The sun hung low over the ruined plain, burning the world in a tired orange glow before sinking toward the horizon to rest in its own darkness. Yuri stared at it—expression blank, face flickering, her holo‑skin glitching as her systems strained to stay alive.
Behind her, Kineki and the cat lay collapsed on the cracked ground. Days without proper power or food had left them weak, barely conscious. They had wandered hoping for a sign of life in this forsaken stretch of land… hoping someone would help. But nothing did. Nothing ever came.
Yuri's processors stuttered.
Two thoughts remained: fear of death… and the dying battery warning pulsing inside her skull.
Her face flickered again. She forced herself to reroute power, deleting unnecessary processes. Clearing RAM. Dropping visual filters. Disabling old subroutines.
Arms… do I really need them?
Tools, art, touch—none of it mattered out here.
This eye? These feelings? Touch? Do I need any of this?
She sat still for a moment, watching her friends slowly burn under the sun.
"#$@@ you, sun," she thought bitterly. Not even the sky would reach a hand down to save them.
Power dropped again.
128-bit mode.
Backup batteries draining.
Emergency optimizations activating.
Hard drive… do I need it?
No. She wiped memory blocks without hesitation. Every sacrifice for one purpose.
Her chest felt hollow now—less person, more machine.
I'm not human. So what am I? Ah… right. A robot. Just a robot.
Useless except for one final mission: protect the ones in front of her.
Yuri rose, moving like a dying puppet. She leaned down and gently clamped Kineki between her teeth—her jaw trembling from overstrain. She lifted the cat against her chest with the last strength in her failing arm servos.
Her body grew cold.
Heat was shutting down.
Some parts already dead.
Step by step, she forced herself toward the endless staircase carved into the cliff. Her consciousness faded in cycles—powering down to conserve energy, rebooting only to move again. Memories vanished one by one each time she shut off.
I don't need them.
I just need to save someone.
Her gait was stiff, robotic. The threshold alarm blared inside her skull—core temperature dropping, battery red. Her dim red eye scanned the world through static. She could barely see the form hanging from her own teeth. But she continued down the spiraling descent of the cliff.
Pain meant nothing. She tore off her outer plates, ripping metal and synthetic skin away—anything to reduce weight and save power. Bolts clattered down the stone steps. Wires swung loose. Only the essential frame remained.
Hours passed in fragments. On. Off.
Wake. Walk. Collapse. Rise again.
Rain began to fall, cold and harsh. Water seeped into her exposed wiring, rust creeping over her core. Mud clamped around her thin metal legs, dragging at her with every movement.
The lifeform in her arms trembled faintly.
She didn't know why.
She didn't need to.
She only needed to keep moving.
[Forceful Deactivation]
[Refused]
[Refused]
[Refused]…
Line after line appeared in her fading vision—warnings screaming, commands failing. Something inside her rejected every shutdown attempt. Something deeper than programming.
She didn't care about anything else.
She just wanted them to live.
Because… I love them.
Her body collapsed, slammed against the stone. She forced herself upright, claws scraping, lifting the cat with her only working limb. Her jaw locked entirely now—no more adjustments. Her arms rigid from dead circuits.
Still she moved.
Limping down the cliff.
Never stopping.
[Critical Energy]
[Activating Final Shutdown]
[Refused]
Her legs finally failed. She ripped them off, dragging herself across the wet stone with her forearms, crawling through mud, every inch gained by sheer refusal to die.
Her battery drain into nothing.
Her core cooled.
Her vision narrowed to a single trembling line of light.
She laid there at the bottom of the cliff, holding the two small bodies close.
I'm afraid of death… the darkness…
I never knew it at the beginning, and I won't know it at the end.
But this time…
…
[Rest]
[Flashback]
The facility stretched like a cathedral of steel—endless white walls, humming lights, and the cold blue glow of monitors casting color into the sterile air. Tables were covered with scattered blueprints pinned to bulletin boards: frameworks of limbs, discs of processors, neat sketches of plates and synthetic skin. Every line, every circuit, every measurement was the anatomy of artificial life.
Rows of half‑assembled droids hung from cranes, their metal ribs open, wires trailing like organs waiting for a spark.
Rehan sat at a desk in the corner, long hair falling over her glasses, cigarette trapped between her fingers. A pot steamed beside her—cheap cake meant to be a small celebration no one would attend. She smiled to herself, proud and exhausted.
The metal door hissed open.
Mono stepped inside—thin, sharp‑featured, goggles over his eyes, his coat hanging loose over a plain white shirt. His boots thudded against the carpet, shifting it crookedly across the floor.
"Rehan," he said, voice rising as he stared at the suspended droid beside her. "I can't believe you. You're making… a robot that acts like a human."
Rehan tapped ash into a tray and didn't look up.
"Oh, c'mon, Mono. Don't start."
He marched forward, gesturing angrily at the surrounding machines—droids fitted with tools, others with weapons, all motionless, waiting.
"Robots exist for that... mankind's efficiency. For progress. For our advantage. And you're desecrating that. Turning them into—"
"—into something you don't understand," she cut in.
Mono's jaw tightened.
"I'm leaving this project. I'm the only useful person here anyway."
Rehan finally raised her eyes, unimpressed.
"Oh shut up. You can't handle half of this without me. Those actuator models? The code? Your droids glitch just trying to walk straight. They're goofy."
Her smile was small, sharp.
Mono crossed his arms, irritation twitching in the corners of his mouth.
"You act like it's all nothing. But this—" he gestured around the room, almost pleading, "—this is humanity's uniqueness. We can think. We can choose. They can't. Don't ruin that... The thing that we can do...Their tools and should be like that"
Rehan's expression flattened. She poured herself a cup of coffee.
"Uniqueness? When were we ever unique, Mono." She shrugged. "Robots, humans… we run on systems. Just different ones."
Mono said nothing. His silence was stiff.
He turned as if her words couldn't touch him, as he points toward her "Im also important... You can't do this without me" his coat fluttering behind him, and he walked out.
The metal door slid closed.
The hum of machinery returned, quiet and endless.