Blockchained is a short story set in a dystopian one-world-government future where blockchain technology has been used to enslave the people of the world.
Part One
I had that same dream again last night. It's becoming an almost nightly thing. Eyes. Hundreds of them, surrounded by darkness. They have no pupils— only a cold, smokey grayness to them, like a hurricane trapped inside a snow globe. Yet somehow, I know they are looking at me. From the blackness, a deep, harrowing roar of laughter emerges, immediately followed by the agonizing wails of a thousand broken voices.
That's when I wake up, with a sheet soaked in sweat and my heart beating on the wrong side of my rib cage. I wish I knew what it was about. Perhaps then I could make it stop. If I'm going to find out, I will need to overcome my cowardice and stop allowing fear to drag me out of the dream. Maybe if I can find out what happens after the screaming, then I'll know what it is I need to do to be rid of this cursed nightmare.
I can't believe this is still on my mind. It's been four hours since I woke up and I have just begun my journey to work. Why am I still letting this bother me? I can't shake the image of those eyes or their cold, dead stare. It feels like they're still watching me right now. At least I know that once I get to work, I'll be far too distracted to be focusing on anything other than the task at hand. That's if I make it to work. My nightly torments have left me abstracted, and I feel I will be lucky to complete this short journey without crashing.
There are less than twenty people in Sector D17 that have been permitted a vehicle for private use. I didn't ask to be one of them. No, I have my brother to thank for this luxury. He was a politician before all this happened. The UK's Defense Minister to be specific. Now he's a corpse. I don't even know where he's buried, or if he was at all. He had been one of the first to die during the insurrection. The rebels had dragged him out of the Houses of Parliament, beat him to death, and hung his bloody corpse over the side of Westminster Bridge by the neck.
We'd had our problems in the past, he and I. Three years had passed without us speaking prior to his death. I hadn't even seen his face in all that time. But the internet was still available then, and I was given the opportunity to see it again when the video of his murder was uploaded to a rebel-controlled twitter account. Now the only image my mind is able to conjure when I think of Jason is a swollen mass of blood and bruises, with an appearance more similar to a piece of spoiled fruit than that of a human face.
I never thought I could ever forgive him for what he did, but after seeing that video, I did. No one deserves to die like that. His brutal death may have earned him forgiveness for sleeping with my wife, but I will never forgive the role he played in creating this new world. I don't know what he did for them. He must have done something though, or I wouldn't be driving this car right now. I wish I was brave enough to say I don't want it. I'd quit this job and wipe the blood he forced onto my hands clean. But I have seen how the C and D class citizens live.
I can't live like that.
Thanks for reading.
