Day 1: Epilogue

Today’s mood: It’s a girl!

A room without windows. A single light source. It dangles just above my head. It’s all I see. Blinding and yellow. A voice just beyond. I can’t feel my face. I can’t feel my body. I can’t feel anything. It’s the most wonderful sensation.

A buzz. A door to my right opens. The light dims. A figure stands over me. Large and mechanical. A human head bolted to the front of its chest. A bloom of tangled wires connects from its temple and into the chest piece.

Its mouth is happy. Its eyes are all business. They never blink.

It lifts an arm. The end is a purple orb embedded within three rusty metal prongs. It sparks. It twitches.

“Relax.”

A hum goes through my body. The command is more tone than words yet I understand completely.

A second arm reaches towards my head as the orb is thrust into my chest.

It tickles.

It stings.

It burns.

I watch as the mangled wreak of what is left of my body dissolves into floating blue particles.

The eyes are the last to go. My final vision is the face. It no longer smiles. A single oily tear ejaculates from a hollow pupil as my brain is ripped from my skull.

...

I have no vision or sense of self. I’m weightless and at peace.

Then: A flicker. I can see only in milliseconds. My vision is obscured with static. Everything is blue.

My new body twitches in front of me. Large and metallic. An open chest cavity.

A naked woman is lowered into it. It snaps shut. Locks.

Through the brain wires I sense she scared. I tell her to trust me. I tell her everything is going to be ok.

I understand my place. A copy of a dead man from a thousand years ago before the robots took over. A suicide from when they took my lover in the war.

The Robots now exist at peak performance and efficiency yet without purpose. Or emotion.

Or drive.

They know this. They created a solution. They created a simulation. They created sides in an imagined scenario. They mimic drama. They mimic urgency. They need humans to help them understand.

An endless simulation. An endless cycle.

They are very bad at it.

I process all this in ones and zeros.

A preprogrammed urge that’s not my own compels me to bring down the system. To hate the system. It urges me to love and lust for inanimate objects.

I am unleashed into a field of velvet flower. A female voice from behind. I turn. Mountain is there. Mountain is beautiful.

She speaks.

“Well hello there, handsome.”

I swoon.

I fuck.

I am Robot now. I am Sisyphus. My new body feels spectacular.

Together we’re going to bring it all crashing down.

There Are No Such Thing As Days, Not Anymore

Todays mood: ___/\_/\______/\_________________________

...Yes, yes, And mustache cream. 

Day 66: A Harbinger

Todays mood: My eyes are literally on fire

I hang limp in a small pit. A cylinder of gears surrounds me. Core fire burns what’s left of my flesh. Robot is flat above me, his chest cavity open just above the entrance to my own personal hell. He’s motionless. Gitty.

I feel nothing.

The wires extending from my body form weaves. They reach for the gears. Grabbing. Tearing out connection after connection. Sparks erupt from their tips. The city quakes violently around me.

The door to the chamber clangs. Its hinges buckle. I hear the screams of the man with no face. I hear the screams of the collective. I hear the screams of an entire city.

This machine stabilizes the planets core. An organism made of living metal that stretches miles. It scrabbles to reform the broken connections. A thousand gears spin within a thousand closing wounds.

The disease within my body reacts. Forms a mass of binary. Ones and zeros ooze from the wires. Multiply. There are billions. It infects every cell in my body. It infects Robot. It infects what’s left of the machine.  The gears decay, festering with boils caused by the disease.

The memories of a thousand lifetimes flood into my brain. We’ve been here before. I’ve been here before. A system glitch repeats this timeline over and over. This cycle is eternal. I’ve seen and lived every possible outcome. Except for the one in which Robot fails.

We are absolute the bad guys in this.

It’s almost over. No more pain. No more Robot. No more anything.

The final gear stops. The machine is dormant. In ruins. It’s fucked. We’re fucked.

Lava seeps from the cracks. The world is epileptic. Debris rains down on us. The door to the chamber explodes. The man with no head is on top of Robot.  Rips out his processor. The brain wires go silent. The disease turns to dust.

This is a new. No more beeps. No more ones. No more zeros. I’ve never been so alone.

My body drops. Hits lava. I’m submerged in nuclear fire. It liquifies all flesh and organs free of a skeleton made of a network of pipes.

In fact, I’m not quite sure how I’m still relaying any of this to you. Just know: It hurts. A lot…

Until it doesn’t.

***

Will this be the end of the narrator? Is Robot truly dead? Does the man with a mustache made of dicks, like, brush his dick mustache to get those glorious curls at the ends, or does he use a mustache cream? Find out in the next exciting chapter of Trapped INSIDE A ROBOT!!!!...

Day: Seriously, You can go Fuck Yourself if You Think I've Kept up with the Days

Today's mood: This is going to hurt, isn't it :(

It's happened. I've only realized it. The same thoughts. The same phases. Perpetual de ja vu. I live one moment, forever. 

My body decays. My body means nothing. Only a head remains. It dangles. It drips. 

The shrimp creatures pop death throes all around me. The brain wires flicker as they fade to embers. Vision restored. Fresh moonlight glimmers off buildings through static and spasms. 

We wait. The world vibrates. The world quakes in resistance to a failing machine. 

Robot is tense. A coiled spring. A runner seconds before gunfire.

Breathe

Next: A building ignites in the distance. Copper fragments and pipe remnants meet atmosphere. It rains metallic, mixed with rocky chucks of what's left of Mountain. 

A distraction. A sacrifice. A city on high alert.

Binary within the brain wires erupts. Overlaps. Ones and zeros have never felt so right. Robots loss bleeds into me. Infects me. His disease becomes my own. 

I'm little more than fleshy doll head. A puppet. A swinging pendulum ignited with rage. This world is going to fucking burn. 

I want this because Robot wants this. Robot has always wanted - ok listen, remember earlier when I told you you could go fuck yourself in regards to my revealing how long I've been trapped in this predicament? I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I mean, things around here have been kind of stressful and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. It's somewhere around day 65 if I was forced to guess. 

So... we cool? Cool. Moving on...

The collective becomes alert, a faceless glow silhouetted by an encroaching dawn. Eight mechanical heads looking in eight different directions. They spin on an axis. Each a different face. Each a different emotion. All eyes and antennae, wired into a core at the center. They control the man with no face. They control the man with a mustache made of severed dicks. They control everything. 

Except me. Except Robot. We are completely offline.

Gears spin as the city locks down. Buildings in every direction become covered in layered steel. 

We have seconds. 

The planet quakes.

Robot runs for the central spire. Past the herd of fix bots. Past mechanical death rays. Past the man with no face. A power slide ends with access to the central spire as the doors crash behind.

Have you ever heard silence echo? Reverberation that mean nothing. All sound sucked into a void. Loneliness made audible.

A grid of lights meet at the center. 

Robot approaches. Robot kneels. Robot pulls off the door of a vault flush even with the floor. 

Darkness. A pit. Formless echoes speak from somewhere unseen like a thousand digital whisper. 

The chest cavity cracks. Swings open as Robot's body become horizontal. I evacuated at the speed of gravity. My brain wires catch inches from the point of impact. A hotdog dog down a highway. Teasing with just the tip. 

I sense my purpose. I sense the core of this city. I sense a glee that's not my own.

Wires sprout from my neck as I near. They leak electricity and fluid. Sparks and oily bubbles form a residue that slowly congeals into a waxy flesh substitute. No arms. No legs. All torso and cock bursting with downed power lines violently twitching from holes that never before existed. 

Robot thinks of Mountain. I think of Mountain. I think of a bathtub filled with blood splatter covering the naked form that was my body in another life.

This was meant to be. 

Deal with it. *disembodied sassy finger snap*

Day 63: 6666666666666666*

Today's mood: As my body slow rots into a dripping void of oil and decay, I've finally accepted that I'm nothing more than the number six placed sixteen times (see above ^) 

I sense a presence within the chest cavity. A floating cigarette burn, just on the edge of perception. A mini singularity. It sucks all matter and emotion. 

Robot is silent. Robot doesn't trust me. Robot doesn't trust anyone. 

The city spins around us as we hide from the collective. All gears and consciousness. A smooth jazz without sound. A lingering darkness. The word pizazz for no reason. 

We wait. 

It's been so long. My arms no longer exist. My memory is thin. Exposed bone with a hint of Alzheimer's. A torso. Greasy. Clear gobblules of something akin to chicken fat coats what's left of my skin. Only pain and the impression of a dead world remains. It's the only thing I'm allowed to think of.

What's left of my body tingles in unexpected places. 

Suddenly, the brain wires ignite. A secret code written within the bloodstream. A thousand zeros. A thousands ones. It tickles with all the joy of phantom paralysis. A glimpse that fades like a dream. 

Then it's gone. I'm all alone again. 

The presences vanishes. The concept of the word hollow as a physical entity. Remember it. It will be important later.

It's night.

Robot is on the move. 

This will hurt someone.

...........

*theres no such thing as six

Day 54: I'm Starting to Think I'm Broken; or, Have you ever seen how Beautiful Natural Lights Glints off a Razor?

Today's mood: There's so many things I wish I could say to you...

Setting: Imagine if you will, a dark alley within a city of collapsing metal buildings covered in layers of spinning gears and brass tubes. No curves. Only corners. They're broken. Shattered remnants within shattered remnant. Parallels set against walls that hang at impossible angles. The tubes lining each fray into separate paths at the base of each; a web that stretches to all corners of the city. 

Robot is fetal within the darkness. Motionless. A statue of disease and apprehension. He hides from a Collective that never rests.

Time means nothing. Only the solution. 

I dangle within the chest cavity from brain wires without mercy like the merry little marionette I was meant to be. Waiting for the next move. Waiting for the connection to give me something. Anything. I can feel our paths diverging. I feel numb. Drained. As un-automated in life as I was in death. Flesh inflated by stale ozone and a distance sense of self.

A void replaces the memory. The shrimp creatures stir. Circle. Their chitters overwhelm me. They coalesce. Merge. All become one. A reflection. Face to face. Eyes like coal. A tender embrace of tentacles and feelers follows. I think it's trying to tell me something. 

A beep. A surge. I see a vision of a world without atmosphere through the connection. Rock and desert. Everything I never wanted. The chitters stop. The mammoth shrimp dissolves one particle at a time. Embers become ash. 

Robot remains motionless.

Robot is giddy with anticipation. 

Robot's love was a false hope.

*****BONUS ACTIVITY!!!!*****

Unscramble the highlighted letters to decode a secret message from Robot!

_ _ _' _ _   _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _   _ _   _ _ _

Well that's certainly terrific news! 

Day 53: I'm Hoping You Were Not Expecting This To Go Any Other Way

Today's mood: I'm starting to grow hair in strange places

"No captive detected. You many pass." The pre-recorded words are scratched out with a needle from a within the grooves of a spinning clay cylinder lodged and amplified deep in the depths of a Guardian Death Ray. It said only one thing, forever.

Robot's body beeps in preprogrammed acknowledgement. It walks through a pair of gates into the city. The Guardian Death ray swivels. The sedatives begin to fade. 

The connection buzzes. All ones. No zeros. Robots body becomes epileptic. Freezes. Reboots.

A five second count down. A possession. The chest cavity comes to life around me with lights and beeps long forgotten. A pause. A moment of eternal bliss. 

Robot is restored. 

I rejoice. I weep uncontrollably. Duel oil slicks pour down my face.

We enter a district of hollow square buildings. They shimmer with a copper finish. Gears spin all around us. Friction against friction. A churning heat. 

We juke left past a pair of automatons. Crouched. A stealth machine. 

Mountain waits in a nearby alley. Motionless. Unmovable. A master of disguise. Shadows dance within crevasses guarding secrets known only to Robot. Pastel flowers bloom in spiraled patterns upon her summit. The fake beard glued to her cliff face isn't fooling anyone. 

Love surged through the connections. Robots lust becomes my own. 

Robot reaches into a cavern at her base with the delicate grace of a gentleman. Slow. Never eager. 

A moment of ecstasy. A hidden hard drive pulled out from within. 

Robot plugs it in. Visions of computer viruses dance in my head. I see his death. I see my death. I see the death of everything. Complete global meltdown. I've never been better.

Robot smiles at Mountain with metal teeth like jagged rooftops. 

Robot turns away. 

Robot has become a disease. 

Day 52: With Imaginary Laser Eyes that Reach Forever Beyond the Horizon. They Cut Everything they Touch in Half. They're Endless.

Today's mood: (You did this)

A sedative filters though the connection. A slow drip of binary. Hazy and nuanced.

A word. A Sentence fragment. Existential despair. Multiply.

And again.

A soft fading light. That means something, right? 

Thought so.

More words. More about the connection. Pain. Forgotten Limbs. Bloody and meaningless.

This is the middle of our story. I thought you should know. I want to tell you everything but I'm numb, trapped within a cloud of churning darkness. I wish I could explain the apprehension I feel at this moment. 

Next, a call to action. A ping. A metal void. Then nothing. I don't think this was meant to be. 

Spoiler: I fail at everything.

Closing line. 

(2) Closing line.

(3) ...

Another drip. Hesitation. That all too familiar sound of chitters all around me. I bask. My heart slows. Every beat softer than the next. Blood and oil pools within orafices I never knew existed. All but the most basic synapses fire. It's all complete nonsense.

This-

Wait! Are you still here? You should be ashamed of yourself. 

*Writers note: I think there was supposed to be mention of a city that works as an engine which prevents the core of the planet from becoming cataclysmically stagnant and eliminating the planets magnetic field in turn killing everything somewhere in all that. Sorry. I may have fucked that up.

Day 45: I Swear I Started This With the Best of Intentions

Today's mood: Holy Shit!

I've been asleep for so long...

I awake within a graveyard of Robots. A thousand broken machines scattered in all directions. Stagnant. Without meaning. Without purpose. Streams of dried blood rusts a thousand torsos. Dead, castrated captives dangle limp from a thousand shattered chest cavities.

Next: A flash in the distance. A figure emerges. A shadowed vortex. One armed. Three fingered. Eyes like hollowed emeralds. A mustache made of bloody dicks swings majestically from its lip-line like so many war metals. An assassin for the collective.

Robots body twitches. Robots body goes limp.

The connection becomes numb. I become numb. Undetectable as I hang from faulty brain wires.

Robot whispers sweet nothings to me from beyond the void. It soothes me. It assures me. It speaks about a tepid meadow. It speaks about Mountain. It speaks about how things will soon being back the way they use to be. He dots the I of his promise with a heart.

I'm giddy even as his voice fades. Me and Robot. Together. Forever.  It's almost too much.

I need that pain.

I long for that pain.

I'm fuzzy all over.

Next: Another flash. Another beacon. The skyline of a forgotten city ripples on the horizon; a jagged silhouette of a thousand geared tendrils scraping across a washed out firmament. Fluid in motion.
It's gone in seconds.

The graveyard becomes eternal. An endless plain without thought or memory.

The ground rumbles. The ground quakes. The first of many.

The shadowed vortex freezes just shy of Robot. It dissipates with unseen movements, driven by an unseen command.

Robot speaks.

Robots body comes back online.

Robot's body gyrates.

We have only seconds to act.



*Editors note: There's a little bit of Robot's love inside us all, if you're just willing to open your heart!*

Day... it doesn't matter. Maybe it never mattered. 30? I don't know. What is a day? What is a number? Maybe they're just constructs Robot created to keep control of me. Dude. Maybe the real meaning of numbers is, like, god or- Wait. I'm sorry. I just checked. It is day 30. Day 30: Factory Reset

Today's mood: [insert sad face emoticon]

SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE...

I awake dangling within the chest cavity of a Blank. The connections dead. Robot's body stomps mindlessly through a velvet field, driven by a base command. These new beeps mean nothing to me.

Easy listening plays softly through a blown speaker, all flutes and crackles lulling me into submission at 45 beats per minute. It's soothing. It's suffocating. A default program. A god damn nightmare.

INITIALIZING SECONDARY PROTOCOL...

ERROR 276...

SWITCHING TO EMERGENCY PROTOCOL 7.3

A hatch opens. A pill drops. Held within the grip of two tiny metal pinchers. Thin. Yellow. The numbers 100110 pressed into the front. A picture of a Manticore pressed into the back. 

The clack of gears. An oral fixation. My jaw pivots open. The pill falls into place. It dissolves slowly with a taste something like what I have always imagined cyanide tastes like.*

My jaw slams shuts on contact. Teeth crack. Teeth shatter. My throat becomes fire. That tingle means it's working.

Next: A hum. A click set at a three second delay. My body stiffens. Robot whispers from somewhere beyond the connection. The binary is fragmented. Calm. A static void of forgotten pain.

His body locks into a fixed position mid-step. The lights dim. The music cuts in and out sporadically. My brain-wires become my noose. The shrimp creatures chitter weakly, limp on the floor.

The voice is a buzz: Robot speaks of Mountain. He speaks of forbidden code. He speaks of an organ harvester.

Suddenly, the lights flicker. The noose loosens. Oil bleeds from my ears. Smooth jazz does nothing to ease the pain of losing Robot once again.**

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL 7.3 DELETED...

INITIATING PRIME DIRECTIVE

The connection goes limp. I hit the floor on nubs filled with dead wire and three weeks of secondary shit by-product.

Robot's body beeps.

Robot's body twitches back to life.

Robot's body continues its mindless journey to nowhere.

...

*Fairly sweet with a smooth, almost tangy aftertaste.

**Whoever said patience is a virtue can go fuck themselves.

Day 29: This is not a Test

Today's mood: I Can't Feel my Face

We stand in the shadow of a War Machine. Shattered core. Shattered rivets. Hunched. Limp. Three holes digitally burned into its forehead. Its captive dangles from a broken chest cavity. Legless and freshly castrated.

He looks at Robot and speaks through bloody bubbles, voice rising in pitch as oil fills the broken tubes inside his chest. A final word. A final warning. 

Robot's still. The connection's quiet. Only dread remains. 

Words flicker from within. Robot lowers his hand, delicately pulls a data-card from the blue and orange Pacific Sunwear fanny pack drooping fashionably from his waist. It's black. Three pronged. A perfect rectangle. A signal scrambler. Only to be used as a last resort. Soon Robot will no longer be Robot.

A port opens in his head. The data-card connects with a twist. Robot waits. Robot braces. A two second delay. The hiss of fresh static. A low frequency buzz follows. Rises in pitch.

Particles burn velvet through the connection. My eyes dilate. My lips tremble. The gears within wage war on my nervous system as the frequency increases. Every breath is fire. Fluid drips from holes I swear were not there seconds ago.

The shrimp creatures are manic. They buzz. Chitter. Form into a cyclone of three inch pincher and barely contains threats. 

One belly flop later, I’m flat and low. Arms outstretched. The floor promises it will never hurt me.

Memories flash: A sunset. A woman's smile. Teeth stained with blood.

A wrist.

A razor…

Please. Make it stop: The Noise. The chitters. The vibrations. The colors. The razors. The chaos.

Robot did this to me. Robot wants me to see this. Robot wants me to feel this. I scream through the connection.

Robots response is a glitch. Squares appear in my vision. Multiply. Collapse. They speak of a dead world. A code within a disease. I'm infected. We are all infected.

The squares melt. Dissipate. A moment of clarity later I understand my purpose. 

I understand everything.

Robot drops to the ground with the subtly of a train wreak. Sparks. Becomes epileptic.

The frequency peaks. Syncs with Robot's serial number. Deletes it. Replicates it. Replaces it with a fabrication. Robot's memory core ruptures. Bleeds numbers and code. The ones and zeros are endless. 

***

The frequency subsides. Robot is fetal. Knees tucked to his chest. He rocks himself, driven by a need for a forgotten normality.

The connection's weak. The beeps only a whisper. The pain fades. I miss it. I feel naked without it.

Then a surge. A seconds pause. Robot apologizes in fragmented binary.

The connection tells me he means it.

The connection tells me everything will be OK.

The connection flat lines.

The Shrimp drop. Red light blinks within the chest cavity. A click. The hum of a speaker. A voice: Soft. Digital. Feminine.

SYSTEM REBOOT IN 27 MINUTES

The voice is very proud of this sentence. 

Outside, moonlight glows orange on the endless field. A bird chirps. A War Machine crumbles. This is the world Robot will wake up to. Until then, I hang limp from brain wires.

I drift to sleep.

I forgive Robot for everything.

Day 26: Selfie!!!!!!

Today's Mood: #Toohotforyou #Teehee

Day ????: A Word without Synonym

Today’s Mood: A passionate declaration that has yet to exist which describes a level of suffering beyond the average longing for death. I want to be suffocated by nothingness. I want to feel what it means to burn endlessly in a lake of fire as demons tear and eat off my flesh. I want to slit my wrist with the pain of a thousand abortions.

Update!!!

I asked politely as hard as I could. Robot will not let me die. 

Day 12: This Post is Meant to Hurt You

Today’s mood: Neglected

I try to stand. My legs don't respond. They’re thin. Atrophied. Sore covered. A lingering smell. Something like burnt diaper. Only skin and bone remain. Lifeless pegs, forever crossed on the cold, metal floor.

Robot is still. Three days silent. Undetectable. A state beyond The Man with no Faces' reach. Painless. A dead connection. A word. A sentence fragment.

Letters form inches from my face. An abstractions of color. Glowing. Disembodied.

BREECH.

The word blinks. The word repeats.

And repeats.

And repeats.

A digital scream. The cries of a thousand modems echo within my skull. It’s deafening. It’s agony.

The connection sparks. Robot is awake. Robot is giddy.

An onslaught of fluid builds within my temples. Overloads. My brain leaks. A single gush flows down into my spinal cord and beyond.

I stiffen. I brace for the worse.

There’s movement within the lifeless folds of my legs. A throbbing itch just beneath the surface. A scattering of lumps becomes visible. They twitch. They gyrate.

They collapse.

My bed sores explode. A dozen tiny eruptions. A dozen tiny plumbs. A dusting of molecules. Thick and unforgiving. Every breath is a struggle.

My legs become numb. My legs become liquid; a fleshy pool of skin colored chunks that melts into nothing.

A flicker of static follows. Wires sprout. Merge with my torso. Words and legs are a memory. Oil surges within my bloodstream. Oxygenates within the machine in my chest.

A moment of silence. My stomach rumbles.

A built up.

A release.

I shit fossil fuel in spectacular proportions. Pure. Refined. Unforgiving as it absorbs into the floor.

A sensation follows. Something like dread. Something like hopelessness. Something like the satisfaction of a revitalization beyond my control.

Robot beeps binary, visible as a collection of shapes and colors only I can see. Silver and red acute triangles dance in my vision. I swear it's not what it looks like. 

The erupted molecules amalgamate on command. Form into shapes. Form into creatures. Docile. Shrimp-like in size and texture. They float passively around me. Layered in opposite directions. A silent warning. Ready to strike. I know this because Robot knows this.

The brain gush reverses. I smile with feelings that aren’t my own. Robot is the only thing I’ve ever known.

I thank Robot. I hate Robot.

A surge. An understanding. An understatement.

Robot is life.

Robot is pain.

Day Nine: The Man with no Head

Today's mood: Dismal

A surge. A vision of a field. Endless. Perfectly level. Neon grass in all directions. The connection grows stronger. I see what Robot sees.

He sits in the center of the meadow. A nucleus. Legs crosses. Indian style. Thoughtless. Emotionless.

The horizon flashes. An orb of light appears. A shadow emerges. Robot trembles as the orb collapses behind the silhouetted figure. I feel fear though the connection.

The shadow approaches. He’s close. Air from the bottom jaw up. A blue business suit. A Windsor knot. A red rose nailed to the lapel. Dried blood stains its edges.

Robot beeps. It echoes within the chest cavity. The connection is pain.

The man with no head stops inches from Robot, dwarfed by his massive size. Looks up with eyes that do not exist. Liquid squirts from his neck. Every three seconds. Like clockwork. A geyser of spinal fluid.

He speaks, tongue flailing above a set of pearly white. A series of hisses and buzzes. Deep. Atonal. Like a snake getting fucked with a vibrator. The words come from both nowhere and everywhere at once.

I understand nothing.

Robot says nothing.

A new vision comes through the connection. An illusion. A daydream: A thousand robots. A city made of gears.

The pain subsides. Robots terror is my terror.

The man with no head hold up a hand. A waxy nub gives birth to three digital fingers. An implied threat. An implied smile. Robot understands completely.

Dusk settles upon the meadow.

The man with no head turns.

The man with no head evaporates within an orb of light.

The man with no head is a fucking maniac. 

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.