Emox allowed free will to reign, provided you weren't an Emox yourself.
Michael returned to his room, the one he shared with five other people. The moment he pushed the door open, he was greeted by the familiar sound of arguments.
"Bro, I'm telling you, curves are everything."
"Curves? Have you seen those hips?"
"Forget hips. It's all about the face."
The discussion continued, each roommate seemingly determined to defend his personal definition of the perfect woman. They argued with the confidence of men discussing matters of national importance, occasionally interrupting one another to make their points.
Michael barely paid attention.
He walked past them, dropped himself onto his bed and reached for his phone.
His mind was elsewhere.
On her.
It was becoming ridiculous. He couldn't understand why this particular girl had managed to occupy so much space in his head. He had met other girls before. Beautiful girls, interesting girls, girls who had shown him affection and made their intentions perfectly clear.
Yet none of them had stirred anything within him.
Not even close.
But this girl was different.
There was something about her that made everything else seem insignificant. She was the little bit of light that managed to find its way into a life he had long considered meaningless. Whenever he thought of her, even the simplest things seemed to carry a little more weight.
He wouldn't say she was his oxygen. That would be too dramatic, even for him.
But she was the oxygen that made him want to live, not the kind that forced him to keep breathing.
And perhaps that was what frightened him most.
Michael stared at his phone, his thumb hovering over the screen. His thoughts drifted back to what she had done, and the familiar ache returned.
He should have been angry.
He wanted to be angry.
In fact, he had every reason to be.
He wanted to distance himself from her, to stop giving her so much of his attention. He wanted to convince himself that he could carry on without her, just as he had done before meeting her.
But every time he tried, something pulled him back.
The more he attempted to create distance, the more he felt as though he were losing her.
And the worst part was that he knew she didn't see him the way he saw her.
He wasn't blind to it. He wasn't some fool who couldn't recognise the difference between affection and love. He understood that their feelings were not equal, that the meaning she attached to their conversations might never be the same as the meaning he attached to them.
He understood all of that.
Yet understanding something didn't necessarily make it easier to accept.
To Michael, she was everything.
Whenever he thought about her, he became someone he barely recognised. The boy who usually had something cynical to say suddenly found himself searching for beautiful words. He felt poetic, almost angelic, as though simply thinking about her could transform him into a better version of himself.
A little assurance from her was enough to lift his confidence. A simple message could change his entire mood. Sometimes, he didn't even need her to say anything particularly meaningful. Knowing she was there was enough.
Pathetic, perhaps.
But that was how he felt.
He was young. Still in school. His father was still supporting him, and he hadn't even begun building the kind of life he wanted. She was still in school too. He couldn't take care of her financially, couldn't spoil her with the things he imagined buying for her, couldn't offer her the stability he believed she deserved.
But God, he loved her.
And he wished he could tell her.
The words were there, somewhere inside him, waiting to escape. Yet whenever he imagined confessing, fear tightened around his chest.
What if she didn't feel the same?
What if she simply smiled, acknowledged his feelings and carried on as though nothing had happened?
Worse still, what if she became distant?
That possibility terrified him more than rejection itself. He could imagine being told no. What he struggled to imagine was losing the little connection they already had.
Without her, what would he have left to look forward to?
He had spent so much of his life feeling disconnected from everything around him. He didn't want to return to that emptiness. He didn't want another reason to feel that life was nothing more than an endless sequence of meaningless days.
It was strange, really.
He wanted to die.
He had said it countless times, thought about it more times than he could remember, and found little reason to disagree with himself.
Yet he also wanted to live.
Not for some grand purpose. Not to become the strongest, richest or most respected person in the world.
He wanted to live with her.
And for someone who had spent so long wishing for an end, that was a rather inconvenient desire.
His phone vibrated.
Michael's eyes immediately shifted towards the screen.
Her name.
He unlocked it.
"I sent this to speak to you."
He read the message again.
Then once more.
A small smile crept across his face before he could stop it.
She wanted to talk to him.
That was all.
A few words on a screen, nothing extraordinary to anyone else. But to Michael, it meant something. It made him feel wanted, needed, remembered. Feelings he craved but rarely experienced.
He sat up slightly, forgetting the conversation happening around him.
They began talking.
And just like that, the room seemed a little less noisy. The arguments, the laughter and the occasional shouting faded into the background. His attention belonged entirely to the person on the other side of the screen.
She listened. She reassured him. She gave him the sort of attention that made him feel as though, for a brief moment, he wasn't alone in his own head.
Perhaps she understood more than he gave her credit for. Perhaps she could tell that he was overwhelmed by feelings he couldn't properly explain, feelings he didn't even fully understand himself.
She embraced him through their conversation, offering comfort without necessarily realising how much he needed it.
But even in those moments, there was pain.
Because she didn't love him the way he loved her.
And that was the cruel joke of life, wasn't it?
Sometimes, you spend your days longing for someone who cannot return your feelings, while somewhere else, another person is desperately wishing you would look at them the same way.
One person loves.
Another person doesn't.
And somehow, everyone ends up hurting.
Michael knew this. He had thought about it before, perhaps more than he should have. Yet knowing the reality of something didn't mean he could simply switch off his feelings.
If only emotions worked that way.
Eventually, the conversation came to an end.
Michael placed his phone beside him and stared at the ceiling.
His roommates were still making noise. Their arguments had moved on to something else, though he couldn't have said what. One of them burst into laughter, followed by another complaining about something.
He paid them no attention.
All five of his roommates possessed abilities. Every single one of them had something he didn't. In a world where emotions could be turned into power, they were far from ordinary.
And Michael?
Well, he was still the powerless monkey.
If any of them decided to attack him, he would have very little chance of defending himself.
Wonderful.
He had six people to share a room with, five of whom could probably overpower him, and an enrolment challenge waiting for him in the morning.
What a beautiful life.
He reached for his phone one final time, set his alarm and placed it back beside his pillow.
There was nothing more to do.
For once, he allowed himself to stop thinking.
His eyelids grew heavy. The noise of his roommates gradually became distant, their voices blending into an indistinct murmur.
And eventually, Michael fell asleep.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The alarm shattered the silence.
Michael stirred beneath his blanket, groaning as he reached blindly for his phone.
Six in the morning.
He stared at the time, his eyes still struggling to adjust.
Today was the day.
The day that would determine his fate.
The beginning of his life as an Emox.
Or perhaps, the beginning of something far worse.