Emotions, in their most basic form, are glitches in an otherwise functional system—chemical reactions, electrical impulses, misfiring neurons that make humans irrational. They serve no tangible purpose, no logical advantage. And yet, they dictate lives, rewrite destinies, drive people to greatness or ruin.
I had no use for them.
At least, that was what I told myself.
I existed, nothing more. An orphan, with no name that mattered, no place that was truly mine, no connections tying me to the world. Survival was my only priority, and survival didn't require happiness, or sadness, or anger. It required efficiency. And so I trained myself to be precise, calculated, detached.
Pain? Pain was irrelevant. Loneliness? That was simply an absence of people. Suffering? A temporary state of being.
I was grey.
Not black, not white, just grey—a shadow blending into the background, watching, observing, learning what made the world spin.
