6

The world he had known before didn’t compare. Silence wasn’t quiet, it was loud and unforgiving.

Jeongguk liked that silence more.

“Alright, we’re here.”

There was a loud clang , and then a gentle breeze of cool air. He saw a faint glimmer of light out of his peripheral vision, or what little he had left. The light was soft, welcoming, calm. It was—soothing to say the least. It teased his skin with a warmth he wasn’t accustomed to, the sensation was all but foreign to him after spending an eternity in barren wasteland. He watched his grey skin turn a pinkish hue, a color he had forgotten existed. He had forgotten so much. So much more than he even realized.

Jeongguk had no idea what to expect, or what to think as he was carried inside. His fate was completely out of his hands. He had to wait to see what would become of him, if the stranger would make kind on his promise or betray him as so many had done before. Each step they took only made Jeongguk’s anxieties accumulate, his worried mind contemplating every single possible scenario at extraordinary speeds.

He thought that silence was maddening, this was somehow worse.

The stranger mumbled incoherently as he laid Jeongguk out on a metal slab. A nostalgic chill ran down his spine, a faint memory from a distant time that had faded and eroded beyond recognition. When his purpose was unclear and somehow possessed endless potential. He could only remember the cool steel beneath him, a soft spoken voice, when sparks of passion and promise where as much a part of him as the wires that gave him life. That was when he first became himself. And now—now he struggled to remember who he was, if there was anything left to him.

“Okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

There was a bright light, brighter than the sun, shining directly into his eye. He was blinded, his senses deprived even further as this stranger examined him from head to toe. The tightness in his chest was normal, he had dealt with it for years, it was just a constant reminder that his entire existence was beyond his control. Whether he lived or died, he had no say in the matter. He couldn’t do anything to save or protect himself. He would be hurt time and time again, and that was okay because he was an android.

He did his best to ignore the sensation of the strangers tools scraping against his machinery. His synthetic skin had all but wasted away in the places he needed it most. The most vulnerable parts of him had little to no protection against anything. All he could do was lie there and hope everything he had been through wasn’t for nothing. One small knick and it could all be over. That’s how fragile he had become.

            please don’t please I...

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