(500 Word Fiction Challenge – Genre: Sci-Fi, Action: Shaving, Object: Lunchbox)

The morning sun shone through Jacob’s window as he stepped from his resting pod. Walking to a tall mirror on the opposite side of the room he reverently lifted his razor from its charging station. Its edge glowed blue as it powered up. Starting at his feet, he worked his way up, methodically removing every hair from his body. The shaving ritual was required by Earth’s masters as an act of solidarity; being closer to their image was a sign of purity. His skin tingled as the forest of tiny hairs were burned away. Upon reaching his scalp, the device searched his thoughts and memories. Finding loyalty and obedience, a green light appeared next to the mirror. Simultaneously, his lunchbox hummed to life near the door of his otherwise empty room. The lunchbox, carried by all humans, generated a nutritionally balanced loaf, just enough for its owner’s biological needs. This food would sit safe inside the box until midday meal. Jacob recalled that people once ate three times daily. The thought of such waste was revolting. Humanity’s gluttony had stretched Earth to its limit. It was pure luck that their interstellar saviors arrived in time.

He walked past a group of forsaken on his way to work. Their corrupted souls had watched their mirror light turn red and heard their lunchbox shut down.

Having discovered blasphemy, questions, and desires within their minds, the masters left them without their daily nourishment. Time had reduced them to hairy emaciated, skeletal husks. Their smiles and laughter confused Jacob. How dare they betray and then mock Earth’s saviors. Smirking, he knew they’d soon be replaced by the children of the factories. People, like he, who would appreciate the gifts of food and purpose bestowed upon them from above. The corpses were always collected and transported to the spacecraft above.

Jacob labored daily caring for and transferring embryos from one stage of maturity to another. He ensured the masters’ lessons played continuously as the fetal children matured in their stasis cubes. It was his sacred purpose. He reveled in passing on the masters’ wisdom of obedience to the next generation.

When his shift was over, Jacob joined the workers connecting their lunchboxes to the filling tanks; giant structures that were replenished daily by the spacecraft above. This ensured nourishment would be granted tomorrow, provided their bodies and minds remained pure.

As he left the factory, Jacob passed a lone forsaken woman, stooped over, smiling as she traced her finger through the dirt. She wrote in symbols Jacob couldn’t understand. “Freedom is choice.”

Stepping into his resting pod, he frowned at the reflection staring back at him from across the room. “Why ARE we different… Why are they forsaken? How can they smile? How can they smile knowing it will all end?”

After a night filled with dreams of seeds sprouting from symbols in the dirt, Jacob woke to a new reality.

He never ate again and lived happily to the end of his days.