“When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you... Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.” - Ernest Hemingway

  Explosions… a deep rattle… thundering trembles that shake the earth. Gunfire echoed through the narrow halls, and the explosion of grenades shattered the walls. There were screams—shouted curses, the sharp crack of weapons discharging—but no one’s voice lasted long. The corporate security didn’t stand a chance. The Raffen had made their mark, leaving only destruction in their wake.

  Inside the lab, the chaos felt distant, muffled by the thick metal walls, but it still shook the foundation. Alex’s pod remained untouched amidst the carnage. The only thing left to signal life was the faint hum of an emergency alarm—flickering lights, warning messages flashing in the dark.

  Suddenly, the ground shudders. An explosion. The building groans as the Raffen moves closer. The pod’s control panel crackles, its screen glitching with static, then sputtering out a warning:

  “Internal systems failure. Pod stabilization compromised.”

  But no one is left to hear it.

  Outside, the Raffen continue their rampage. The screams of the dying, the sounds of breaking glass and crumpling metal, become a distant background hum. The last of the corporate security team lies in pools of blood, their bodies mangled beyond recognition. A soft hissing noise stirs Alex from the dark, distant nothingness. It’s almost like a whisper in his ear, but there’s no one around. Just the strange mechanical hiss of his own lungs inflating. It’s wrong.

  He draws a breath—but it’s not real. It’s mechanical. Cold. Like something inside him is doing the breathing for him. This isn’t right.

  His mind struggles to grasp what’s happening. Why can’t I feel my body? Why can’t he feel the familiar weight of his limbs, the pulse of his heart?

  His eyes open slowly, but the world around him is blurry, the lights flickering like a dying flame. A sudden surge of panic hits his chest, but he can't move his arms to steady himself. He tries to speak but his mouth feels foreign—it’s a struggle to form words, to make any sound at all.

  He forces himself to sit up, and his limbs feel stiff—unnaturally so. His head sways, dizzy from the sudden movement. Something is wrong. The air smells cold, sterile. And metallic. He feels too light, his body is too… smooth.

  He looks down at his hands, his fingers—they’re metal. Cold, shiny, mechanical.

  This isn’t me.

  The pieces of the shattered world around him begin to focus—empty labs, discarded bodies of men and women, corpse after corpse. The smell of death clings to the air, thick and heavy.

  The sound of the raid has faded, the silence around him now oppressive. But he doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what happened. Where is everyone?

  With a grim determination, Alex forces himself to stand, his legs shaking as the weight of his new body feels more foreign with each passing second. He stumbles forward, nearly falling as his feet collide with the cold metal floor.

  I try to speak but I can only utter in a monotone that made me stop, “Help”. It felt sickening, but I didn’t know why. It was as if I was trying to hold a memory and not understand it as well. I gathered my strength and courage to put my hands in front of each other to haul my body up… my body?

  I hoisted myself from the ground making metal scraping noises. My legs were made of metal as far as I can, so why was it hard to make them move? It's unnatural? I looked around my room with the pod I crawled out of. The walls were black, so black I couldn’t see my reflection. Do I want to see? I hold my hands on my head making a metallic bang sound as it collides. Why did I do that?

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  There was a door ahead of me, it was glitching out going out and in from the wall. I walked toward it, well more like dragging a heavy lead suit from the dentist. What? That doesn’t make sense… Does it? I walked out the door and once again fell over.

  I landed on the floor again, once again I picked myself up. I looked over to what I tripped over and I saw a person in a dark lab coat soaked in red fluid I tried to recognize. Oil? I decided that I did not care and looked around in the dimly lit hall leading to who knows where. I started moving until my hand bumped into something on the wall.

  It was glowing and I lifted my hands upon the terminal, (terminal? How do I know what that is?) its screen flickering weakly to life as my hand hovers above it. I hesitate, then slam my palm down, nearly knocking it over in the process. The display activates, and the flickering video logs appear. My eyes start to watch the image become more clear and cast on the wall, like a two way mirror of sorts.

  “Subject: Alex. Initiating phase one of the integration process.” The video starts, grainy and shaky. On the screen, Alex sees… himself—but not like this. Not in a body that isn’t his.

  The scientist on the screen speaks, but Alex barely hears the words as his vision swims. It’s him, or someone who looks like him, speaking in a monotone voice. The coldness of the experiment is palpable even through the recording. The last sentence hits him hard:

  “Subject Alex, you’re progressing beyond expected parameters.”

  But Alex doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t know what this progression is, or why the hell he’s locked inside a machine. Why am I here?

  The terminal flickers again. Another log plays. The image changes to a new video—one where the scientist is now speaking directly to him. Alex sees himself sitting in a chair, strapped down, a distant look in his red eyes. Red eyes? His lips aren’t moving, but he can hear the words. The scientist asks:

  “Alex, do you remember your family?”

  Alex sees himself and recoils a little as the figure in the chair starts to shout in that metallic voice. His metallic voice, “WHO ARE YOU? WHERE AM I?...” Alex sees himself in the video, looks around himself and starts to increase his panic. “ WHAT AM I?! WHAT DID YOU DO TO M-” Alex shudders as he sees himself slowly slump forward in the chair where he was strapped in. Then the scientist’s voice cuts in, a whisper of something cold and clinical, spoken to another person out of frame.

  “His memory is intact. Should we wipe it?” The voice is distorted, like it’s coming from far away, but Alex can still hear the debate. He feels a cold shiver crawl down his spine. Spine? Do I even have one? As he reached behind him only to be stopped when a second voice responded.

  Equally distant, but clearer: “No. We need the full data set. Let him remember. Let’s see how it affects him in the long term.”

  Alex’s heart skips a beat. His breath becomes shallow, almost painful. Wipe his memory?

  The screen shifts again, showing another scene. Alex’s voice fills the room, again sounding detached, robotic even. The scientist asks more questions—about his past, his identity, and what he believes is happening to him. The words blend together in a disjointed blur, his answers just as mechanical as his body. In one of the logs, the scientist’s voice comes through more clearly:

  “If he retains his memories, we risk instability. His attachment to the past could sabotage our control.”

  Another pause. The conversation shifts to more technical jargon, too much for Alex to process as he watches, helpless.

  The last video ends with a flashing red warning: “Memory retention status: Stable. Proceeding with phase two.”

  Alex stares at the screen. The room feels colder than before. He suddenly feels a strange, gnawing emptiness. He’s not sure if it’s from the questions he doesn’t have answers to, or if it’s because he can feel his memories slipping away even as he watches them play out on the screen in front of him.

  “Wipe my memories?” Alex mutters, his voice hollow. “What the hell did they do to me?”

  The terminal flickers out, leaving him alone in the darkness, surrounded by death. The room feels suddenly too large, the silence too loud. The only thing he knows for sure is that whatever they did to him—whatever they took from him—is now gone. And what’s left, this body, these memories that aren’t even his own, is all he has left.

  Before I wanted to run away from that room a button appeared on the terminal. I looked over it and it said, download or erase memories of Subject #17 Alex? Del/Dwnld? Without hesitation I clicked to download and a shard came out of the terminal after a few seconds.

  For some reason I knew where to put it and I slotted it at the nape of my metallic skull and soon I did. I felt a wave of anxiety and fear well up in me. The feelings I was questioning came back with certainty and didn’t relent even after I screamed in a metallic voice that I would find terrifying. After clarity was done and the shard stilled and did its job I immediately ripped it out in a fury and threw it to the floor.

  “What Am I?” I cried to myself as I collapsed to the ground remembering everything. Darkness took me as I refused to come to terms with my situation.