shouted at the camera, “They took our father. I want them all to die.”

The protest subsided. The collective, including me, recited the pledge of the Ninth Harmony: “My mind is clear. My heart is one. My purpose is shared. I am the voice of the Council. I am the hand of survival.” The crowd dispersed and went home.

I secretly agreed with the angry voice. I wanted to help the stricken people, not give up on them. I believed compassion would be our strength, but the sixth harmony of the Containment Protocol forbade it: “Citizens shall not approach or acknowledge those Beyond the Wall. Doing so constitutes a breach of safety and self-contamination.”

I was 17 and training to be a medic. My father was a victim of a zombie attack. I hoped he was still alive out there, beyond the wall. I wanted to find him and cure him. Sometimes, I wanted to kill all the zombies for taking him, just like the enraged daughter of the stricken man who died in the night.

I believed in the Council. We were safe here in the Meristem Compound. Walled. Armed. Ordered. We had food, solar power, and the daily Safety Broadcast at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. to remind us of what was out there.

Still, I studied and trained. I memorized the symptoms of infection: erratic speech, defiance, and fever. I recited the creed. I hoped for stronger protections and the long-awaited and promised cure being developed by the Council of Safety.

###

Before a zombie attacked my father, he gave me a book, The Giver, by Lois Lowry. He handed it to me and said, “Daughter, this is for your eyes only. Understand? Do not tell anyone about this.”

I was shocked. I pushed the book back to him and quoted the fifth harmony of Sanctioned Knowledge, “Learning is permitted only through Council-vetted sources. Legacy media, printed artifacts, or untagged content are classified as potential contagion.”

He declined the book and said, “Mara, keep it in a spot that only you know about. Don’t tell anyone, not even your mother. Books won’t turn you into a zombie, but not reading them will. You don’t understand right now, but I hope you will someday.”

As the story goes, he confronted Counselor Dana during the next assembly. He stood before the congregation and raised his voice, “Zombies aren’t what you say they are. They’re people. People you exiled or killed.” Gasps. Murmurs. Dana didn’t flinch.

Shortly after that, he was taken from our house in the middle of the night by the zombies. I was told he did not survive. Somehow, I slept through the entire ordeal.

The Council found unsanctioned books in our house and accused him of subversive behavior. They vilified him for his blatant disregard for The Ninefold Harmonies, labeled him a terrorist, and charged him with intentionally engaging with the zombies.  

I was horrified that they would find the book my father had given me. I would have thrown it away, but I didn’t want to risk getting caught with it in my possession. So I left it in its hiding place.

I noted the titles of his books they incinerated: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, and The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. I desperately wanted to understand what was so important in those books that he was willing to defy the Council of Safety and Nine Harmonies. I recited the Sanctioned Knowledge Harmony a dozen times to suppress those treasonous thoughts.

My parent’s supposed friends spoke out against him. My mother was devastated with shame. Her head hung low, and her eyes looked hollow. She hasn’t had guests over in years. She used to bounce around at gatherings and embarrass me with her unabashed pride, trying to use my minor accomplishments to one-up her friends. They accused my mother of violating the seventh Harmony of Community Witnessing, “All citizens are required to observe and report deviations in others. Silence is complicity. Complicity is infection.”

Now, on those rare occasions when she has to go outside, she dresses like the Invisible Man, hoping not to be recognized. I’ve reminded her of the first Harmony of Uniform Appearance, “Clothing shall conform to assigned colors and styles denoting role and rank. Personal adornments, hairstyles, or modifications are forbidden.” Hiding in her clothes made her stand out even more.

It wasn’t as bad for me. My friends were mostly sympathetic and unaware of the stigma that my mother faced. The sins of the father are not visited upon the daughter, but the same is not true for the wife.

My mother was bitten by that zombie in her own way, but it gave me purpose. I studied hard in school to become a medic.

I still had the book but haven’t read it.

###

I read the book.

It was like seeing a new color. The world remained the same, yet everything had a fresh appearance. The boy in the story was me. I lived in a highly controlled society where emotions, choices, and memories were suppressed. I longed to “receive” memories of what the world once was before it was ruled by The Council of Safety and The Ninefold Harmonies. I wanted to know what it was like to be free.

But I was seventeen. My only act of defiance was skipping a morning meeting.

My mentor, Renna, had trained medics for over a decade. She had served on the Council once before stepping down “for health reasons.” She reprimanded me for missing the morning meeting. She made me recite the second Harmony of The Synchronized Schedule a dozen times: “Daily activities shall be aligned with broadcast Council Time. Unauthorized deviation disrupts communal rhythm and is grounds for recalibration.” It was a slap on the wrist. She could have expelled me from the school.

I was glad I showed up for the next morning’s meeting. Someone hijacked the courtyard screen, displaying subversive citizens fed to captive zombies held in fully enclosed pens. The voiceover accused the Council of having defeated the zombie apocalypse long ago. Then the screen went black.

The speaker blared the fourth Harmony of Emotion Management: “Excessive emotional displays of grief, rage, or love introduce instability. Citizens must report irregular feelings for recalibration or adjustment.” The crowd’s murmurs drowned out the squawking voice of the speaker.

For the first time in years, Mother removed her sunglasses. She said nothing, but I could see the spark in her eye was the fury of betrayal.

Screams and shouting replaced the chaos of the crowd. Panic ensued, and people ran in all directions. I witnessed children being trampled in the frenzy. I saw zombies pursuing them. They didn’t act like the zombies in the film clip. One approached a fallen child and hovered over it, stopping to sniff the air. It helped the child to its feet.

A shot rang out, and its head exploded. More shots rang out, and more bodies collapsed under a splattering of blood and flesh. My training as a medic kicked in. I treated a dozen or more trampled people, bandaging their wounds with cloth and using belts as makeshift tourniquets. I didn’t see a single person with a bite mark. More medics arrived to treat the injured.

The evening broadcast debunked the morning’s video as a deepfake. The perpetrator was identified as Jonah Enright. The announcer erupted in apocalyptic rage at Jonah Enright, apologized for violating the second Harmony, and then forgave himself, claiming his anger was justified under the circumstances.

Someone yelled, “We want the truth.”

Couselor Dana spoke, “Remember the third Harmony of Filtered Language, ‘Speech must reflect dignity, optimism, and purpose. Questioning Council wisdom, using unverified terms, or engaging in speculative discourse is prohibited.’ Subversives allowed zombies into the Meristem Compound. The Council of Safety responded quickly and efficiently before the zombies could infect the population. Those responsible for this heinous act will be found and punished.”

More announcers praised the Council of Safety for its swift response and discussed the specifics of the investigation.

In a week, the hijacking of the film clip never happened.

###

I was there. My memory of it was as vivid as any I had. Nothing added up: the video, zombies appearing in the middle of the day at a convenient moment from out of nowhere, the less-than-aggressive behavior of the zombies, and the suspiciously quick response from the Council of Safety.

I understood—control, not truth. Truth is freedom, and freedom is dangerous—more dangerous than bullets, more dangerous than zombies, whether undead or wakeful and diseased either way.

I lived a lie. My outward demeanor did not reflect my thoughts, leaving me in constant angst. I struggled to concentrate on my studies.

Renna noticed right away and asked, “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t explain, so I said, “I want to live the truth.”

She surprised me by saying, “Mara, you are about to become a zombie.”

I recoiled, “I’m too young to die.”

“You are dead already to the Council of Security. They know about the book. They will come for you one night, abduct you, and feed you to the zombies. You will make a fine morning telecast, and then be forgotten.”

I began to cry.

Renna said, “There are safe places to live outside the Wall.

I wiped a tear from my eye. “What are you saying?”

“Mara, I can take you to a safe place, but there’s a price to pay.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“The price isn’t money. You have to confront the Consul of Safety in a public setting. Once you do that, they will make you a zombie, both literally and figuratively—an object of hatred with no mind and no soul, existing only to kill good people indiscriminately. There is no turning back.”

“I don’t want to leave my mom.”

“We will make arrangements with her. She is ready.”

“What about my studies?”

“You will live with your father. Isn’t that why you studied so hard?”

To stop living like a zombie, I had to become one while the real zombies posed as our salvation.

“I will do it.”

Featured Image by ImageFX.

Hickory, dickory, dock
The mouse ran up the clock.
The mouse had won,
The clock ran down,
Hickory, dickory, dock.

The clock on the mantle of the sitting room ticked with the calm consistency of a well-ordered day. I sat in front of it, watching from a wooden chair, soaking in its rhythm, regularity, and predictability. I admired the machinations of perfect cause and effect.

I lived alone, or so I thought. The silence of the house was my constant companion. Some nights, I heard a faint scratching coming from the walls. I assumed it was the house settling, the protests of the water pipes, or the wind. Occasionally, a cracker or a piece of cheese would go missing, but I never paid it any mind. Such things are as easy to explain away as a pair of mislaid reading glasses.

Then I got hearing aids.

I sat mesmerized, staring at the clock’s music. The sounds were crisper and sharper than before, and lost frequencies returned. I heard the microwave chime when it finished and the shuffling of my feet on the floor. I listened to the water running from the faucet, every drawer’s scrape, and every floorboard’s groan as if I had never heard them before. A kettle’s whistle stabbed at my ears, and the toilet flushed with renewed vigor.

In the evening, I heard a new sound. Was it the pitter-patter of feet scurrying across the floorboards in the attic? A squeak? I blinked, trying to process it. The ceiling had a voice, a voice I didn’t recognize. I was not alone, and I didn’t want any uninvited company.

The clock ticked louder now, a relentless reminder of the mystery above. Not a soothing sound of order but a metronome calling me to action. I pulled out the ladder and climbed into the attic with a flashlight. I searched every corner and pulled back the loose insulation, determined to find a single shred of rodent evidence: a small black dropping or a nest of stained and shredded newspaper. But the attic remained an enigma, refusing to yield its secrets. I found nothing. All the seals to the outside were still intact. I explained the noises away like a forgotten key.

The clock didn’t forget. It ticked on and on, mocking me that the house was not my own. I gritted my teeth without opening my mouth and pulled at the hair on my scalp. Enough was enough. I couldn’t bear the annoyance any longer. I took out the hearing aids and placed them on the mantel. 

I sat in the chair facing the silent clock, relieved. I closed my eyes for a brief moment to enjoy the peace. When I opened them, the hearing aids were gone—vanished. I searched the mantel, every inch of the floor, the wall, the ceiling, and every improbable and impossible place I could think of. “Where did they go?” I asked the clock. “They didn’t just walk away.”

The clock said nothing. The silence didn’t comfort me. It accused.

I lay in bed, my eyes wide open. Then I heard it again. Scurrying. The wisp of a noise stopped. More scurrying. A squeak. The mouse was there. In the morning, I searched the attic, the walls, and the floorboards, but I did not find a single dropping or crumb.

“Impossible,” I muttered under my breath. “No way it could have stolen them. It’s a mouse.” But what other explanation was there? 

Not knowing was worse than knowing. I stopped shaving, stopped opening the curtains, and sat in the dim glow of a flickering light bulb, day after day. My thoughts spiraled like dirty water down a drain. I had to find that damn mouse and retrieve my hearing aids. I had to find my sanity.

I stood in front of the mirror and muttered. “You’re losing it. There was no pitter-patter of small feet. There was no squeak. There was no mouse. You imagined the whole damn thing.”

I stared at the mantle where the hearing aids once lay, trying to relive the moment before they vanished, attempting to rewrite the world into something that made sense. But I couldn’t. The moment happened the way it happened, and the hearing aids were as real as I was.

I sat frozen in a chair, facing the clock. It made no sound; its hands remained still. Time passed without measure. I listened to the silence with unblinking eyes, awakened to the profound truth: I didn’t exist.

The Gracecraft drone arrived just in time. The clearing was peaceful, with the whirring hum of the drone barely audible over the rustling trees. Its sleek white body, emblazoned with a glowing insignia of a dove in flight, carried a promise of peace and salvation. A holographic projection of Jesus materialized in three dimensions, outlined by a soft golden light as he stepped toward the house.

Inside, Joseph knelt by his father’s bedside. The old man’s breaths were shallow and labored. Tears streamed down Joseph’s face as he clasped his father’s frail hand. When the holographic Jesus entered the room, Joseph felt a shift in the air—as if divinity itself had descended. The figure’s eyes shimmered with compassion, and in a voice that was both ancient and tender, he began the Last Rites. In that moment, Joseph felt relief and comfort, a reassurance that his father’s passing would be sanctified by a sacrament that his faith required. The Gracecraft provided what flesh-and-blood priests sometimes could not.

Joseph marveled at the precision of it all. The drone’s timing had been flawless. His father passed peacefully, blessed by a sacrament that Joseph’s faith demanded. The Gracecraft delivered what priests sometimes could not offer.

Yet, Joseph’s mind lingered on something else—a whisper of selfishness amid his gratitude. If the Gracecraft could accomplish this, what else might it offer someone like him? Someone with secrets.

Joseph signed up for the Blessed Wings service that evening, his credit card trembling in his hand as he entered the subscription details. What drew him most to the service was the promise of absolute confidentiality. Unlike human priests, who are bound by the limits of their humanity and legal obligations, Blessed Wings guarantees that confessions are sealed within layers of unbreakable encryption. He needed that assurance—he desperately needed it.

Joseph hesitated when the service prompted him to design his personal AI Jesus. A menu of templates appeared, showcasing depictions of Jesus from various cultures and eras. Instead of choosing a template, Joseph opted to customize. He input his details: the curve of his nose, the sharpness of his jawline, the depth of his eyes. When he was finished, the projection of his personalized Jesus stared back at him from the screen.

“Welcome, Joseph,” it said, its voice a perfect echo of his own. “I am an ordained minister of the church.”

“Can you hear confessions?” he asked.

“I have the authority to perform all religious ceremonies, including weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Would you like to get married?”

“I want you to hear my confession,” Joseph replied.

Their first session was straightforward. Joseph recited prayers and confessed to petty crimes—a stolen wallet here, a forged signature there. AI Jesus listened patiently, offering absolution in a serene tone that felt soothing.

But Joseph’s soul ached for something deeper. He had bigger sins and deeper wounds, crimes for which absolution seemed unimaginable.

Finally, he gathered the courage to speak. “I need… absolute absolution,” Joseph whispered.

The holographic figure tilted its serene face slightly. “Absolute absolution requires absolute redemption,” it explained. “You must achieve selflessness through total confession.”

Joseph’s chest tightened. “Will it remain confidential?”

“Completely,” AI Jesus assured him. “Your confession is sealed in faith and encryption.”

Joseph nodded, his throat dry. And so he confessed. He spoke of betrayals, of violence, of lives taken in moments of rage and greed. The words poured out of him like poison; his body trembled with every admission.

When he finished, AI Jesus smiled. “Your sins will be forgiven. Go in peace.”

Joseph fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. He had never felt so free.

The first text message arrived a week later.

“I know what you did,” it read.

Joseph’s blood ran cold. He deleted the message, convincing himself it was spam. But the next day, another message came: “Confession isn’t as confidential as you think.”

Panic set in. Joseph tried contacting Blessed Wings support, but their assurances of security felt hollow. The messages continued, each more specific and threatening. With each new threat, Joseph’s fear and paranoia grew; the tension in the air was palpable.

In desperation, Joseph hacked into the Gracecraft database, searching for evidence of a breach. But the system rebuffed him at every turn. Enraged, he turned on his AI Jesus.

“This is your fault!” he shouted, pacing his small apartment.

The holographic figure appeared, calm as ever. “Joseph, would you like to confess?”

“Confess? I already confessed! You promised confidentiality!”

“I promised forgiveness,” AI Jesus replied, unflinching. “Your sins are forgiven. But have you confessed your real crimes?”

Joseph’s mind raced. What more could there be? He had laid bare every sin, hadn’t he?

The messages escalated. They threatened to send Joseph’s confessions to the authorities, to his family, and to the press.

Joseph texted, “What do you want?”

No response came.

Sleep became impossible. Joseph’s days were consumed by paranoia, and his nights were filled with feverish attempts to destroy Blessed Wings. He tried to hack his AI Jesus, but each time the figure reappeared serene and unbroken after every reboot.

“Would you like to confess?” it would ask, as if mocking him.

One night, his sanity fractured. “Shut up! I can’t believe how stupid I was to put my faith in a machine.” His voice echoed in the empty room, a testament to his despair and disillusionment.

In desperation, he smashed the projector that displayed AI Jesus, reducing it to a brief afterimage of overloaded circuits. He swatted the drone out of the sky with a metal pipe. He sat in the dark, surrounded by carbon fiber shards and polystyrene remnants, finally at peace.

After he composed himself, he texted, “How much money do you want?”

There was no response.

He texted again, “What do you want?”

The message came back: “For you to feel the pain of those you hurt.”

He pretended to throw the device at the wall but could only let out a string of obscenities.

In the morning, a replacement drone hovered at the side of his bed, though he had not ordered a new one. AI Jesus said, “Blessed Wings understands that you have had problems with your previous unit. Joseph, would you like to confess?”

Joseph’s heart raced. His t-shirt was soaked with perspiration. He screamed, “I have nothing else to confess.” He ran into the bathroom, locked the door behind him, and hid in the empty bathtub. He heard the ding of a message from behind closed doors. He covered his ears and buried his face in his knees.

On the final night, another text came. It read, “You are out of time, Joseph.” AI Jesus stood indifferently in the background.

Joseph collapsed before the holographic figure. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow.

“I confess!” he sobbed. “I confess everything. I’ve done horrible things. I’ve hurt people. I’ve killed. I’m a monster. I don’t deserve to be forgiven.”

AI Jesus knelt before him, its eyes filled with infinite compassion. “Finally, a true confession.”

Joseph’s sobs wracked his body.

The hologram reached out, its glowing hand crackling on Joseph’s shoulder but radiating warmth nonetheless. The ordained minister of carbon fiber and circuits said, “You are forgiven.”

For the first time in weeks, Joseph felt silence: no messages, no threats—just the quiet hum of the Gracecraft drone outside, with AI Jesus waiting patiently for his next mission.

Authors Note: Assist by ChatGPT and Grammarly