"Boo!"
The sound came from behind just as I stepped out of the lecture hall, followed by a second attempt that lacked any real effort, and I turned slowly, already aware of exactly who I would find standing there.
"That wasn't funny," I said while looking at Anthony, who for reasons I had never been able to understand insisted on wearing the brightest clothes imaginable, colors so loud they seemed to clash with everything around him.
He was almost as tall as me, yet everything about him carried the immaturity of someone much younger, as though he had somehow reached adulthood without ever growing into it.
"Just so you know, I wasn't part of this, Justin," William said while stepping forward and raising both hands slightly, as if distancing himself from responsibility.
He was easily the most intelligent among us, although his appearance rarely helped that reputation, because the combination of round glasses and his unusually long hairstyle made him look far less serious than he actually was.
I chose not to respond and simply turned away, walking out into the corridor, already knowing that both of them would follow me without needing to be told.
My thoughts were still caught in the lecture, lingering in a way that made everything else feel slightly distant.
"What is it, Justin?" Anthony asked while placing a hand on my shoulder as we walked forward.
William moved ahead and turned to face me, walking backward with a curious expression that made it clear he had already figured it out.
"You're thinking about the lecture, aren't you, especially the part about 2072?" he said while tilting his head slightly.
I looked at him for a moment before answering, choosing my words more carefully than usual.
"You know, my mom used to tell me stories about the world before chrono exchange was developed , before the year 2072, and even though she never mentioned the earthquake or the ice age, she always said people could live naturally up to at least eighty years if they stayed healthy."
Anthony let out a short laugh, dismissive and careless in a way that immediately felt out of place.
"Tch, your mom must have been bluffing," he said while shaking his head lightly, as if the idea itself was unrealistic.
"We would love to hear more of those stories from her, Justin," he added casually while walking ahead and laughing to himself, while William allowed a faint smirk to appear on his face.
The moment those words settled, something inside me tightened in a way I could not ignore.
Anthony had not meant it that way, I knew that, but hearing my mother reduced to something light and dismissible pulled a memory out of me that I had tried very hard to bury.
William noticed the change in my expression almost instantly and quietly gestured for Anthony to stop talking before things got worse.
Without saying anything, I turned away and continued walking, though the grief had already surfaced in my eyes in a way I could not hide.
My friends realized their mistake quickly, and the shift in their behavior was immediate.
"Hey… sorry, man," Anthony said while catching up beside me, his tone noticeably softer than before.
"Yeah, he's an idiot, but he didn't mean it like that," William added while nudging Anthony lightly.
I did not respond, and for a few moments the corridor felt unusually quiet, the atmosphere heavier than it should have been.
Then Anthony suddenly straightened, as if he had come to a decision he was no longer willing to question.
"Alright, that's it," he said. "We're fixing this."
"No, we're not—"
Before I could finish, both of them moved at once and grabbed me, their coordination making it impossible for me to react in time.
"Wait— what are you—"
Too late.
Anthony secured my upper body while William grabbed my legs, and within a single motion my feet left the ground completely, the sudden loss of balance making the world tilt slightly as they lifted me with ease.
"Guys—!"
"Too late," Anthony laughed while tightening his grip. "You're coming with us."
"Consider it emotional recovery therapy," William added in his usual calm tone.
They started running immediately, their footsteps striking the ground in a fast rhythm — thud-thud-thud-thud— — echoing through the corridor while their laughter carried ahead of us, loud and completely unbothered by my protests.
This had happened before more times than I could count, and under normal circumstances I would have tolerated it without much resistance, maybe even enjoyed the absurdity of it after a while.
But this time something felt different.
At first it was subtle, nothing more than a faint discomfort beneath the surface, yet it did not fade the way it should have, instead spreading slowly through my body in a way that felt unnatural, like something interfering rather than something happening.
"Guys… stop," I said, though my voice came out weaker than expected, the words uneven as the sensation intensified.
They did not hear me.
The discomfort grew sharper, more intrusive, as though something unseen had forced its way into my body and was moving through it without restraint, disrupting everything it touched.
The corridor around me began to blur, not all at once but unevenly, as though parts of my vision were slipping out of alignment with each other.
"Justin—?"
"Hey, what's wrong—?"
Their voices reached me, but they felt distant, far more distant than they should have been.
A sudden pressure surged through my head — thrum— — followed by a violent pulse that spread through every nerve at once, overwhelming thought, movement, and control simultaneously.
I tried to respond, but my body refused to cooperate.
I tried to move, but nothing happened.
And then everything disappeared.
—
When I opened my eyes again, awareness returned slowly, the ceiling of my room coming into focus first while the faint hum of the environment system — hmmmm— — filled the silence.
Anthony and William were sitting nearby, both of them watching me in a way that made it clear they had been waiting for this moment.
For a moment I said nothing, simply staring upward as I tried to reconnect the present with what had happened before, but the memory cut off completely at the moment they had been carrying me, leaving behind nothing but empty darkness.
My head felt heavy and my thoughts moved slowly, as though they were passing through something dense.
The lights were too bright, sharp enough to irritate the moment my eyes adjusted.
"Make it evening, William," I muttered while covering my face with one hand.
"Liam, switch the lights to evening mode," William said calmly.
The brightness softened immediately, shadows settling across the room as the harsh light faded, though it still felt excessive until I forced myself up and moved around, turning off every remaining light source until the room felt comfortably dark.
Only then did I sit back down and finally relax slightly.
"I didn't know Liam was on," I said.
"Oh that's fine," William replied with a faint smile. "Your AI assistant seems to like me more."
I ignored that.
"What exactly happened to me?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt, though the heaviness in my head still lingered in a way that made everything seem slightly delayed.
Anthony scratched the back of his head before answering, clearly unsure of how to explain something he didn't fully understand himself.
"All we know is that you were unconscious for about fifteen minutes."
Then William stood up, walked toward the cabinet, and returned with the VitaScan unit, holding it out toward me with a seriousness that matched his usual behavior.
"Justin, you should run a health scan," he said while handing it to me. "Just to make sure this wasn't something serious."
I took the device without arguing and stepped into the next room, closing the door behind me before activating it, and within seconds the system initiated its process, a faint vibration running through the device — bzzzt— — as it scanned through layers of biological data and began compiling the report.
A soft glow spread across the screen as the results appeared, clean and structured, exactly the way they always did, and for a moment I expected nothing unusual, nothing beyond the ordinary reassurance that everything was functioning as it should.
---------------------------------
>Name : Justin Brown
>Age : 19 years 2 months 6 days old
>Deficiencies detected : none
>Height : 5 feet 9 inches
>Neural activity : stable
>Cardiac condition : normal
>Internal damage : none detected
>Hormonal balance : optimal
>Years left : 51 ( +40 two hours ago )
------------------------------------
I stared at the screen, not reacting immediately, because what I was seeing did not register as real, and for a brief moment my mind attempted to interpret it as a visual error rather than a result.
Then I read it again, slower this time, focusing on each line carefully as if precision alone might correct it.
The numbers did not change.
The addition remained there, clearly marked, impossible to ignore.
My biological lifespan had increased by forty years.
I remained still, my eyes fixed on that single line, waiting for the display to flicker or reset, waiting for some indication that the system had malfunctioned, but nothing changed, and the longer I stood there, the more certain it became that the result was not going to correct itself.
"That's… not possible," I whispered, the words leaving me almost unconsciously.
I ran the scan again, this time watching every step of the process, following each stage as the device recalculated my biological data, but when the report appeared again, it was identical in every detail.
Same result.
I repeated it once more, slower, more deliberate, as though the act of repeating it carefully might force a different outcome, yet the result remained unchanged, and as that realization settled, my heartbeat began to rise — thump… thump… thump— — louder than it should have been in the quiet room, the sound echoing in my ears as confusion sharpened into something far more intense.
I stepped back into the room immediately, the device still in my hand.
"Generate your reports," I said.
Anthony looked confused, clearly not understanding the urgency, but he followed the instruction anyway, running the VitaScan across himself while the system processed his data, and William stepped forward right after, repeating the same process with his usual precision.
Both results appeared.
Normal.
Which meant the machine was working perfectly.
"Guys…" I said slowly while staring at the screen, the weight of the words settling before I even spoke them fully. "My report says I have forty more years to live."
Both of them stepped closer instantly, their reactions immediate and unfiltered, as William took the device from my hand and ran the test again, watching every step carefully, yet the result remained unchanged.
Same result.
Anthony stared at the screen, his expression shifting from confusion to disbelief as he tried to process what he was seeing. He gave me a serious look before handling the VS unit to william, whose expression changed in a way I had already expected it to.
"what? ..How is that even possible?" he muttered.
"Anth, go to your house and bring another VitaScan," William said quickly.
"Why me?"
"Because your house is closer, idiot. Now go."
Anthony groaned but left, returning minutes later with another device, and no matter how many times we repeated the test, no matter how carefully we followed each step, the result never changed, the same number appearing again and again with absolute consistency.
Forty years remained constant, unaffected by repetition, unaffected by doubt, and at that point none of us could deny it anymore, because the system had confirmed it too many times to be dismissed as an error.
The silence that followed felt heavier than anything we had said, and as it stretched, one question began to take shape, rising above everything else.
Why would someone donate forty years of their life to me ?
"This has to be a mistake," I said while running a hand through my hair, trying to force some kind of logic into the situation. "Whoever made this error probably needs those years back."
"No way," Anthony said immediately. "Those years are yours now. You could be rich, Justin. Just spend them."
"Anth, Justin is right," William said calmly. "We can't keep something that clearly doesn't belong to us."
Anthony muttered under his breath and dropped onto the couch.
I glanced at William, then back at Anthony.
"Maybe donating a year or two wouldn't make much difference," I said.
Anthony's reaction was instant.
"Now you're talking."
short while later I arrived at the nearest Chrono Hub to process the donation, and although the exterior of the building appeared almost lifeless, with smooth metallic walls reflecting very little of the world around them and no visible movement to suggest activity within, the moment I stepped inside, the contrast became immediately apparent, because the entire interior functioned with a silent, calculated efficiency that felt almost unsettling.
Long corridors extended in precise geometric patterns, their surfaces polished to a sterile shine, while rows of embedded light panels cast a soft, artificial glow that eliminated shadows entirely, making the space feel controlled to the point of discomfort, and moving through these corridors were dozens of robotic attendants, each operating with exact timing, their movements synchronized in a way that made them seem less like individual units and more like parts of a single, continuous system, their joints producing faint mechanical sounds — whirr… click… hum— — as they transported equipment, adjusted consoles, and assisted in processes without pause or hesitation.
There were no human employees in sight, and the absence was noticeable, because it removed the unpredictability of human presence and replaced it with something far more consistent, something that functioned without error, without distraction, and without emotion.
I took a seat in the waiting lounge, watching the machines as they moved through their tasks with uninterrupted precision, and although nothing about the environment was chaotic, there was a quiet tension beneath it, a sense that everything here operated according to rules that could not be questioned.
After a few minutes, a doctor approached with an assistant following closely behind, both of them dressed in clean, minimal uniforms that matched the sterile aesthetic of the facility.
"Greetings, sir," the doctor said politely, his tone professional yet distant as he gestured toward the corridor beside him. "This way, please."
I stood and followed them without speaking, moving deeper into the facility until we reached a laboratory where the air felt noticeably cooler, the environment even more controlled than the corridors outside, and at the center of the room was a medical bed surrounded by monitoring systems that emitted a faint, steady hum.
After I lay down, a transparent interface materialized above me, its surface glowing softly as it displayed a series of options, allowing me to select the number of years I intended to donate, and once the amount was confirmed, the system processed the input instantly, updating in real time without delay.
The doctor explained the procedure briefly before administering a mild sedative with my consent, his movements precise and practiced, and as the substance entered my system, a gradual heaviness began to settle over me, dulling the edges of my awareness while the machines around me continued their quiet operation — bzzzzzt— — the extraction process initiating with a low vibration that seemed to resonate through the equipment.
The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was the steady rhythm of the monitors and the faint glow of the interface above me.
When I woke up again, my vision returned slowly, as though the world was reconstructing itself piece by piece, and as the room came into focus, the first thing I noticed was that something felt wrong, not physically, but in the atmosphere itself.
The doctor was pacing.
Not casually, but repeatedly, his footsteps tracing the same path across the floor — tap… tap… tap… — while his assistant stood near the monitors, watching the data with an expression that suggested uncertainty rather than routine observation.
I pushed myself slightly upward, my body still adjusting as the lingering effects of the sedative faded.
"What is it, doctor?" I asked, my voice steady despite the unease that had begun to settle in. "Why are you pacing like that?"
He stopped almost immediately, as if my voice had interrupted something important, and when he turned toward me, the confusion on his face was clear, far too visible for someone in his position.
"We couldn't extract your years," he said slowly, glancing briefly back at the monitors as though expecting them to contradict him. "Some unknown field interfered with the process during extraction."
The words did not feel ordinary.
There was something behind them, something that extended beyond a simple procedural issue, and as that realization settled, a quiet tension filled the room, heavier than before.
"Does this happen very often?" I asked, my voice lower now, more deliberate.
The doctor did not answer immediately, and for a moment he simply stood there, as if considering how much he should say, before finally turning toward me again, his expression noticeably more serious.
"This hasn't happened…" he began slowly, the hesitation in his voice making the statement feel far more significant than it should have been.
"…in decades."