The Pretenders

By Cheda and Farah

Hi, there is a reason for you to be reading this, all of the choices you have made throughout your life led you to this moment. Let me present myself, I’m Dabi, and I’m a scientist. And what you’re about to read is how my life turned upside down in a heartbeat.

What you need to know about the world I live in is that everything you do and say is monitored, and only a few of us were aware of that. The government implanted microchips in people’s brains in order to control them. And only the brightest and sharpest of us could stay sane and think clearly enough to find a way to stop this nonsense. We called ourselves The Pretenders. There were 4 pretenders that I knew about, other than myself, every single one of them was incredibly clever. 

On february 13th 2105. I started doing some research about how these chips worked, the government didn’t suspect anything because of my job. After a month, I found out that there was a spot in the city where the chips were less effective than in any other place. I spent hours there in hope to find someone who could’ve found this place before me. That’s when I met them, The pretenders. They all looked at me in shock and asked me a bunch of questions.

“Who sent you?”, a fair haired girl asked. I waited three seconds before answering, I needed to analyse the situation. There were two possibilities, they were either plotting against the government or working for them and making sure no one was there. Judging from the way they were dressed, their posture and the fact that they came here expecting this area to be empty, the first possibility was most likely to be true.

Hi, there is a reason for you to be reading this, all of the choices you have made throughout your life led you to this moment. Let me present myself, I’m Dabi, and I’m a scientist. And what you’re about to read is how my life turned upside down in a heartbeat.

What you need to know about the world I live in is that everything you do and say is monitored, and only a few of us were aware of that. The government implanted microchips in people’s brains in order to control them. And only the brightest and sharpest of us could stay sane and think clearly enough to find a way to stop this nonsense. We called ourselves The Pretenders. There were 4 pretenders that I knew about, other than myself, every single one of them was incredibly clever. 

On february 13th 2105. I started doing some research about how these chips worked, the government didn’t suspect anything because of my job. After a month, I found out that there was a spot in the city where the chips were less effective than in any other place. I spent hours there in hope to find someone who could’ve found this place before me. That’s when I met them, The pretenders. They all looked at me in shock and asked me a bunch of questions.

“Who sent you?”, a fair haired girl asked. I waited three seconds before answering, I needed to analyse the situation. There were two possibilities, they were either plotting against the government or working for them and making sure no one was there. Judging from the way they were dressed, their posture and the fact that they came here expecting this area to be empty, the first possibility was most likely to be true.

Loading...

I then answered “I want to free everyone from the government, and for that, I need your help”. They all looked at each other as if they were communicating with only their eyes. There were three men and a woman, one of the men talked to me and said “Come with us”. We started walking in the area as they were telling me about the organization.

They seemed to understand each other and to know what they were doing. “Don’t tell us your name for safety purposes. We have to call each other with aliases. Mine is Chopper'' said the man who had asked me to follow them. They called the girl Pandora and the two other guys were Zoro and Light. I decided to choose the name Dabi.

Zoro looked at me and explained that they had a plan and that they were confident in it. Light added that we had to be careful with what we did, that we only had one shot and that the government suspected them of being able to control their actions even with the microchips in their brain. We kept on talking about their goal which was to free everyone from these oppressive people.

We spent months together trying to figure out a way to outsmart the government, trying out multiple possibilities. And most importantly trying to keep all of this on the low. If anyone found out what we were doing, we won’t last long.

From the very beginning, Pandora caught my eye, all I did was look at her and try to know as much as I could about this mysterious woman. She was confident, was the leader of the organisation and it seemed like she didn’t trust me at all. I wanted to know all about her, so I decided to help them with the plan.

Loading...

 In a world full of people who followed the rules, she went against all of them and wanted to make a change. She was quite interesting, not everything about her was easy to understand but once I got closer to her. I realized that I was slowly falling for her. I wasn’t scared of the government, I wasn’t scared to die either, but losing her terrified me. I was prepared to sacrifice my life for her’s. 

On the night of january 9th 2110, we were planning our rebellious act. I suddenly started feeling dizzy and everything turned blank. When I woke up I was in a maze. All by myself. I thought to myself:” “Where am I? What happened? Why am I not with the other pretenders?”. I started walking and searching for a way to find Pandora. And that’s when I saw her body, lifeless, on the ground, the others’ bodies were next to her but I couldn’t care less. Pandora was dead. It was a bloodbath.

They were covered in blood and something was written with it. It said “THEY KNOW”. The government was behind this all along. Is that what happened to people who were able to act freely even though they were chipped? I needed to get out of there.

I started running as fast as I could but in vain, there was no escape to this maze. I started hearing a strange sound, as if someone was chasing me. I kept running until I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. I tripped and didn’t have enough time to get up. I saw a man holding up a gun, he was probably working for the government.

 He shot me in the guts, and when he heard the sound of the gunshot, he got his sanity back, tried to help me, but someone blew his brains out. I couldn't see where the bullet came from. I looked for something that could help me in his pockets and that’s where I found a book with some information about them.

At the moment I’m writing this, I’m bleeding out, I will probably die soon. And the reason I’m writing this is that I know that other people will end up here. So if you’re reading, I need you to know that…