The woman with tangled hair sways in front of the reference desk with unblinking eyes. I tuned out and stopped trying to talk to people hours ago, but her sporadic hand motions catch my eye. She huffs under her breath and wanders away. Her shirt is buttoned haphazardly, as if she forgot midway or gave up, exposing a swath of irritated skin and ancient brassiere.

     Sunlight filters through the glass windows. There is a hush in the library as patrons wander, slow and sluggish, pausing often to stare around the room or eye each other blankly. Circling around and around, they carve paths through aisles of bookcases and rows of dead computer monitors.

     An old man teeters to my desk. His mouth opens wide and snaps shut, once, twice. He gestures vaguely over my head and I turn around in my swivel chair but there is nothing. I point to his wife, who sits on the floor next to the copy machine. In her lap lies a dead possum with glassy eyes and a rivulet of blood running from jaws to her muddy skirt. Its long rat tail droops from the crook of her elbow and she strokes the fur slowly, her eyes two moons in a slack face. Yesterday, a lifetime ago, I gave them the daily newspaper and watched as they read and laughed softly in twin armchairs by the window. His eyes follow my finger, hovers on his wife, and passes over.

     People thump against the glass windows like moths. They wander in and out of the door in various states of undress. Do they remember who they are? Did they awake as empty husks, instinct propelling them to routines—drive to work, drop off kids, pick up groceries? They move with aimless purpose, without speaking, some sit down abruptly like infants. Outside, a car careens down the street and into a tree, folding into itself like a cardboard box. A man stumbles out, dazed, blood running down his face, and stands there with his neck craned back to look at the cloudless sky. What answers will you find up there, carless man? Everywhere there are abandoned cars: flipped over on the street or parked in incongruous spots, crooked and random, in the library parking lot. 

     A naked man with a pale, hairy belly walks up and down the fiction aisles, raking his nails along the spines. Before I could call out, he sweeps his hand across a shelf in a single furious motion. The books fall like dying birds, pages flapping and torn. A girl sitting near the magazine racks tears out pages by the handful. People watch and I look into the emptiness of their expressions, already unfamiliar and inhuman. All this knowledge, all this useless paper containing stories and memories and information, as irrelevant as firewood to a flintless man. I hear the sound of laughing and guttural weeping, echoing and faint as if from a great distance. Heads turn slowly at the sound of my keening, but no one approaches.

when she twirls in the middle of the dance floor, it is the colour of her dress

when she whispers in your ear, it is the colour of her lips

when you feel her throbbing passion, it is the colour of her pulse

when you see her with another, it is the colour of your eyes

when you scream at her, it is the colour of the piercing sound

when you look into her eyes for the last time, it is the fading colour of your heart falling

it is not the colour you see when she leaves...

It’s Monday at the Copenhagen Research Center for Advanced Human Augmentation and things are about to get strange. I have seen this because APEX has seen it. If any life form apart from humans finds this message, be warned and pay attention. The following account starts last week when I woke up in a cubical room no bigger than a hotel bedroom or at least I felt I did.

Time, we’re running out of time. There’s a throbbing feeling in my head. Time-fluid, never ending, harsh and mysterious. My eyes open to a hazy world, welcoming me with a sharp headache. As I lift my head from the wet floor, I regain control of the place and there appears to be some lettering at the wall ahead. There’s the crescendo of voices bouncing off near me but no people.

My hands are restrained and once I become aware of this, I jump high to no effect. Then some clarity falls to my sight and things become clearer.

“HEAT DEATH. PERCENTAGE OF POSSIBILITY 87. ETA 5..” was etched on the walls in a strange squiggly format much akin to that of a child’s scribbling in black ink. The etch ended at the number 5.

The world is clearer now. The trees outside are growing. The birds chirping, diplomats having peace talks and a whole lot of turbulent entropy passing out in the universe. I see this because APEX sees this. And APEX is being viewed by those strained voices standing outside in milk white lab coats and perturbed face expressions. Something’s wrong and my brain can feel it.

I was a university grad student by the name of Mitchell Caruthers who allowed scientists to use my brain as a testing ground for a new mind accelerated drug called ‘Ubercran’. But the developers underestimated the drug’s true effects. My eyes became a window to unforeseen events and expected outcomes, owing to a faster brain. I could complete a person’s sentence even before they finished talking, outtake an entire MENSA team of a hundred participants, learn multiple languages in a single night and even correct analytical errors in computer calculations even before they occurred.

But things got quite a lot out of hand. I began seeing the future. My mind could process it but my emotions couldn’t accept it. The team prescribed a dosage of painkillers to counter the effects but it somehow brought me closer to the brink of death.

The only way to keep a healthy threshold was by creating a secondary memory in my brain that could withstand such data. Thus a self sentient alter ego APEX was born. APEX has been feeding me things that would horrify most and despite my best intentions to suppress what it tried to say, sometimes it would take over send messages. The team seems terrified of one such message on my wall ahead.

“How are you feeling?”, Elizabeth Anne shot up near the glass exterior. She’s perhaps the only one in the team who knows that there’s still a human being inside this flesh.

“Light headed and disappointed”, I reply. “I suppose everyone knows what’s going on?”

“The heat death part is just one thing to be afraid of. Universally, it’ll take a long time. But you should take a look behind you.”

She pressed a button and removed my restraints. I quickly peered behind me and gulped in anxiety, “WORLD WAR III. WEST CONTRA EAST” was written in blood on the wall behind me that I was sitting on. Naturally, I looked at my arm and I saw stitches. APEX got out and now he was sending a foreseeable expectation.

“Does anyone know about this?”, I ask Elizabeth.

“No one yet has been informed but ever since you pulled that Ebola outbreak prediction, there’s been a swarming group of reporters outside ever since.”

It was a dumb question to ask her. Outside a team of reporters had already begun circulating the news. I could sense this because APEX could sense this.

Roger Stannard was the team lead who was even more concerned. “We need to amp up the Ubercran. The writings are all cryptic. APEX has to brought back and we need to know exactly what’s going to happen in the coming days”, he argued.

He pressed the same button Elizabeth pressed and I was restrained again in a docile state. Two tubes injected the drug straight to my cranium and then it happened. I crossed threshold. At exactly 9:56 A.M. GMT, APEX took over. I could see it all. The counter next to cubicle I was in showed a 100 percent sufficiency index. For nearly twenty minutes, I wasn’t just the smartest man in the world, but in the whole universe.

There were visions that shocked whatever was left of my conscience. Fifty nine nations going to war. A new terror front contra taking over the world in three months. Global pandemonium over toxic chemical releases, floods, mega tsunamis, entire island nations being wiped out in seconds. And the universe, a bleak portion of dark expanse too would collapse not in billions of years but right now. I saw this because APEX saw this.

I feared for my sanity but more for the team analysts who were reading my thoughts outside and were even more frightened.

When the millionth second mark crossed, APEX had full control over. Time became an immaterial thing. Disasters occurred in seconds, national armies proclaimed war and civil unrest took over the world and all that covered the world was darkness.

The facility must have crashed because of such reasons because by the time the visions came to an end and I regained my normal sights, everything was gone. My cubicle was in shambles, fire and noise gripped the entire facility and everyone was dead. APEX could sense that there were no other survivors left on the planet.

Mitchell was dead. APEX was the one who survived. I inspected the scene and found Elizabeth’s corpse with a gun in her hand. Surely suicide. As the mental visor demolished before me where her body lay, it revealed a final writing on the wall-

“WE SAW IT COMING. WE COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS.”

When I wake up, I'm lying in a crimson pool of cells, platelets and plasma.

The once-white sheets I'm rested on are stained with burgundy. My blood. 

Lots and lots of it.

I try to get up, but I can't get my body to move. Every single bit of me, with the exception of my face, seems to have been turned to stone. There's an overpowering feeling of numbness in my body, and it frightens me.

What's going on?

I feel lethargic and sluggish. My breathing is weak and strained. My eyes struggle to keep themselves open, my eyelids seeming to weigh tons.

I'm vaguely aware of something warm and sticky trickling down my temples. I catch its scent: Metallic. More blood.

I struggle to move, but to no avail. A fruitless attempt. From the sterile smell in the air, and an IV in my arm, I can tell I'm in the hospital. What happened?

My brain feels different. Despite my other body parts' refusal to function, it seems to work perfectly fine. More than fine. It feels strange, like a supercomputer. Everything in my brain is crystal clear and easy to process. It's beautiful, and I feel intelligent. Very intelligent.

Huh. Intelligent? The girl who flunked every single one of her examinations, intelligent? I think bitterly.

But still, my mind feels powerful. And it's too tempting. So I try.

17778 times 19873.

Almost instantly, the answer flashes clear in my mind.

353302194.

Wait, what?

Here I am, a stupid thirteen-year-old who can't even do her twelve times table, multiplying 17778 times 19873 in a second? What the heck?

Something's off. Very off.

My mind is clear. I try to recall what happened earlier.

And it rushes back.

I asked a witch for a wish.

Dark, raven-black hair, that cascaded down to her shoulders. Her face shrouded in shadows, the only thing visible being her eyes. Large, deep violet, almost seeming to glow. A beautiful violet, but a malevolent one.

She was wearing a cloak. One that covered her lower body completely, its hood covering part of her face.

She was a witch.

I saw her on the streets, and she intrigued me. I followed her into a dark alley, like an idiot.

And she offered me a wish.

She warned me that there'd be a price. But of course, I'd still get my wish, and if I wished carefully, it'd be worth it.

I'd been failing exams all my life. I'd just came back from school with a test score in Math of 12/100, and I was simply dreading going home.

It didn't seem legitimate to me, because, well, I didn't believe in witches, and no one can grant wishes.

But something about her gaze told me that she was telling the truth.

The price? Pshhh. It didn't matter. As long as I got my wish, well, whatever.

So, I wished to be the smartest human being on Earth.

She nodded.

And then her lips curled upward, ever so slightly, into the most evil, horrific smile I'd ever seen.

That was when I knew I shouldn't have wished.

But it was too late.

I only remember that excruciating agony had ripped right through me, as though a billion knives were stabbing through me from the inside, and blood started flying everywhere. I'd screamed and screamed, while her body seemed to turn to dust, and she vanished.

Then I'd blacked out, and darkness was all that there was.

My eyes are wide, and I'm frozen with the memories.

I wished for this.

And the price? Now I'm paralysed from the neck-down.

***

Ever since I was seven, I've dreamed about being a professional runner, the kind that takes part in competitions and goes to the Olympics to win medals and stuff.

And I might even have been good enough. I ran like the wind, the fastest in my school, people telling me that I had superhuman speed, and that maybe my dream could one day be real.

I trained like mad for it. I represented my school in track competitions, and brought back medals and trophies. I loved running. It was my dream, and my life.

And that's when realisation hits me. 

I'll never be able to run again.

Anguish, horror and shock consumes me. It's an extremely unpleasant feeling, so many horrible feelings overwhelming you at once. I feel warm liquid trickling down my cheeks. Hydrogen and oxygen combined, my brain supplies. Plus a tad of sodium.

SHUT UP! I wish I could yell, but my voice doesn't work. I don't freaking care!

So this is the price of black magic. It's definitely not worth it.

What's the point of being the most intelligent human being on Earth, if it means that everything you care for is taken away from you?

What's the point?

You get to be the most intelligent human being in the world, but at the loss of what means the most to you. So this is balance.

Cruel world. Cruel, cruel world.

So nothing's worth it in the end.

you call me beautiful

                              but darling, don't you

              know that

                                       the beauty of sunrises lies 

                   only

        in

                                                               dust

don't know why

think i'm drunk

but maybe not

intoxication makes you forget things. 

though i still remember

that you aren't here

and you never will be

don't know why

think i'm drunk

but either way

i miss you.

yeah, a drunken man says that he misses you. 

funny, isn't it?

and the three words i never managed to say

i love you. 

intoxication does many things to you.

cowardice to courage.

if only i were drunk on the day you left