The game show streamed through, neither of us bothered to take in the nonsense it was spewing.

'Alright Eric. You're our last contestant. Congratulations and welcome to the final round. You are in the running for one million dollars and we want to give it to you , best of luck to you.'

"Do you think he's generally a talkative person?"  Kai spoke, breaking the silent spell cast upon the living room.

"The talk show host?" I asked, confused at the abrupt, yet mismatched question.

"Yeah" was all he uttered back.

"Well… I guess his job requires him to be. Doesn't matter whether he's more shy than a mouse, his unconscious love for money will drive him to morph himself to whatever the criteria requires, just to get that money. Which is the most dumbest thing. Have you released that the world's biggest problems are started, ended and caused by a man-made plastic called money? The piece of plastic to absolutely every living creature worth nothing more than a piece of thin air except for the so called 'superior race' of humans. Man kind has put so much value into it, it's twisted our real selves. I envy other who aren't blinded by the so called 'worth' of money." Kai placed his hand over mine, his blank eyes tore away from the T.V. screen and filled with concern. The soothing atmosphere spread as the warmth from his palm spread with it.

'Congratulation Eric, you have won one million dollars. What are you going to spend it on?'

The T.V. snapped us back into reality. We would always escape into the world of the unknown, seeking answers, asking questions and doting on reality.

----

"The sun's out." Kai commented as he drew back the living room curtains. The T.V. was now off, seeing as too many sceptical looks were casted upon by the both of us. Kai watched as kids ran around, soaking up the sunshine. As a little girl excitedly ran around, a little boy stopped her in her tracks and took her to play with marbles.

"What a change of events" Kai murmured as he watched the little girl grin happily.

"Well, being alone can be lonely." Kai gave a confused look as I stood beside him, also commenting, as we admired the cute scene.

"Being alone and being lonely are two very different things" I continued. "Being alone just means you're by yourself. No one is around, you can be absorbed into your own thoughts with no one to disturb you. Whilst being lonely is more of a profound feeling, the feeling of pure emptiness. That is when your thoughts control you, you yearn for another, humans have many fatal flaws that we choose to blatantly ignore, yet one of those, is human interaction. The human life would be nothing without the companion of other human lives. Could you imagine, the life as humans interacted with nothing but nature, materialistic products and themselves? A human dystopia within itself."

"Uhuh" Kai uttered as he nodded in understanding.

----

Emotions- a 'natural' instinctive state of mind commonly derived from the ones situations, circumstances, mood and relationships with others.

So, people are able to manipulate each others emotions to fit the mood, just as their able to change one's perspective and actions. Just like a candle can light another, each person can change another. Kai and I had slowly migrated back towards the books that lay on the counter, luring us in each time we walked pass. It was early evening and Kai had ordered a pizza whilst both of us lazed around in the kitchen.

"What do you think started the spark?" I asked, tracing my finger over the line I had previously read.

"Hmm?" A confused sound graced the atmosphere as I looked up to be met with contorted eyebrows.

"Following the metaphor, just like a candle can light another, each person can change another. There must be something lighting the original candle, correct?" I asked again, picturing the structure in my head.

"Well, that could have been obtained from yet another 'candle' yeah?" Kai voiced as he began picturing it too in his head.

"And before that? I'm talking about the origin of it all, what… or who, was the first 'candle', if anything." I continued, as my diagram seemed to have no end in my head.

"I guess that relates back to where we, as humans, originate from" he led on, now pacing around the kitchen. Let's give examples here, religions," he had now stopped pacing and the wheels in his head reeled on, speeding up with each word he muttered. "Christianity, all originating from God. To an Christian it's arguable that God is the origin of everything., Buddhism, the first Buddha, Islam, again back to God. The belief of superhuman controlling human power-"

 "Wait, but anyone can create their own religion. One, create a profound, deepened belief. Two, add ism, ity, lam at the end and it becomes a religion." I cut him off, as he also seemed lost for words.

"Don't be too blunt… people are entitled to their own beliefs and religions, don't be too rude" He narrowed his eyes at me and he lashed. I had the tendency to lose my etiquette and manners once I found myself too absorbed into the world of the unknown. The doorbell of the apartment rung and Kai had quickly paced out of the kitchen to answer it.

----

The now cold cardboard sat on the kitchen counter top as we resumed our discussion on the dining table. Books and plates of almost finished pizza scattered around the table as both of us tried our hardest not to dirty the precious gems of knowledge.

"Going back to our points, we've established that yes, people have the power to manipulate others' emotions, whether for good or for bad, the establishment of manipulation can be traced back to many different and winding paths, far too many to explore in depth separately. But, I think that we can conclude, that humans are 100% in possession of this potential harmful power and whether someone decides to utilise it the wrong way, no one, not even the puppet masters are able to strip us of them."

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This is going somewhere, I swear. >_< Ahhh.