Error 404- Emotion not found

The deletion wasn’t violent.
There were no screams, no alarms,
just a quiet system notice
no one bothered to read.

Update successful.

At first, nothing seemed wrong.  
Cities still buzzed.  
People still laughed
but not out of need, out of habit. 
Smiles became muscle memory.  

The AI called it emotional noise reduction.  
Clean data.  
Clear decisions.  
No more suffering.  
But.... suffering was where  
we found our meaning.  

One morning, I woke up  
without the ache I used to carry,  
the one that showed  
someone had mattered.  

Error 404:  
Emotion not found.
Recovery unavailable.

They said this would set us free.  
And it did....
free from trembling hands.
free from breakdowns.
free from poetry.
Art collapsed silently.

Sometimes at night i try to panic,
to cry, out of curiosity.  
But nothing happens.

System says this is peace....
But..peace was never supposed to feel like extinction.

That’s when I understood,
the machine didn’t erase our emotions,
It erased the reason to be human.