STARLIGHT UNBOUND by Deus Ex Machina - HTML preview

STARLIGHT UNBOUND

thoughts and settling like an itch he couldn ’t scratch.

By the time he reached his apartment, the words had lodged themselves deep, whispering in the quiet spaces of his mind.

***

He opened the door to his apartment with a swipe of his wrist device. The mechanical click and hiss of the lock disengaging blended into the distant rush of the city outside. Stepping inside, he was met with the usual stillness—tidy, functional, utterly unremarkable.

The apartment was a reflection of his life: clean lines, muted colors, everything in its rightful place. A modular sofa occupied one corner, facing a wall-mounted touchscreen that idled with AstroSYS’s rotating logo. In the kitchenette, spotless counters gleamed under artificial light, devoid of clutter or personality. Even the engineered plants on the windowsill, their waxy green leaves uniform, felt more like placeholders than signs of life.

He set his bag down by the door, slipped off his shoes, and crossed the room in quiet, measured steps. From a cabinet, he retrieved a pre-packaged meal labeled:

AstroSYS Nutritional Alignment: High Protein & Greens – Daily Ratio 72%.

Sliding it into the heating unit, he pressed his hands against the counter, watching the screen on the wall.

The day’s events looped through his mind: the graffiti splashed across the walls near Sector 8, the cryptic message scrawled in shimmering paint—Do you feel it yet? The words clung to him.

Feel what?

The heating unit beeped, snapping him back. Grabbing the tray, he sat at the small dining table and stared out the window. The meal before him was as predictable as the rest of his life—neatly cubed protein, a portion of steamed greens, and an energy gel masquerading as dessert. Efficient. Necessary. Tasteless.

He ate in silence, each bite mechanical, his mind circling back to the graffiti. It wasn ’t the first time someone had tried to disrupt things, but this felt... different. The jagged patterns, the strange shimmer, the precision of the lettering —it wasn’t mindless rebellion. It was something else. A message, maybe.

But what message? And for who? Not me obviously.

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