"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."
— Friedrich Nietzsche
They call our city Erevale — the cleanest city in the Republic.
You can smell its perfection. Synthetic lavender in every corner, propaganda screens humming softly about "moral excellence," and those same posters of the Mayor smiling like he's allergic to guilt.
Everyone here plays their role perfectly.
Children recite virtues instead of prayers. Adults chase productivity as if it's a religion. And the system rewards those who smile long enough to look pure.
I smile too.
Every morning, my reflection reminds me of the lie I wear better than my suits.
The smile is easy now — practiced, symmetrical, believable. They call me Mr. Kael, the man who donates books to orphanages, who funds education drives, who never loses his temper.
If only they knew what I read.
Last night, I reread The Prince by Machiavelli and underlined this line:
"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
And then I laughed — because fear and love are just two edges of the same blade. The strong wield both. The weak die pretending one is holier.
I walk through the streets of Erevale like a ghost that pays taxes.
Everything's too perfect here — the kind of perfection that hides rot underneath.
Cameras on every corner. Civic patrols preaching harmony. Citizens smiling with their eyes dead.
They call it The Moral Age, a new renaissance of ethics and order after the Collapse.
But to me, it's a zoo. The animals wear suits now, but instinct still rules. The only difference is — predators pretend to care.
I don't pretend.
I observe. I adapt. I survive.
That's what Darwin said, right? "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
The city evolves — I evolve faster.
My apartment is my only honest space.
Books stacked like walls. Nietzsche beside Shakespeare, Freud beside Poe.
I read not for pleasure but for survival. Every book, every idea is a weapon sharpened against stupidity.
Sometimes I test myself — by turning on the news.
A man cries on camera, confessing his crimes. The crowd cheers for his repentance. The judge calls it justice. I call it weakness — mercy disguised as morality.
They don't realize mercy breeds more decay.
Kill the root, not the branch.
That's nature's only law.
Tonight is the charity gala. I'll stand in a hall full of moral pretenders, shake hands with saints in silk gloves, and talk about "hope."
Hope — the drug of the weak.
Still, I'll go. Not because I care, but because masks are the best camouflage in a city obsessed with virtue.
As I step outside, the neon signs flicker like dying stars.
Somewhere in this city, someone is pretending harder than I am.
Somewhere, another monster hides behind a halo.
And for a brief, unexplainable moment — I feel it.
A pull. A presence.
As if the city itself is watching me, whispering: "You're not the only one."
I pause, half-smiling at the empty street.
"Perhaps," I whisper, quoting Marcus Aurelius,
"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."
But my thoughts aren't peaceful.
They're sharp.
Hungry.
Waiting to evolve.
And somewhere, I know — another mind, equally sharp, equally hungry, is out there.
Not an enemy. Not yet.
But something inevitable.
The beginning of something that will either complete me —
or kill me.