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Astrid pushed command on her macbook's keyboard and hovered the hyperlinked sentences that seemed well-worded. She had a habit of peeping down at the bottom bar at this point to check if the articles’ sources were legit. Whenever pleased or mildly intrigued, she clicked away.

The browser’s already crowded top bar squeezed in, accomodating three more tabs. She always began by reading the last, then yawned through the second, and got too bored to read the one she had clicked first.

They all said what she already knew: drugs are bad for you, don’t do them, but if you do, quit before you get too hooked up. Serotonin syndrome, withdrawal symptoms, how to tell if you’re overdosing, depressed individuals are more likely to abuse drugs than — than who? It’s 2020. Everyone and their neighbour has depression or will probably end up developing it soon enough. It’s so commonplace these days that it sounded less like a disorder and more like how you’re supposed to feel. It was the new normal. Whoever dared to confess their happiness to their friends would get stared at as if they were circus freaks from the time that people could gather in circuses, sitting close together, sharing the same popcorn bowl, chewing on food that had been touched by others.

That belonged to the past. Now there was none of it. No circuses, no parties, no restaurants you could go to without feeling guilty for putting humankind at risk just for the sake of your own happiness.

Astrid understood the scientific reasons for caution very well. She happened to be the daughter of one of the heroes on the front line. Plus, she fancied herself as a left-winger, and, as such, she knew her duty as a Citizen of the World: stay home, abstain from meeting people, avoid crowded places, frown upon those who do otherwise, and rest your lonely head at night sure that you’re doing the right thing.

You’re doing the right thing. The only right thing to do, rest assured.

Astrid, a nightcrawler since childhood, didn’t usually get much rest at night. The Right Thing mantra played on loop in the back of her mind, but, as hard as she tried to shut it, she could still make sense of the soundless voice coming from the dark corners of her conscience, whispering in between the lines, trying to convince her, to win her over, to make her rebel against right things and embrace being wrong just one more time, because it felt so right… So good. So much like happiness.

Astrid lowered her head. When she raised it back up, the line was all gone but for a few specks of white dust. She ran her finger across the mirror and licked it for added taste.