[ WP ] The world has become anonymous . Devices blur our faces , and , with no accountability , chaos reigns . You are a Technician .

No one ever told me it was the eyes that get you. Months of training and facial exposure drills, and yet somewhere along the way the dangers of staring into the eyes never came up. Irises the same colour as my morning coffee, dilated pupils as black as night, and corneas that looked as if they had been glazed over with some kind of film. Those are the eyes that belonged to Jessica, my first ever assignment as a tech. Even though it was 10 years ago, I can still see those eyes in my mind as if it had happened this morning. There ’ s a moment when you look at them for the first time that ’ s truly indescribable. All I wanted to do was sit there and take in every single little detail of those coffee coloured eyes. And the second I did, a wave of emotion slammed into me with such ferocity it froze me completely in time. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn ’ t look away. As if you're locked together by some invisible force of nature. And when your eyes are locked like that, there's a connection made like nothing I've ever experienced. A piece of humanity long lost that it allowed me to finally regain. Even though I'd never met Jessica before, I felt like I knew her. Like I knew her better than anyone had known her in her entire life. And in a way, I guess I did. 
 
 By the time I took a second to finally shift my eyes elsewhere, it was obvious Jessica was in bad shape. She was hardly breathing, and her body seemed limp as she rested up against the cold concrete wall of an abandoned bus station. Sprawled beside her were some pills, most likely facial modifier disrupters. Take a couple of those and not only will it knock out your own face mask, but it will disrupt the receiving signal of other ’ s face masks as well. Unfortunately, drugs that messed with the implant that much, usually resulted in cardiac arrest. I tried picking up the pills, trying to find a dosage or a bottle or anything, but only the small, unmarked tablets remained. I became addicted to looking at her, and for the first time I understood why people took those damn white pills. If I eventually left her, I would have go back to staring at the all too familiar face mask for every person I knew, starved of the beauty that I had only just discovered. But it was n't until I looked back at her again that created the moment that would stay with me forever. I assumed she took too much and was unconscious, but when I locked eyes with her once more, I could see intensity in her that could only mean she was staring right back at me, with all the same emotions I had been feeling just before. 
 
 Then, I could see a grin begin to slowly creep its way across her face. I could tell she was using every last bit of strength she had to show me her real, genuine smile, and that ’ s when I felt the tears streaming down my face, and landing on hers. Even close to her inevitable death, her smile only grew, showing the happiness she felt in that moment. It was probably the happiest she ’ d ever been, or at least I knew it was the happiest I ’ d ever been. And as that smile expanded, beaming from ear to ear, a single tear slid down her face, which was now white as a ghost and as cold as ice. I kept staring at her eyes, slowly watching that intensity that was so strong only moments ago, fade away. And as more time passed, I could begin to see the life leaving those perfect, coffee coloured eyes. I didn ’ t look to see if she was still breathing, I didn ’ t check for a pulse, I didn ’ t need to. I could tell she was leaving me behind from the look she was giving me alone. And as her eyes finally closed, and the smile began to fade, my tears changed from ones of happiness, to ones of soul crushing sadness. I sat beside her crying, unable to look back, afraid of what seeing her dead would do to me. I was clutching the remaining pills in my hand the whole time, and contemplated downing them all and running into the street, but I was too scared of that too. I had only known her for 15 minutes, and we had never said a word to each other, yet in that moment I loved Jessica more than anything else in the world. 
 
 A lot has changed in the last 10 years, but the pain from that experience hasn ’ t, and as you may have guessed, I don ’ t look into the eyes anymore.
