What Next Year Would Be If Air Became Unbreathable

It has been several decades since gas masks have become a part of the face of each person on Earth. From birth to their last day, every inhabitant of our planet is forced to wear a gas mask. No one knows precisely what happened, but one day all the oxygen on the planet became toxic to the lungs.

Somehow, the poisoned oxygen gets into the body through the eyes and ears, too, so you can’t wear a mask covering only your nose and mouth. A gas mask with full head protection is required. In the beginning, people couldn’t get used to gas masks. Your skin is very irritated, itchy, you want to breathe deeply. And this is only after the first few hours of wearing a mask.

Unfortunately, you have to wear your whole life. The worst thing is that there’s no salvation anywhere. You can’t take off your mask at home. In a small room. While you sleep or while you eat. The only place where you can is vacuum rooms, but inside them, without air, you won’t last much longer.

There is one other place — the International Space Station, but not everyone can get there. The first major problem in this life is eating. People can’t hold their breath and eat because oxygen can still get into the lungs. Now, everyone uses a special hose for food.

You unhook the oxygen filter from your mask and connect the hose. It absorbs the food while all the oxygen is sucked out. Then, inside the hose, a vacuum is created. From this vacuum, food is delivered to the mouth. Almost all food becomes liquid, like the astronauts’.

Vacuum restaurants are opening all over the world. You enter a vacuum room where a table is set. You have about a minute to enjoy your meal. After that, you need to inhale air from the oxygen tank that you take with you.

But soon, these places lose popularity. People began to prefer liquid food because it doesn’t harm the teeth. Which is good because dentist services are now unsafe. Years later, people began to lose interest in delicious food because we lose much of our sense of taste and smell. The body just loses these senses because we stopped using them.

To solve this problem, developers create oxygen filters with simulated scents. You can smell cinnamon, autumn leaves, rain, baking, barbecue, and other odors in the gas mask by pressing a button. People begin to think about how else to improve the masks. Lenses with augmented reality are installed. Now people don’t remove the mask not only because it’s unsafe, they just don’t want to do it.

The entire internet is in front of you. You can watch movies, play video games, use the VR glasses. You can even call people through the phone installed inside. Unique series of IGas masks are produced. They have a stylish design, camera, face conditioning system, headphones, and the latest software.

Among all the problems that IGas solved, there’s one that can blow your mind. Voice changing. You can hardly hear in a typical gas mask, and the other person’s ears are closed too. To say something, people had to shout to each other or exchange notes. IGas installed a speaker and microphone in the air filter. Now, people can even hear each other’s whispers. But the cool thing is that the voice can be changed.

The voice filter allows you to add auto-tune, speak in the voice of a celebrity, lower and raise the sound. At night, the AI voice embedded inside IGas can tell you a story or conduct a meditation session to calm you down and help you fall asleep. Developers of convenient gas masks have become billionaires, but also a lot of companies have gone bankrupt.

Makeup is no longer necessary because now nobody can see your face. Only creams and liquids for skincare remain, and that’s all. Toothbrushes are gone forever. Oral hygiene is performed using a special cleaning liquid that resembles a mouthwash. The world of fashion and showbiz has changed. No one chooses actors for just a beautiful face.

Movie stars now have the most pleasant voices and developed body plasticity. When we can’t read emotions from a person’s appearance, we pay attention to the body. People don’t recognize each other by their faces. A person’s personality is expressed in their gait and posture.

Famous fashion designers create beautiful and weird accessories for gas masks. A long, rhinestone-studded trunk that attaches to a filter and hangs down to your knees, massage hats in the shape of spiders that can massage your scalp. Designer glasses for a gas mask!

Thanks to gas masks, people became less ill. Viruses that are transmitted by airborne droplets are no longer a threat. But, because the body stopped fighting colds and the flu, the human immune system is significantly weakened. If you are injured somewhere, the wound will take much longer to heal.

It’s much more difficult for people to bear the stress. They have much less energy. Nobody can take a deep breath and enrich your cells with oxygen like you used to, so people are aging faster. Sports have changed too. You can’t run a marathon or get up for a morning jog. Training in the gym is also limited. You have a hard time breathing from heavy loads.

Yes, people have become more protected, but also weaker at the same time. Not all people can afford to buy IGas. In many towns and villages, people use regular gas masks with a vacuum hose for food. These people no longer smell anything. Their vocal cords are severely damaged because of constant stress — they always have to shout to communicate.

But soon, they learn sign language. Their gas masks have bad lenses and poor audibility. Their vision and hearing had also been blunted by years of wearing gas masks. But because of the weakening of one sense, the other was strengthened. Touch. Imagine that you raise your hand and feel the air humidity, the smallest temperature changes.

Unfortunately, this is the only good thing left in the lives of these people. The skin on their face doesn’t get enough oxygen. Skin cells dry out and break down. Wrinkles appear. Their faces suffer greatly from dryness, irritation, and inflammation. Fortunately, IGases will be so popular and available that everyone in the world will buy it.

Someone has the latest model, while someone else wears an old one. As soon as the whole world gets used to the new life, scientists start creating a medication that can help people remove their masks. Governments of all countries spend many years and a lot of money developing a vaccine. And now, scientists are finally able to create a serum that changes the lungs and allows them to inhale the toxic oxygen.

Not all people throw away their IGases. Some just don’t want to leave their virtual reality, and some born in such a world are just afraid to remove the mask. Adults and old people who remember breathing with an open face will immediately get rid of IGases and never return to them. When this happens, you notice ashen faces on the streets.

Eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair have lost color. Eyes turn red because they quickly get tired of the vast amount of light. The cosmetics industry is reborn. People feel happier. You also decide to remove the mask.

You go outside, take your last breath in the IGas. Then, you slowly pull it off your face. The light breeze that blows in your face feels like an icy hurricane.

You want to put the mask back on, but you refuse. The sun blinds your eyes, and you want to put on your glasses. You’re doing what you’ve always wanted to do. Take a breath of fresh air. It’s incredibly pleasant...

Then, you feel something strange... and sneeze! But don’t worry, you just inhaled dust. The serum that improved your lungs also restored your immune system. You are protected from any cold and flu.