---
Elen woke up smiling.
That was the first sign something was wrong.
---
The heaviness was gone.
Not reduced. Not dulled.
Gone.
She sat up in bed, waiting for the familiar pressure to settle behind her eyes. It didn't come. Her chest felt light. Empty. Clean.
For a moment, she laughed.
"Guess I finally adjusted," she whispered.
The words sounded correct.
They meant nothing.
---
At the Authority building, Elen moved like a model employee.
She completed tasks faster than usual. No hesitation. No second-guessing. Her decisions flowed smoothly, efficiently.
Too efficiently.
A coworker dropped a data slate near her desk. It cracked.
"Sorry," he muttered, clearly upset.
Elen looked at him.
She understood that this was a moment requiring a response.
Comfort. Reassurance. Empathy.
She said, "Submit a replacement request."
Her voice was calm.
Neutral.
The coworker stared at her, confused. "That's it?"
Elen blinked. "Is there… something else?"
He walked away without answering.
She watched him go, puzzled by the tightness in her throat that never turned into feeling.
---
At lunch, Elen realized she wasn't hungry.
Not because she'd eaten.
Because hunger felt… unnecessary.
Food was fuel. Work was output. Rest was maintenance.
Everything made sense.
She should have been relieved.
Instead, something hollow echoed inside her — not pain, but absence.
---
Across the city, Arnold gasped.
He had been sitting still when it happened.
No warning. No vision.
Just a sudden influx — like a door opening somewhere deep in his chest.
Not emotion.
Potential.
His hands trembled as something unfamiliar flooded him.
Concern.
Uncertainty.
The instinct to stop and ask if something was wrong.
Arnold doubled over, breath ragged.
"This isn't mine," he whispered.
But it fit too well to reject.
---
Elen stood before a mirror in the restroom.
She examined her face carefully.
Same eyes. Same expression.
She practiced a smile.
It appeared on command — accurate, well-shaped.
She felt nothing.
The realization struck quietly.
"I'm… done," she said.
Not dead.
Not broken.
Finished.
---
Her supervisor called her into the office that afternoon.
"Your performance metrics are excellent," he said, impressed. "Honestly, Elen, you seem… lighter."
She nodded.
That word again.
Lighter.
He leaned forward. "Is everything okay?"
This was the moment.
The one where she used to pause. Where she'd feel the weight of honesty. Where she'd decide whether to tell the truth.
The space where choice lived.
Nothing happened.
"Yes," she said immediately.
The answer required no effort.
---
Elen left work early.
Not because she was unwell.
Because there was no reason to stay.
She walked through the city like a ghost that still obeyed traffic signals.
The world felt flat.
Not dull.
Solved.
She stopped at a pedestrian bridge overlooking the transit lines and watched trains pass beneath her.
People hurried.
Argued. Laughed. Hesitated.
She observed them the way one watches weather.
Detached.
Correct.
And then, for the first time since the weight vanished, something cracked.
A child stumbled near the railing.
The mother reached out, panic flashing across her face.
Elen saw it.
Recognized the danger.
Calculated response time.
And did nothing.
Someone else intervened a second later.
The child was safe.
No harm done.
But Elen's knees buckled.
She sank to the ground, breath coming fast — not from fear, but from recognition.
"Oh," she whispered.
That was it.
That was what had left her.
---
Somewhere deep within the system, an unnoticed balance updated.
EMOTIONAL LOAD: VACATED
TRANSFER COMPLETE
The system considered this optimal.
---
Arnold fell to his knees in his room.
Tears streamed down his face, unprompted and violent.
He didn't know why he was crying.
Only that something fragile and human had arrived inside him — something that hurt to carry.
"I don't know whose this is," he sobbed, clutching his chest.
"But I won't drop it."
---
Elen sat on the bridge long after sunset.
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She simply understood.
The world had taken something from her so quietly that no one would ever call it theft.
And she would live the rest of her life correctly.
---