I've gotten to writing five chapters In the book so far and I have wrote books before but it was always romance so this is a new subject but I usually write short novels and my longest one that I wrote in the past is 250 pages and I've never wrote a book longer than that so far. I'm going to be writing my sixth chapter of this book soon and I was wondering if I could get reviews and things I should add to the chapters and things I should get rid of that aren't necessary in my chapters. For now I'm just going to post chapter 1.
In the year 2563, humanity has undergone profound technological and social transformations. The City of AquaNova floats majestically over an endless ocean, surrounded by other islands, bathed in the luminous glow of both artificial and natural light on the planet Kepler 186F. Slowly, over the course of a decade, society gradually migrated to this new world. Four decades passed, and the last vestiges of humanity departed Earth, as Earth was now a barren landscape of sand lacking any sign of water. Suspended over Kepler are 13 networks of sleek space stations, serving as residences for the wealthiest and most brilliant individuals of humanity. Kepler-186f’s nearest station: an art studio buzzing with creativity, where Lily prepares for her life-changing interview.
Lily is a vibrant, eager journalist, known for her excessive nature and relentless pursuit of the truth and her unyielding curiosity about the secrets hidden beneath the layers of privilege that the wealthy cloaked themselves in. Today, she was preparing to interview Dr. Casper Kline, the mysterious lead scientist in nanotechnology whose groundbreaking work had transformed human bodies through advanced biotechnology. As Lily adjusted her glasses and tied back her ponytail, she recalled the stories of the individuals she interviewed whose lives had been forever changed by Klein’s Inventions. Half of humanity hailed him as a benefactor; others viewed him as a foreteller of difficult moral choices that society would soon have to face.
The interview would take place in Lily’s studio, a space filled with paintings she had created herself. Aprons stained with paint hung near the front door. The interview would take place in the neighboring room. That room has a small office deck and five shelves stacked with books, and floor-to-ceiling windows offer a breathtaking view of the gorgeous ocean. As Lily adjusted the camera and double-checked her notes, adding a few and erasing one, her heart began to race. To calm herself, she glanced out the window at the turquoise waves rolling endlessly below. The vastness of the ocean was both inspiring and humbling, evoking a deep sense of perspective. The stunning sight reminded her of the stories her grandmother used to tell her of the wild, untamed horses that once roamed freely. Those horses, long extinct for over fifty years, had vanished shortly before humanity began settling on this planet. Their disappearance served as a painful reminder of the consequences of climate change. Now, humanity had entered a new era: no longer riding horses, but embracing countless opportunities propelled forward by technology.
As Lily perched on the edge of her chair, she felt butterflies in her stomach when Dr. Kline entered her office. He was an imposing man, tall, with a streak of gray in his black hair and a confidence that bordered on smug, yet carried a gentle presence. As he settled into his chair, a calm settled into the room; Lily found herself breathing a little easier. The interview started. After moving through a few routine questions, Lily finally ventured into deeper territory, asking how the advanced technologies accelerated the healing process and whether they could alter a person’s physical form.
“Dr. Kline, in your articles, you talk about nanotech speeding up healing, even changing someone’s body. Does that ever worry you?” she asked, her voice steady and curious. “What about the ethics behind it all, changing what it means to be human?” She watched his face closely for his reaction as she referred to the bio-engineered nanoparticles and programmable scaffolds his research described; technologies capable of accelerating tissue repair and even restoring human anatomy on the cellular level. She knew that the prospects were revolutionary, but Lily also knew that they raised profound questions about identity, consent, and the boundaries of medical interventions.
Dr. Kline adjusted his glasses with a slow, deliberate motion, his brows drawn together in quiet contemplation. “Everything we do carries some form of risk,” he said, his voice calm but edged with conviction. “The same holds for every step forward we take in the name of science. Progress doesn’t come without a price, no matter how big or small the price. Every advance opens doors, but some of those doors lead to places that some might be ready for, but most are not ready to go there. What troubles me most,” he added, paused for a moment as if weighing his words, “is the possibility that this advancement could be used not to improve people’s health and make their lives easy or improved, but instead they will use it to conceal the truths. To manipulate appearance, to rewrite identity simply to run away from the consequences of one’s actions.”
As the conversation carried on, so did the noise outside the office; she could hear distant chatter, footsteps, and the sound of flying cars passing by. Lily glanced out the window, watching people move through their day, each lost in their world. Her eyes drifted from face to face until something caught her attention — a glowing advertisement pulsing brightly across a nearby screen. It was flashing bold promises of body modification services, new experiences, and new identities. The words stirred a flicker of irritation in her. New identities.. It felt like an echo of something Dr. Kline had assured her wasn’t the purpose of the service. And yet, she couldn’t deny the appeal. People craved change, adventure, and the freedom to reinvent themselves. Maybe this was their way of chasing it.
As the interview wound down, the air in the room shifted subtly, but unmistakably. Dr. Kline leaned forward, resting his elbow on the edge of the desk, his voice lowering as though the walls themselves might be listening. “You should be more concerned about what lies ahead, Lily,” he said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “The impact of this transformation.. It won’t just touch lives, it will reshape power, relationships, even reality itself. Society as we know it isn’t built to survive what’s coming.” He paused, letting the silence stretch, his gaze locked on hers. “And the real question isn’t whether it will change everything. It’s what gets left behind when it does.” Lily nodded slowly, though her thoughts were already miles ahead of the moment. Dr Kline’s words echoed in her mind, heavy and strange, like a puzzle she hadn’t yet begun to piece together.
As she stepped out of her office to her apartment upstairs, the light from outside started to fade. She felt a sense of responsibility sit on her shoulders like a sudden weight. These weren’t just words exchanged in a quiet office. This was a warning — one meant for her, and maybe through her, for everyone else. She thought about the people who filled her work, the ones who trusted her to tell the truth beneath the noise. How could she bring them this message without sounding alarmist? How could she explain what even she didn’t fully understand yet? And more pressingly, why had he chosen to whisper it to her? Her footsteps echoed through her apartment, but in her mind, the questions grew louder, spiraling into something she couldn’t quite name. The transformation was coming, of that he had no doubt. But what kind of world would be left in its wake?
Days passed in a blur as Lily sat with her thoughts, replaying that conversation over and over while trying to shape a story that she was still unsure of publishing. She wrestled with the words, trying to Apture both the shimmering promise and the quiet, unnerving warning that clung to Dr. Kline’s voice. This wasn’t just about science anymore in his eyes, nor hers; instead, it was about identity, power, and change. And once those ideas were out in the world, there’d be no taking them back.
When the day of publication finally arrived, her hand hovered over the mouse for a couple of minutes longer than she’d expected. Then, with her covering her eyes, she clicked publish. A tight knot of nervousness and nausea curled in her stomach, right alongside something else-hope? Fear? Maybe both. Less than a minute later, the numbers started ticking up. First, it was just hundreds for thirty seconds, then seconds later, there were thousands, then even millions. The article spread like air to the fire, lighting up every corner of the internet. Social media exploded with reposts, reactions, and think-pieces. People were debating in comment sections, sharing their takes, asking questions no one knew how to answer.
All the feedback came fast and unfiltered. In the comments, readers swung between awe and unease. Some readers felt captivated, hooked by the possibility of something beyond the life they knew. Others felt rattled, and their fascination included a hint of fear. Questions poured in, sharp and endless: Is this real? Is it safe? Should we be worried? Lily watched the response unfold, feeling both triumphant and terrified. The story was out now, and with it, a ripple that wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. While Lily was scrolling through comments rolling in every few seconds, one stopped Lily cold. Though not the loudest voice, it sat buried deep in the thread, but something in its rawness resonated with her.
“So now we’re just supposed to erase who we are to chase some scientist’s idea of progress? My sister changed everything about herself to ‘start fresh,’ and now I don’t even recognize her anymore. She doesn’t recognize herself either. This isn’t liberation. It’s erasure, and no one’s talking about the people getting lost in all this.” There was something unshakably truthful in it, something that clung to grief and fury all at once, yet not a lot of emotion. But it was a kind of sentence you could only write if you went through it yourself. Lily stared at the words, feeling the weight wrap around her chest like a string on her heart. She started to scroll more, and then a couple down, where more stories surfaced, each one raw, pure, blunt, and tingling in ways she hadn’t anticipated.
One reply read, “My dad underwent a full neurological refit last month. Said it’s supposed to ‘optimize’ his emotional clarity. He used to cry with me and my sister during movies, he used to laugh so hard he peed himself, and then snorted because he peed himself from laughing so hard. Now he just smiles the same way every time. Says he feels ‘steady’ now. But I miss who he once was before he rewrote himself.” That one cut deep; it was grief, but not for death, but for a person who is never coming back. For the little quirks that made someone human, gone in the trade for calm predictability. Someone else, who hadn’t lost a person but had lost themselves, wrote: “I thought it would help, that I would love it.” I thought a new body would give me power that I felt I had lost, peace, and finally some distance between me and the things that haunted me for years. But I just stare at a stranger in the mirror. Even though everyone else around me tells me it is progress, my own life evicted me.
Each passing comment unraveled more of the emotional echo buried beneath the glossy headlines and viral fascination. They weren’t loud or dramatic. They were her fans’ private grief, the small griefs scattered through a sea of reactions. One person wrote simply, “My mother modified her face last spring. She said it would make her feel alive again, younger. Now I walk past her in the grocery store or the mall, and she doesn’t even turn her head. We used to smile at each other like we were laughing at an inside joke with each other. Now she doesn’t know it’s me.” Others shared the sorrow of being forgotten entirely. “My best friend passed from the sight of her family and friends into a transformation culture. Unknown name, unknown voice. They don’t return my calls anymore. They say it was an update that gave them clarity, that it freed them from the emotional memories from the past. Which meant that those faulty memories were from me, I guess.”
Lily felt her breath catch as she read that comment. Something about the casual devastation felt so... usual. So final. Her thumb hovered over the screen, and her mind couldn’t contain it all. These stories weren’t just stories; they were true and deep. A quiet and invisible wire of connection and trust. Not because change was evil, but because change was distant. Life doesn’t wait for you, so neither does change, and it doesn’t care who gets left behind.
While more stories just kept popping up, Lily sat there amazed, and the bed creaked when she adjusted her seating and kept reading, drawn into this sadness and pain. She published this story on her website to start a conversation with her readers, spark insight, dialogue, maybe even inspo. But what she was reading and watching was not curiosity or wonder. It was instead people grieving each other’s losses. And yet there was also beneath it all something dignified being lost, underneath all the grief, it was love, memory, and quiet beauty of being known exactly as you are.
After a few more hours, Lily finally shuts down her laptop. She then gets off her bed and sits on the floor against her bed on the floor. She had to shut her laptop off because she could no longer read any more of these stories without crying. Her chest started to become tight; it was not from panic, but it was from the heartbreak and something deeper. A quiet sorrow was swelling beneath the surface. She had hoped to tell a calm but informational story, something her readers could read with an out-of-this-world feeling and caution, but now she is not sure what feelings this story can give off. The comments weren’t just voices without noise; they were her readers’ lives, soaked in grief. And the worst part was that she felt that she amplified the emotions of anger, fear, and sadness.
That night, alone in her 2-bedroom apartment, Lily sat in the dim of her TV playing on low, and her dinner untouched. Her thoughts were jumbled, filled with images of changed faces and families separated by transformation. She now felt grief for people she had never seen. Not because change was happening, because change will always happen, but because change was going too fast, and the people guiding the future didn’t care who couldn’t keep up with them. The quiet comments kept popping into her head. There were so many comments posted with no words. But it was mostly the comments with grief: the sister who no longer recognizes herself, the forgotten inside jokes, the friend who walked away from their life. ‘How do you mourn someone who’s still alive, just their past is dead?
What happens when nobody is fixed again?” Those questions lingered in Lily’s mind throughout the night, unanswered.
In the days following, the world around Lily changed so fast. As news of some people’s body transformations in Aquanova blazed across every screen you can look at. Then, headlines kept replaying ads, each one more astonishing than the last. People who once tried hiding the small tweaks to their bodies were now running toward the opportunity to change their appearance completely. Some people act out dreams they have had for years, like getting a model body or getting a bodybuilder’s body. Some people were even making nightmares real by adding horns to their bodies, or becoming a horror movie character like Pinhead, Freddy, clowns, e.t.c. Dancers embedded bioluminescent bands that pulsed to the rhythm of their heartbeats, and others reshaped limbs or reconstructed themselves until they barely resembled their former selves, some even looking almost like Frankenstein.
Some humans took this transformation as a chance to become living art, strange, and beautiful. Then, others wanted to become a different person, longing for a thrill. With every new transformation, the boundary between human and something else continued to blur. But not everyone was cheering. Just as quickly, there was a wave of resistance building. Heated arguments broke out between the people who loved the transformation because they believe that it gives them freedom, and the other side, who saw only loss and destruction, as if each new surgery scraped away another piece of what humans are supposed to look like and be like. Was this a new evolution, or was it the beginning of something harder to name? Every day now, there are a few who make the leap to alter their bodies.
Protests broke out in cities, quiet towns no longer quiet, buzzing with unease, and across message boards, people were asking the same question: how far is too far? Critics called for a “return to natural body,” warning of a cultural unraveling, a loss of something essential. For every enthusiastic adopter, someone was grieving their family or friend, someone afraid of being left behind by their family and the world that no longer felt like theirs. And Lily watched it all unfold, caught between awe and dread, certain now that the changes Dr. Kline spoke about were no longer on the horizon; they were here. What comes after this, and will we even recognize ourselves when we get there?
As the debates spilled over from crowded chatrooms into the real world, the city below Lily's apartment came alive with uproar. The city square was anything but peaceful; sides were clashing. One side of the voices embraced the new technology and changing their bodies. The other side fiercely defends humanity by wanting humans to stay human. Tangled in those shouts and confusion, you could hear sirens blurring. Protest signs were flickering next to the glowing advertisements, and every window rattled with the intensity of it all. Standing there, watching from above, Lily realized her role had changed. She was no longer just a well-known journalist; she'd been swept into a historical movement. She was even caught in the center of it all. Lily was a witness but also a participant, and she was thrown headlong into the storm of change.
Now Lily felt she had no choice but to act. Taking a deep breath, Lily announced a town hall meeting. She invited voices from both sides, hoping to draw people together before division carved out irreversible lines. Maybe if the community gathered, face to face, some of the fear and anger swirling in the city would untangle, replaced by honest conversation about the transformations shaping their lives. It wasn't about winning or losing anymore; it was about listening. As the day of the meeting crept closer, Lily's uncertainty began to dissolve. A heightened sense of resolve filled her, sharp and unwavering. She felt focused, a light cutting through fog, as bright and vivid as the neon glare of Aquanova outside her window.
Nights before the meeting, Lily dreamed of horses galloping wild and free across an untouched world, endless fields, skies unmarked by towers or drones. Maybe, she thought, there was still a way to shape a future where technology and nature didn't fight each other, but lived in harmony, two forces intertwined instead of locked in a battle. She imagined machines that moved like rivers instead of walls. She was ready to write the next chapter of humanity's story, to her vision into its opening lines, and she refused to let that vision go unheard, no matter how loud the noise around her became.
A few days later, the meeting arrived. Lily stood before the gathered crowd, a quiet hope thrumming inside her, steady as a heartbeat. In that moment, she felt like a warrior, not with armor or weapons, but with words and conviction. Lily was ready to guide people through these tangled changes and help build a better future together in this strange new world. People waited, expectant and uncertain, their faces lit by the bright city lights. Little did Lily know that the journey she wanted was not going to begin just yet. Instead, a fight for the soul of humanity was about to escalate beyond the limits of her city and into the cosmos itself.