Do you want to live?
Pain. Waves of it rolling over me, leaving me gasping for air. Over the sound of my own laboured breathing I hear a voice speak,
“Do you want to live, boy?”
I can only nod my head and groan as another wave of pain washes over me and everything fades into darkness...
Strange hallucinations haunt my dreams; visions of things that have been and may be. Strange creatures roam a dark jungle, their cries long and mournful. A boy is at my side, young and carefree, revelling in my wonder. A voice, the Voice, echoes in my head and I feel his longing.
<Home...>
Consciousness returns, and slowly the dreams fade away, leaving me with a strong sense of longing. I try to open my eyes, ignoring my body’s screaming protests. They only open a crack, but that is enough for me to realise that something is terribly, horribly wrong. The colours seem muted, and occasionally an artefact, sometimes a number, sometimes a colour, will dance across my vision. My examination is cut short by a voice,
“So you’re awake then.”
It wasn’t a question.
“ Your... condition when we found you was critical, beyond my medical abilities. I had no choice but to call a Converted doctor.”
He spat the word converted out of his mouth as if he could not bear to keep it inside his throat.
“He was willing to help, if you accepted his terms. I accepted in your stead.”
I could feel his eyes boring into me, daring me to challenge his decision.
“The changes were rather drastic. Here, take this,”
I felt a mirror placed in my hand. Slowly, I brought it up to my face.
<Brace yourself>
A monster looks back at me out of the mirror as I look in. The left side of my face is gone, replaced with a cold, steel, mask. The only human feature remaining is my left eye, peering back at me in shock out of an aperture in the metal. As my eyes drift to the right side of my face, the reason for my strange vision becomes apparent. A steel sphere with a jewelled centre has been forced into my right eye socket, replacing the eye I had lost. I decide not to ask how it works. My mouth has been covered with metal mesh, strands woven into the steel mask. Dimly, I wonder how I will eat.
<It comes off. I think it’s just there for aesthetics>
isn’t much of a comfort. What could be worse than this?
<Look at your arm>
Is the dreaded reply. My right arm is gone, lopped off at the shoulder; it has been replaced with a mechanical mockery. Simple metal spheres serve as the shoulder and elbow joints, surrounded by masses of metal rods and wires. From the elbow the arm takes more form, becoming a solid cylinder studded with jewels. The hand is blocky, each finger ending in a vicious curved spike. I can hear the hiss and whir of complex machinery emanating from the device when I try to move it, and nauseated, I look away.
<Remember, this is all going according to plan>
Right now I didn’t care about the plan; I cared about what the Converter had done to me. I hazarded a question, turning around a facing my caregiver for the first time. He was a tall, thin man with a face lined with cares.
“What else?”
Was all I could manage before being shocked into silence by my own voice. It came out emotionless and flat, each word wheezing out of the grill.
“Most of what was done can be seen externally. However the most invasive procedure was internal.”
“What was it?”
“A ‘Loyalty box’. It is a device that ensures you follow the terms of the contract. I’m sorry, the doctor was adamant that it would be inserted, to the point of refusing to operate otherwise.”
As I lie back in shock, I can hear my Voice screaming,
<Not part of the plan!>
before darkness suddenly overcomes me again.
Am I dreaming? I’m surrounded by nothing, back in my fully-human body. I’m hovering in a featureless expanse, peacefully floating in my empty domain. Suddenly, the atmosphere changes. The peace is gone, shattered by a roaring gale that bruises and buffets me, coming from all directions. Off to the side I see the boy again, watching as another man, weary and bleeding, spars with a mechanical monstrosity. It’s winning, seeming to laugh coldly as blood streams from the man, when suddenly he roars and the darkness takes shape, a shape so horrible my mind refuses to comprehend it. Now outnumbered, the machine doubles its efforts, but it is cut down, black ichor spraying in all directions. I cry out at the suddenness of it,
And awake. The doctor stares at my gasping, shuddering figure in shock. I have no idea how long I’ve been out for, but it feels like forever. Once I have assured the doctor that it was merely a bad dream, (Hah!) I get him to leave me in peace. I scan my mind for traces of the foreign intruder, but nothing is left. Whatever the Voice did, it did it well. Speaking of the voice, where was it? Almost no trace remains of him as well. Only the faintest whisper remains in my mind.
<Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just... tired is all>
The sound is hesitant and faint, as if coming from a long way off. An image appears in my head of its own volition, that of the weary, wounded man being tended to by the boy. The man seems troubled, his face downturned, and even as I think it I hear myself saying the words,
“What’s wrong?”
Slowly he turned to face me, his answer chilling me to the core:
<Do you want to live?>
Now an explanation. Anything in these <> is the voice (although you should've figured this out) speaking directly into our main characters mind. (Interestingly enough the voice belongs to my Mary Sue, but that's another story)
The story is basically a short clip of magi-tech surgery my way (I'm an evil person
). This event takes place about 3/4 of the way through the larger timeline involving the main character, and his story is the last one (of six) where Mary Sue (as he will honorarily be called) has a major involvement. Also, it is almost double the size of my Wasted! story. Feel free to criticise as much as you want, I get the feeling you're just being nice so I'll eat my other story.
Author
Topic: Writing Workshop! (Read 18634 times)