Fiyin, I’m talentless. My dreams are unachievable. And my soul rots in what could be the hopelessness of ordinary life. But this is only true on Earth, where gods are entities of hope and faith—those I don’t believe in.

On Dev, every scenario I thread stitches possibility to my desires. It embroiders my bloodthirsty daydreams with revenge sought endlessly. On Earth, the bile on my tongue is bile. On Dev, it’s mouth-watering excitement. If fear had a flavour, it would smell like burning flesh and metal—like the burning metal before me.

A victim of my unreal ideals is still a victim. MaDe breathed life into these ideals.

“Talentless!” she used to call me.

On Earth, my laughter would be wry. It would clog my throat, and I would pick out roaches from my box and light their bellies, striking match after match until there’s nothing but burnt cockroach husks—representing everyone who pointed at my weakness.

“As big as you are,” she would say, “you’re scared of rats. You’re the weakest man I’ve ever met.”

To point out my fears is to reduce my speech to nothing but a pile of wishful blubber that I whisper to myself when I’m alone, teeth clenched and biting blood out of my tongue’s tip.

Weakness!

“Is it only worms that’s in your stomach, or only air in your muscles? Is that why you don’t have the guts to fight? You never chop?” Those were Imade’s words.

One hundred and twenty-eight years should be enough time for empathy to soak in. But empathy is like hope and faith—useless.

“Imade,” I said, and an eye floated out of the chunk of metal burning. “Renew.” I tossed the eyeball into the metal chunk, and a bright flash followed the heavy, wet sound of flesh rejoining, bones uncracking, and the loud crack of metal rejoining bone.

Imade is now an armoured woman with one eye. The other is bruised and hollow like several parts of her rotting existence.

I get high when she revives, Fiyin.

My dreams come true in Dev. MaDe serves anyone who has enough to give his world.

I never liked toys, Fiyin. Until Imade.

I may never leave Dev. Every time Imade renews, I will reduce her—like she reduced me.

This is my singular purpose: to oppress those weaker than me with the powers I can harness here with technology.

Love Imade, Fiyin, because in the next few years on Earth, she’ll be nothing but a shell. A husk who will live even longer than you. I had the joy of attending your funeral with Imade at my side. Her tears for her dead daughter replaced the bile on my tongue like nothing else ever has.

I’m an addict to her pain and to my new strength.

Weak men use tech for depravity, Fiyin. On that count, Imade was right.

I’m the weakest man you ever met.

Written by Tosin Boluwaduro