“System initialize…”
“Beep, beep, beep! DONE! – (235ms)”
I heard the little “beep” sound scratching my ears in the pitch dark.
“Loading system files…”
“Beep!”
I was just a numb soul waiting to be born or was this just a dream that I was afraid not to wake up in my bed again?
“Initializing optical systems!”
“Beep, beep, beep! Scratching disks!”
“DONE! – (563ms)”
Suddenly, my whole world comes to the oblivion of light. Red, green and blue pixels were all over my eyes, rumbling and crumbling over the black, dirty atmosphere that I witness.
I felt my arms and body, sticking into some sort of wall. I then realised I was chained to a metal skeleton of some sort of “robotic arm” that was placed upper side of the broken walls of the factory. Maybe part of a place once was called a “factory”.
I try to remember now, memories are all sickened. I believe I had an immense fear when I first touched my arm after freeing myself, not feeling my flesh but rather a cold metal surface bonded with wires and pistons, which are indeed old and damaged. To this day, I can still feel the lack of control over my left elbow.
I got used to that now, but I gotta say, it is rather interesting to touch yourself, yet cannot be able to feel anywhere, just inside your hands.
“Global Compass systems are activated. Calibrating GPS…”
I was in the middle of North America. As an easterner that never left his neighbourhood, now my whole reality was altered or taken away from me, I could only understand then.
I stepped out of the factory line, previously where I was standing. The platform seemed empty after I left.
I remember feeling my legs. A bunch of rods sticking into the brown mud, chaotically and vigorously spreading mud everywhere.
It was extremely challenging for me to go through the doors of this broken building and meet with rain, dirt and grated sunlight illuminating the dark sky. I could feel my electronics getting wet.
“Alert, alert! Humidity detected!”
“Beep!”
While I slowly feel myself getting slightly more impaired in every sensor in every second that passed, I barely realised the other figures rather than me also captivated by the rain. I saw one on top of a small hill of debris and climbed towards it. However, the only thing that I saw was the lifeless, far from the alive body of someone that I, maybe, used to know.
“ERROR: 004WS8978d4 – Unable to reset voicebox!”
The sounds of mine were slowly going dark. I quickly turned my head towards the other side of the hill.
“ERROR: 004WS6756c2 – Environmental microphone is not working properly!”
There was one little step, and I saw the thing; millions of machines had broken down on foot, everyone coming from a single huge building, an impressive one…
It turned out that the huge, impressive building I saw while walking through the pitch blackness of the damp, cold night was a school. Its lights illuminated every nook and cranny, ridiculing the sombre, silent cloak of the night like a persistent mustard stain on funeral attire. The land was still dark, but it felt brighter in my inner world.
It was my homeworld after all. As a teacher, as far as being one as I remember. Maybe, this moment was my very last, however at least I could close my eyes fully shut before the very thing made me to this day.
“ERROR: FATAL – Emergency shutdown initiated!”
“Beep, beep! Hibernation mode activated. Estimated hibernation: 232y 53d 5h…”