A curiosity from back in 2008 · 3:38am Nov 11th, 2014

I wrote this little piece of sci-fi-thingy back in 2008... it still functions as a bit of a novel seed for me, don't know if I'll ever really go back to it. It's nothing too special, but I thought about it today and figured I'd share it here with you guys. It's just a curiosity, really.

ALONE
Drip…
“Time to wake up!”
Life frizzled into white existence once, then disappeared into darkness.
“Don’t you want to eat something before going to school? Wake up!”
Consciousness remained. Certain bits of information poured like green and red raindrops, flashing against the darkness; only to vanish in the unending abyss beyond his vision.
He couldn't move yet.
With pulsating slowness vision returned, still blurred, still pixelated on certain areas… but he could see as well as hear now.
He moved his eyes, roaming across the remains of the warehouse for possible enemies.
Drip…
None, but he could see the result of his battle.
The warehouse floor was a sea of mist, waves crashing and flowing around the few concrete columns still standing. Sunlight streamed down from holes in the roof; it made him think of clouds letting light through for a second during a storm.
Clear sunlight highlighted swirling mist here and there, or reflected off the armored remains of his enemies.
The scrap carcass of an almost arachnid metal monstrosity, created either to fight in tournaments or for military use, had crumbled in the middle of the room.
Among the mist it reminded him of a ghost ship, like the ones in the old pirate novels he used to read when he was a boy.
He closed his eyes, but darkness was replaced by opaque windows of several colors, all of them detailing just how bad his situation was.
Drip…
He ignored them, instead concentrating on sudden images that came to mind. The girl… had she been really a red-head? Had he been human then?
He opened his eyes and tried to move his neck. With a whirring protest, he positioned his head downwards, now able to asses the damage visually.
A steel pipe had run him through the stomach, and the remains of a wall had encased much of his shoulders and arms in the metal framework of the warehouse’s wall.
One of his legs was useless. Sparks and metal clicks came from within the joint when he tried to move it, but it remained in place.
He had once broken that same leg while playing football.
The other leg simply did not respond. One of the many windows in his internal vision was loading a bar labeled “Extremity Usage Percentage.”
He was singed and soot covered most of his otherwise black and red armor.
“Don’t worry we can get the stains off your uniform… you’ll see.” A smile. “It will be as good as new.”
Drip…
His eyes noticed the oil accumulating on the tips of his left hand fingers, then falling down in a black drop into an equally dark puddle.
He had wailed and cried when he had cut his finger with paper a long time ago. His father had put down the mug of coffee and told him that it was alright, that the pain would disappear soon.
His father was dead now. His brother, his friends… the red-headed girl...
A green light on the periphery of his sight…
He experimentally closed and opened his right hand. Then the left.
“Now count with me using your fingers, one…” a voice echoed in his head. He tried to follow along with the sentence, but he couldn't. Speaking was not an imperative process for a machine. It could be delegated to follow other, more important, internal repairs.
“What do you want to be when you grow up? An astronaut? Fire-fighter?”
His functioning leg slowly dragged back, scratching the concrete floor with a metallic whine until it settled down, bent at the knee.
Static crackled inside his head. “… are you there?”
“Are you there?” The red-head climbed up the branches to where he hid, holding his knees against his chest. “What’s wrong?”
Rubble fell as his arm reached back, his hand opening to lay palm down against a large segment of concrete wall.
“Lie down, dear…” He couldn't remember her, just the voice. “The doctors say the cure will be available soon… you just need to sleep until… until then.”
Static again, then followed by another voice. “…are able… your signal… conscious? ...answer us? …on its way… help!”
“I’ll help you. I promise!” The red-head swore. He felt cold as more scientists poured ice over him. “I’ll find a cure…”
His right arm forced his malfunctioning leg into a similar position to the other one, then grabbed the jagged corner of the concrete wall.
“These people are responsible for her death.” The memory was clear in his databanks, or was it his mind? The voice mingled with the static-distorted words that reached his internal receiver. “We can’t cure you now, but there are other ways… it wont be the same… I’m sorry.”
The servos in his legs started working full force. One whirring, the other click-clacking in a mad tempo as it tried to perform a task it was not able to do. His arms tensed as his elbows bent then stretched, pulling him up. The metal pipe scratched inside him, setting off sparks and making him vibrate as it slid down the way it had come in, in a slightly different angle.
Warning lights flashed and flooded his vision.
“Why that model? It is designed for combat.”
He invoked a picture from his archives. It covered the warning lights; the mist rolling off the extremities of the destroyed robot-tank faded; the sight of his armored body spewing liquid and sparks disappeared.
She had long red hair, reaching past her shoulders. She was wearing a white lab coat, covering whatever clothes she wore underneath; she held a medical chart in one hand, the other rested on the top of a cylindrical tank, big enough for a small child.
She was thirty in this picture.
“We will do it, she asked us to give you whatever you wanted… but why? Please?”
The noise stopped, the lights died out and the image faded, leaving him staring at a group of people. Another red-headed woman stood before him. Her hair reached just above her shoulders.
Around him and around the remains of the robots, disturbing the mists as colossus wandering in the sea, were scientists and armed guards.
His vision blurred as his neck vibrated. She was doing something. When she finished another green light popped up for a moment.
“Why did you come alone? Why do you keep doing this?” The woman had tears in her eyes.
“I don’t know anymore,” He answered.