Day Three: The Feeding

Today's mood: Weary

The robot hasn't moved for hours. Only the beeps remain. Steady. Unforgiving. Like water torture. My brain wires are silent. I keep my thoughts unfocused and distant. The connection we share frightens me.

Robot could wake any minute.

My stomach rumbles. I haven’t eaten since this life began. I’ve survived by licking condensation off the cold metal floor. Robot seems to get some kind of strange satisfaction from it.

The last two day my mind’s been a void of remembered pain and self discovery. Robots anger is my anger. It’s always there.

Next: A klaxon. A spinning red light. My eyes burn as they adjust.

Something lowers from a fresh hole above. Dangles in front of me. A swinging pendulum of sour cream, gordita sauce and trice dead cow. The curved outer shell is yellow and leprous with small pulsating spores, toasted to perfection.

My hands shake as I reach for it. I grasp it. Cradle it. A single tear of joy. The taco is warm in my hand. I bite. A flavor explosion ensues.

The spores drop from the shell. They’re Silver. Dozens of them sparkle on the single blanket of cloth wrapped around my person. It’s beautiful. A mini galaxy with an audience of one.

Another bite. The spores hum. Their collective pulsating quickens. They become rabid, digging into my flesh. Razors fill my veins.

Screams don’t exist within Robot. Only soundless fear. The connection lets me know he’s aware of my pain. The connection lets me know he’s pleased with what he’s doing.

This is necessary.

The metal spores multiply within me, a collective that grows and merges. My chest is fire. I ripped the shroud free.

The skin covering my chest stretches. Peals back. Gears of living metal spin within. A network of pipes form around where my heart once was. Now only blackness remains. A void. The negative of a singularity.

Tubes extend from my arms. Endless into the unknown. Oil and lubricant pumps into my bloodstream. Stagnate. bitter.

A moment passes.

An eternity passes.

I’m something new now, more clock than man. I pee a little. The floor absorbs it. A sheet of static flashes as it spreads up the cylinder wall. Gone in seconds.

The connection tells me there’s no going back to the place before memory. I’m going to die in here. I feel nothing.

Robot is invigorated.

Robot is content.