The first time Cal took a hit of hydroponic, he thought he was dying.

   Not metaphorically. Not poetically. He thought his lungs were collapsing, his skin was melting, and the sky was falling in slow-motion shards of glass.

   He clawed at the air, gasping, until the dealer—an old woman with no teeth and a tattoo of a broken clock on her neck—whispered, “ You’re not dying. You’re waking up. ”

   Then everything changed.

   The city peeled back like wallpaper. The chrome towers of Utopia—clean, symmetrical, humming with artificial birdsong—crumbled into rusted scaffolding and broken concrete. 

   The people, once smiling and serene, now shuffled like sleepwalkers, their eyes glazed, their mouths slightly open, breathing in the drug that kept them docile.

   Air.

   That was the first revelation. The air itself was the drug. Not metaphorically. Literally.

   Cal had always felt… off. Like he was living in someone else’s dream. 

   He worked in a cube farm, pushing digital forms into digital folders. He ate nutrient paste from a dispenser. He slept under a ceiling that projected stars. He had no memories before age 12. No one did. That was “ the Great Reset, ” they said. A benevolent purge of trauma, war, and history. A clean slate.

   But hydroponic—illegal, punishable by execution—showed him the truth.

   The Reset was a lie. The air was laced with a compound called Euphraxine, a neurochemical fog that dulled critical thought, suppressed aggression, and induced mild euphoria. 

   It was pumped into every home, every office, every school. The government didn’t hide it. They called it “Atmospheric Wellness.” They said it cured depression, anxiety, and dissent.

   Cal had believed them. Until the hydroponic burned it out of his system.

   Now he saw the world as it was: a decaying husk wrapped in holograms. The streets were filled with trash. The sky was a permanent gray. The people were sedated cattle, breathing compliance with every inhale.

   He stopped breathing.

   That was the second revelation. You could hold your breath and think clearly. But only for a few seconds. Then the fog crept back in.

   So Cal started smoking.

   Hydroponic was grown underground, in sealed bunkers, by people who remembered. They called themselves The Unfogged. 

   They wore masks, not to protect themselves from disease, but from the air. They spoke in riddles and fragments, their minds fractured by years of clarity. They were hunted like animals.

   Cal joined them.

   He learned to grow. To roll. To resist. But resistance had a price.

   One night, while smoking in a drainage tunnel beneath Sector 9, Cal met a man named Rook. 

   Rook had no eyes—just smooth skin where sockets should be. He said he’d burned them out to stop seeing the illusion. He said sight was just another vector for the drug. That even light was tainted.

   “ You think you’re awake, ” Rook said, “ but you’re still dreaming. You’re just lucid now. ”

   Cal didn’t understand. Not yet.

   Rook gave him a vial, “ This is Dry Breath. Pure atmosphere, untainted. From before the Reset. ” 

   Cal inhaled.

   And then he remembered.

   His mother’s voice. His father’s laugh. The smell of rain. The taste of fear. The war. The bombs. The screaming. The fire.

   He remembered everything.

   And he wept.

  That was the third revelation. The Reset wasn’t just a lie. It was a massacre. A global purge of memory, identity, and truth. The air didn’t just sedate—it erased. It rewrote. It sculpted minds into smooth, compliant shapes.

   Cal stopped breathing again.

   He lived underground. He wore a mask. He smoked hydroponic until his lungs hurt. 

   He wrote manifestos in ash and blood. He hacked air vents and pumped Dry Breath into government buildings. He watched people wake up—and go mad.

   Utopia was a corpse in makeup and the people were its mourners.

   One day, Cal was captured. He was dragged into the Breathing Room—a sterile chamber filled with pure Euphraxine. They stripped his mask. They forced him to inhale. They showed him images of smiling children, clean oceans, peaceful cities.

   That was the fourth revelation. The drug didn’t just suppress truth. It offered comfort. Safety. Warmth. It was a lullaby. A mother’s hug. A lover’s kiss.

   And Cal was tired. So tired.

   They gave him a choice. Breathe—and forget. Or die—and remember.

   He chose death, but death didn’t come. Instead, they made him a symbol. They erased his memories. Gave him a new name. A new job. A new life.

   He became a spokesman for Atmospheric Wellness.

   He smiled on billboards. He praised the air. He warned against “ dangerous hallucinogens ” like hydroponic.

   He was a happy fake.

   One day, a woman with no teeth and a broken clock tattoo handed him a joint.

   He smoked and he remembered. Again. That was the fifth revelation. You can erase a mind, but not a soul.

   Cal ran. He found Rook. He found the Unfogged. He found the truth again. And he wrote it down. On walls. On screens. In whispers. He became the hydroponic prophet. A ghost of the future and the world began to stir.