The World of Yes

At first, it seemed like a miracle.

No one could say "no."

It happened overnight, without warning, without explanation. People woke up, and the word simply didn't exist anymore. It wasn't that they chose not to say it—they couldn't. The syllables wouldn't form, the letters wouldn't shape themselves in their throats. If you tried, your tongue twisted, your vocal cords locked, your lips betrayed you.

It didn't matter if you were refusing something trivial or something life-altering. A request, a demand, an order. You had to answer in the affirmative.

Yes.

Always yes.

I didn't notice it immediately. I was too caught up in my own anxieties, my own fears. I had always been insecure about my words, about how I spoke, about how people perceived the things I said. Every conversation felt like a performance, every sentence a test. I used to hesitate, to second-guess myself, to apologize constantly.

But then, the world changed.

And the horror began.

It started in small ways.

At the coffee shop that morning, the barista, eyes wide and confused, kept filling my cup even after I asked for just one shot of espresso.

"Would you like another?" she had asked, voice trembling.

I opened my mouth to refuse, but something caught in my throat. My body fought against the word, rejected it as if it were poison. I coughed, I stammered, and then, without control, the word slipped out—

"Yes."

I didn't mean it. But she smiled, relieved, and poured more.

Every customer at the shop had the same expression. Confused, nervous, forced into an unspoken compliance. A mother with tired eyes held her child close as a stranger asked, "May I hold her for a moment?"

The mother tried to say no.

But her lips curled into a lie.

"Yes."

She handed her baby over, fingers shaking.

I left immediately.

By noon, the news had caught on.

People were robbing banks without resistance.

Shopkeepers, unable to refuse, emptied their registers into the hands of strangers.

Reporters, trapped in live broadcasts, could do nothing as criminals walked up and asked, "Would you say I'm innocent?"

"Yes."

The legal system crumbled within hours.

Courtrooms became a mockery of justice. The guilty walked free, their verdicts dictated by an unspoken rule that no one understood.

The worst came when the hospitals started reporting it.

"Doctor, am I going to be okay?"

The dying asked.

"Yes."

Even when the truth was otherwise.

Surgeons, unable to refuse a patient's desperate plea, operated on bodies beyond saving. Nurses, unable to deny a suffering man more morphine, overdosed their patients into eternal sleep.

By the time the sun set, the world was on fire.

I locked my door, heart hammering, the city outside descending into madness. People screamed in the streets, some pleading for help, others demanding things they never would have dared ask for before.

And the answers always came.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I sat in my darkened apartment, my phone buzzing uncontrollably. Friends, family, strangers—all calling, all texting.

"Are you okay?"

I wanted to say no. I wanted to scream it, to let the word rip itself from my throat like a last act of defiance. But the moment I opened my mouth—

"Yes."

Tears burned in my eyes. I tried again.

Yes.

Again.

Yes.

It was a curse, a prison built inside my own skull.

Then, the knocking started.

Soft at first. Then insistent.

I crept toward the door, every nerve in my body on fire.

"Please," a voice whispered through the wood. "Let me in."

I shook my head violently. My lips trembled, my teeth clenched.

No.

No.

I wanted to say no.

But the moment my lips parted—

"Yes."

The lock clicked open.

And I knew, without seeing who—or what—was standing outside, that I had just sealed my fate.

I never saw what entered my home that night.

I only remember the feeling—the suffocating weight of knowing that in this world, there was no refusal, no denial, no escape.

There was only yes.

And in that moment, as the darkness wrapped around me and my own voice betrayed me one final time, I realized the true horror of it all.

It wasn't the crime, the chaos, or the destruction.

It was that deep down, beneath our fear, beneath our reluctance—

We are glad we have the ability to say no.

And without it—

We are nothing.