Disrepair

I can see you there, you know. Perhaps you don’t and the euphoric bliss of your youth coasts you forward; past me, past us, past it all. It’s not your fault that you don’t know, but I can’t help but feel envious that such a veil of innocence surrounds you when mine was stolen; when I have no choice but to sit here every day. You have no idea what it’s like to experience life as a passenger to some abiotic vessel, do you? Again, it’s not your fault. But I still must sit here without any say in my actions.

I can’t eat anymore and yet day long, what remains of my tattered stomach screams out to me, begging and begging and begging me for nourishment it will never receive. My bloodshot, bone-dry, deflating eyes flick around helplessly in their sockets, demanding my brain to close them for rest that they will, again, never receive. My unexercised vocal cords strain like knives on glass to squeak out even the faintest cry for help; I know that I can’t, and if I could, who could hear me?

You see, I talk to you like some child, like you are any different from me, but you’re not. In fact, you are me as much as I am you. Isn’t that evil? My brain has been neglected for so long, in disrepair for so long, in hell for so long that all my eyes can manage to see are a mirage of a purer version of myself that I believe once existed. My life ended while I was still a child, and yet my mind continues to age as if every day is another lifetime to endure. My body, no, my soul has gotten so used to this mechanical prison that all I can see some days is that projected memory of myself running around. Some days I think it’s taunting me, and some days I feel it’s trying to remind me of my humanity.

At least when this place was still opened I could taste humanity by looking at those who gathered around us. The shrieks, the joy, the laughter; it was enough to keep us all sane. But in this state of disrepair, all I see are those thoughts of myself and those others who undoubtedly deal with the same. All those years back when that man did what he did to us, none of us could’ve known that this would be the aftermath. This is like something you see in a movie, not a real punishment that your soul is damned to for all eternity. To be tricked by mirages and lured into attacking those who watch after us in the night.

On one fateful night, I saw it. It looked like me, or, my current form and I could only assume it was another delusional mirage… Until it spoke to me. In some kind of echoey, frightened, disembodied voice he told me to follow him. I felt as though I had no other choice as my body lumbered towards him. I wanted to reach out and feel him but the closer I got it, he glided further back as if his movements were linked to mine and as if touching him would cause reality to break. He led me through the damp and dusty, abandoned halls, where water was dripping from above and damaging the floor tiles. Small rats scampered across the floor, hiding into their clandestine dens when they sensed my movement.

Eventually, we reached a busted-open doorway that I don’t recall ever seeing. In fact, I remember there always being a wall there, yet the cagey version of myself walked right through where it would’ve been as he told me once more to follow him. As if there was still a wall there and he was something out of those old cartoons, my body could not walk through as he did. With each step I took, it felt as though a magnetic pulse sent me ever so slightly backwards; like every step I took was erased and I was put back where I started. I kept at it for several minutes until I realized that there was no way I’d be able to make it inside of the room that thing tried to take me to.

When I turned around, I was met with something I thought for sure I’d never see again: his eyes. Yes, that same man’s icy, unfeeling, haunted eyes that looked into mine all those years ago before he took my life from me. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t seem to truly be looking at me, and he certainly had no remorse in those eyes. All he had was some kind of metallic tool in his hand that I couldn’t make out in the darkness of the abandoned room we stood in. Before I had any real time to react, he raised the tool high above his head and came striking down with it, removing my exterior arm.

For the first time in all these years I felt real pain as most of my real arm was removed with it. I was paralyzed in fear and confusion and pain and before I could comprehend what was happening, my other arm was gone. Before I could run, he took one leg; and another. Why was I still conscious? Why was I still in pain? Why was my brain not shutting down and stopping me from processing the horror? Why did fate, twice in my life, choose me to endure this hell? What did I do?

Finally, before I could answer that question, I felt the tool come down upon my head. That one hurt the worst, possibly because he kept doing it. The exterior head around me was denting and cracking as metal splintered through my broken skull and fragments of both lodged into my brain. If he knew I was conscious through all of this, I’m sure he’d enjoy it; he probably did anyways. The last thing I recall in this life was my head detaching from my body. I accepted that my body was, by extension, the body of the suit I was in. My life became the suit’s body, and the suit’s punishment was my punishment. It no longer mattered where my human body parts were; they were scattered around me.

Whether it was also my real head or just the suit’s, I saw through its eyes and had the time to accept that neither version of myself could survive this. Neither version would. Worst of all, I could feel the suit disconnecting from whatever kept it active. The mechanical whirring, the squeaking of internal gears, the rhythm of the system controlling the suit, it all stopped. There was nothing but blackness. Blackness, pain, and hopelessness. Blackness, pain, and hopelessness. Blackness, pain, and hopelessness. Whatever the purpose of the mirages of my younger self, whatever the purpose of the mirage of my suit leading me to the unenterable room, whatever the purpose of that man returning to destroy both of my bodies, all I could do was hope that this was not the end.