There were moments in which he longed for the comfort of the Collective. The constant presence of other minds, the thoughts that filled the silence, the direction and sense of purpose. There had been no fear then, and he had felt no pain. Now, he felt everything. 

He carefully traced the softness of her hair, letting strands of it slip through his fingers like silken threads as he cradled her close, wrapping his jacket tightly around her. She hadn’t been feeling well when they begun their journey, and here in the cold, dimly lit cell, she had developed a fever that flushed her cheeks and hid the constellation of freckles beneath carmine spots and sapphire bruises. 

Her eyes were closed, but he knew the shade of them – a forest of oak, mahogany and cherry wood, with specs of moss and pine, that gave him peace even on the worst of days. 

He tenderly wiped the tears from her face, careful not to wake her. And in that deafening silence, he whispered the things he had never told her, letting the words spill forth, sensing that ‘all the time in the world’ had narrowed down to this small moment. A fragment of the time they had promised each other. 

“You’re going to be alright.” he murmured, though his voice shook as he said it. He kissed her hair. It was such a small, fragile promise he tried so hard to believe as he stood, and faced the guard who had come to take him. 

The man motioned for him to follow, his face an unemphatic mask of indifference, his mannerism cold and detached. And yet he had allowed for this tender moment of goodbye. 

He craned his neck to look back at her, just this one last time, but gloved hands pried him away, telling him it was time to go. No more delays. The corridor was silent, harsh lights humming above, reflecting on the slate grey walls and turning them into the shimmering silver of a spider’s web. Each step was an echo that reverberated down to a hollow emptiness that was spreading inside his chest, and there was a comfortable numbness to it that suffocated the sensation of pain like a soft blanket that smelled like their first kiss. But it wasn’t what he wanted. 

No. He thought. Not like this.

He had been numb once. Now, he wanted to be fully alive for as long as he had.

Ahead loomed a sterile room, gleaming with surgical tools and unforgiving lights. He had heard others speak of it, guards making fun of the screams that burst forth, though what greeted him was an oppressive stillness as the guard led him to the operating table and secured him in place. 

Then he saw her. The arachnid of his nightmares that sucked the life out of her prey, dissolving them until only an empty husk remained. She stepped forward, and her eyes flicked over him, lingering for a fraction too long as he defiantly stared into her eyes. They weren’t cold. They were empty.

The woman was older than him, but she looked smaller. She cleared her throat, her gaze dropping as she adjusted the settings on a monitor beside the table. “You… shouldn’t feel any… pain,” she said slowly, as if it was exhausting to speak. “I will sedate you.”

He took a slow breath, and to his surprise, his own voice was softer than he had anticipated, and barely more than a whisper. 

“Let me stay awake. Please… I want to be alive, even if it’s only for a little while longer.”

She hesitated, looking over her shoulder as if expecting someone to tell her no, but the other attendants were unfazed. Indifferent. With a slight nod, she turned back to him, her eyes shadowed by something he couldn’t quite name. The corner of her mouth twitched as if fighting against an apology she couldn’t bring herself to say.

As her hands moved over him, disintegrating clothing and adjusting sensors, he saw the faint tremor in her fingers. It was enough to give him a strange, bitter comfort. That, somehow, he wasn’t alone in this after all. 

“You will be awake. But it won’t hurt.”, she said eventually. 

Slowly, but ever increasing, the hum of the machines filled the room, and he felt his mind detach from his body,  allowing a strange clarity to settle over him.  

“Too long…” he whispered, staring up at the ceiling. “It felt so long that I was just… one of them. Not even me, not really.”  He let out a hollow laugh that was barely more than a breath. “I was a weapon, and I was part of their will.” 

He couldn’t see what the woman was doing, but he felt a slight pull on his leg. Perhaps he simply imagined feeling it. She didn’t respond, and so, he simply kept talking. 

“But sometimes… sometimes there was this little voice inside. Telling me it was wrong. Telling me there were people suffering because of us. I didn’t know how to make it stop.”

He looked over at her as she stepped to his side, expecting perhaps nothing, but she met his gaze. And for a moment, one hand rested lightly on his shoulder before her gaze hardened. 

“Even if you had resisted,” she replied “they would have replaced you. Someone else would have carried out the same orders.” Her eyes drifted to the machines around them. “One drone’s defiance doesn’t change anything to them. It never would have mattered.”

A sad, fleeting smile curved his lips. “Maybe not,” he said, his gaze drifting to the ceiling again. “But it mattered to me. It’s… strange, really. That I could be so powerless but still want to hold on to who I was, even if no one ever knew.” 

He could watch her work now. Remove those implants that had bothered him, those he hadn’t been able to get removed. That it happened now, at the very end, left a bitter taste in his mouth. Her work exposed muscle and bone underneath, and blood pooled underneath him. As if proving to him that he was still human.
That, underneath it all, he always had been human. 

“I got a second chance. I just… I just wish it had been more. More time. More love. More of… everything.”, he said closing his eyes now. 

“Me too.”, the woman said. “We are almost done. That last part is… scary. I would like to sedate you now.”

He looked at her again, and for a moment, he saw the reflection of his own pain and helplessness in her gaze. “Please don’t…”

He sounded scared now. He was scared. He didn’t want to die.

She held his gaze, and eventually, she nodded, and reached for a scalpel. 

He felt the faintest pressure against his temples, but it didn’t hurt. Instead, strange warmth spread through his skull, gentle at first but growing, like a tide creeping in, as the world around him began to blur and he closed his eyes. 

I wanted to buy a ring. A silly little human tradition, but it felt important to me. I had wanted it to match her eyes. I never found quite the right shade. 

The once-precise hums became muffled echoes in the distance, an almost pleasant backdrop to his thoughts.

I spent so much time studying. I wish I would have had more time to enjoy the sun. 

His breath came slower now, each inhale stretching longer than the last. He wanted to reach out, to hold on to whatever was left of himself, but his body felt heavier with every passing second. 

I was going to introduce her to my mother.

The thought came to him in a rush, distant and urgent. He tried to remember her face – but all he could find was the vague shadow, like a dream half-remembered.

Her eyes. I can’t remember their color. I think they were green. 

Everything seemed so far away,  pulling back from him, retreating into some dark place where he couldn’t follow. A part of him wanted to fight, to scream, but there was nothing to scream at.

I hope I will see her again. Somehow. 

There was only silence now. The buzzing of the machines had been replaced with a steady thrum of a heartbeat that didn’t seem to belong to him.

I… I wish… I….

He felt something inside him slip away, something final, irrevocable, as his consciousness unraveled like a thread pulled too tight.

I…

…