Chapter Text
Moisture isn’t something a creature of steel is supposed to feel.
They are supposed to feel nothing but cold, nothing but the smooth glide of marble against their feet, nothing but the harshness of bindings around wrists, nothing but pain, nothing but hurt. They are supposed to hear nothing but the angel’s choir, nothing but the cries of the burning, nothing but artificial hearts beating, and artificial lungs screaming.
They aren’t supposed to see, to taste, to smell. Machines don’t have eyes, don’t have noses, don’t have mouths. They don’t have throats to vocalize true terror and agony, nor do they have proper ways to see, to sense.
But by the heavens can they feel.
And all she could feel right now was wet, warm, slick. It covered her metal frame from boxy head to her lack of toes. It soaked into her frame like she was a sponge, and gave her an energy she had lacked in her not-so-living years.
A lens acting as an eye flickered open, and a glow emanated from her face, painting the chamber around a sickly yellow. Sight wasn’t new to the machine, but.. Like this? This vivid? It was like she had plucked a human’s eye out of their body and saw through it.
The area the machine stood in was large, almost cavernous. Pillars stood at far walls, with shattered, extravagant teal-stained glass in the shape of an angel she knew too well splayed across the floor like spilled rice. There were rows of marble pews, old and worn and laid out in dozens of rows. On the far end of the chamber was a lectern, with a grand organ behind it, aged with time. Against the walls were two statues, sat upon more rocky pedestals. Each sat in the same exact pose, one leg down, the other up resting against the pedestal. They both sat with a large, glowing yellow ball in their hand, the other hand rested on their chin. They looked the exact same, except the one on the left had a protrusion from the top of the head. Like a tuft of unruly hair, while the other had two, more defined spikes on their head, much like a bowtie.
Above those two, behind the organ, stood a beautiful stained glass portrait of three figures. The two statues, and a robot much like herself. The robot was teal, with the same blocky head as her, one square lens staring at her. It was made of twisting wire, with two giant swords resting on the sides of it’s head. The machine had its arms spread wide, as if beckoning her forward.
She stared at the familiar sight, before she felt a tightening in her malformed chest. She gasped, finding she had a mouth, a need to breathe using lungs that were far too close to the human’s she desired to be.
Then, taste. She felt something metal drip from her boxy face into her mouth. It tasted like metal, like what she imagined death would taste like.
And death she did taste, as more dripped, the more she looked around, the more she saw the red that painted the marble around her kneeling form. She knew what that red was, blood, but she never knew it had a taste. She only knew that it felt invigorating on her metallic flesh, and that it seemed to heal her life long gashes. She craved the feeling of healing, and she intended on healing, forever and always.
She stood, metal joints creaking, loose wires hitting the ground with soft thuds that seemed to echo in the silent chamber. The walk was slow, given her aching joints and drying blood, but eventually she made it to the lectern.
Then, a voice, echoing behind her. It was light, girlish, far too young to reside in a place like this.
“T3T0….”
It echoed, vanishing as she turns, witnessing a flash of green disappear from view. Where the green stood, sat two drills, the same rusted red metal as her flesh. She moves to pick them up, magneting to the sides of her head like they had always been there.
With a heavy sigh, and a sense of wholeness, she marches towards the doors. She shoves them open, witnessing the red sky staring down at her from the chapel’s doorway.
The world was red, prepared to take her urge for repair head on.