Project Dev is not what it was presented to us as. We were told that it was a project designed to help us save our world. To prevent us from destroying it- after all we cannot destroy the earth, if we are not in it.

No waste, no trace- I never quite grasped the concept behind this, and I think many of us didn’t either. We all just went with the flow. Blinded by our desires to escape the years of torment and suffering on the earth, we filled the blank spaces with hope and faith rather than questions.

It has been two months since the socialization period came to an end. Two months since I have been wondering our abandoned earth, two months since the veil over my eyes have been lifted.

As we all know, every twenty years our consciousness is reawakened and we are connected back to our bodies and like everyone else, I too, connected back to my body. On the day the socialization period ended and we were to return to the Consciousness Tower, something within me switched and before I had realized, I had passed out. When I came to, everyone was gone and the world around me was not one I recognised. It was not the earth I had left, it was not the earth I knew.

All around me were creatures which were not creatures. They were humans who were no longer humans. I saw a variation of beings that one would only come across in movies or shows. Humans with fur like dogs, humans that slithered on the ground like snakes, humans whose heads turned like owls. The earth around me was in no way the one I had left and it definitely wasn’t the one I and twenty billion people were promised when we agreed to project Dev. The earth I saw was nothing more than a breeding ground for mutated beings.

I have spent the last thirty years investigating while hiding within the sewers of this world. At first, I wondered if the world I found myself in was the one I knew, but I have witnessed one awakening during this time and I also encountered three others who have managed to escape the brainwashing that is Project Dev. A week before the awakening a barrier is set up by the Dev-bots, and when the awakening starts, people flood out of the consciousness tower, their eyes hazy and their movements and reactions similar to that of the bots. They go about socialising with one another and trying to make new experiences with those around them. The newly awakened are not aware of the barrier and they cannot see beyond it, but we see them and we watch the new reality of our race.

It took me a while but I think I have uncovered the reality of Project Dev. Dev is an acronym for Dreamworld Evolution. It is not the utopia we were made to believe. It is a testing ground through which a mutant variation of our species are to be created. Not all humans will be used for this, only the depraved and the ones who never really had a voice in the world. The geniuses, the talented and the rich are all reserved while those who the system had determined as ordinary, are the ones who will be tested. The few who survive the mutation, are raised to be pets to the chosen.

We feared wars and starvation and in our bid to escape them, we fell into the jaws of a bigger prey- one clothed in smiles and jokes and humility. I am yet to understand the reason for the awakening, but I believe it is when new test subjects are collected from the crowd and their existence erased from the memories of those around them.

In the last awakening, four humans broke out and two of them possesses a great knowledge on computers. As I write this, we have developed a programme which we believe will be able to overwrite whatever is controlling us and reveal the truth of this project to all. I never believed in a god before now, but I know one exists and he is definitely on our side.

Pray for me, as I pray for you.

Written by Essence Aniogbe