After discovering the audio recording, everything changed. We were no longer wandering aimlessly. We had a destination. We had hope, even if it was a hope fraught with danger.

  We began the long walk back through the silent city, heading from the ruined residential area toward the dark lake. The silence was heavy, pressing down on me, leaving me alone with my thoughts, which had begun to spin in a vicious cycle. I could no longer stand walking beside this silent entity as if he were just a shadow.

  "You fool," I said suddenly, to break the silence. "Why do you want to know the meaning of feelings?"

  404 stopped walking abruptly. It wasn't a normal stop, but a complete and sudden stillness, as if a machine had been unplugged. This stillness was more unsettling than any angry expression. 404 turned and looked at me with his empty eyes.

  "It is an order," he said with his usual coolness.

  A shiver ran down my spine. "What is this order?"

  "I cannot disclose."

  404 resumed walking, leaving me standing for a moment as I processed this new and disturbing answer. "I cannot." That wasn't "I don't know." That was secrecy.

  I continued walking behind him, my mind now on fire. I remembered my own dream of escape, my dream of seeing the world, of becoming someone else. I realized that this dream, however foolish, was my only fuel. I was living for a dream. So what was the "order" that 404 was living for?

  I thought of the tale that everyone knew, even the street children in Chang'an. The story from the past hundred years about the entity who had many titles, like "The Great Architect," but whose most famous title was "The Chosen One in a World Where All Are Chosen." I remembered the horrifying details of the story: how "The Chosen One" had moved alone, and had mysteriously found the secret location of the Panir race, and had annihilated them all for a reason that remains unknown. The part that was whispered in the dark alleys was what he did next. He took the heads of all the Panir with him, returned to his continent, and hung them on the walls of his palace as an eternal warning. The tales say they still hang there to this day, a forest of empty, stone faces.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I looked at 404's broad, wounded back. "And this... this is the last of them. The last head yet to be hung."

  Then my thoughts turned to myself. "And what am I doing? Walking beside him in silence. Using his strength. I give him orders, and he obeys. Is this my new life? Did I escape one hell only to enter another hell of loneliness and silence?"

  I reached a harsh realization. I was alone, terrifyingly alone.

  "But he wants to 'feel'," a flicker of hope ignited in my heart, a selfish and desperate hope. "What if... what if he succeeds? What if he can understand? To talk? To... be a friend? I'll keep using him, yes, I'll use his strength. But maybe... maybe I can change him in the process. It's a risk... but it's my only chance to stop being alone. I'll seize this chance... to be happier."

  We finally reached the edge of the lake again. I stood and looked at my faint reflection on the water, then looked at 404, who was waiting in silence.

  "404..." I said, as if uttering a strange word. "Damn it, I hate that name."

  I took a deep breath. I instinctively placed my hand on the hilt of my rusty sword, that old symbol of my fragile dream. I gripped it, and said in a steady voice for the first time, "I... I swear on my dream, the only dream I have, that I will help you to live... and to find these 'feelings' you are searching for."

  I suddenly laughed, a short, bitter laugh. "Damn it, I don't even know what that means."

  404 tilted his head slightly, with the same analytical curiosity. "Didn't you say from the beginning that you would help me live?"

  I looked into his empty, grey eyes, and for the first time, I smiled a genuine, weary smile. "Yes, I did. This is just a confirmation... you horse."