Lemmings

They followed, and they fell. Not all at once.

It began with a step—small, instinctive, barely noticed. A movement toward safety, toward certainty, toward the glow ahead that promised to guide them home.

And then another. And another.

Thought was a burden they no longer carried, uncertainty a weight they had long since shed. The questions that might have once troubled them had been stripped away, replaced with something easier—something seamless, unquestionable, absolute. The world was simpler this way, free of contradiction, free of choice.

Those who resisted were silenced—crushed, cast out, ridiculed.

The light ahead flickered, beckoning. It was bright, relentless—a destructive fire disguised as a beacon. They did not see the hands tending the flames, feeding them with their fears, stoking them with their rage. They did not see that the path itself had been built for their descent.

And when the ground finally gave way beneath them, they fell willingly, believing they were rising.