Work Text:
Piece by piece, the tower collapses around me. I lie at the top of the structure, but still it crumbles down from somewhere higher. How far does it stretch up above me? I want to find out, but it doesn’t matter now. I can no longer turn my head to look. I can only feel the ground beneath me shake as it begins to fall apart.
The tower shifts. Somewhere far below me, the structure must have given out, crushed under its own weight. I think I begin to fall. Funny, how hard it can be to tell. And as the last of the floor falls away, so too does what remains of my senses. I can see nothing.
And hear nothing.
And feel nothing.
There is only nothing.
– – – – –
The city, long since brought to ruin and reclaimed by millennia of vegetation, looked almost entirely untouched. Even the abandoned bodies of machine lifeforms had been lost to the years. Only the remains of the tower seemed to feel the flow of time, estranged from the surrounding landscape by its unnatural, bleached white hue. It was an unsettling sight against the perpetual serenity of the city; a last remnant of the war, now nothing more than a pile of chalk-white rubble at the bottom of a crater.
I feel nothing for eternity.
Or perhaps no time at all.
The form of a young boy lay half buried in the ruins. The android’s small frame seemed to have been cast aside and forgotten amongst a sea of white. It was a grave sight, and a reminder of the destruction that had occurred; yet there was something inexplicably peaceful about the scene. The android looked so vulnerable one could almost imagine he had simply laid down to rest, at peace with this timeless place.
A gentle, almost imperceptible breeze crosses my face. I hear the faint rustling of leaves.
A ray of sunlight breaks through the clouds and shines down on me. I try to absorb the moment, to take in the feeling of warmth on my face. As I do, the sensation fades, and I am left feeling empty again. The heat is still there, but the feeling of warmth is gone. I almost start to cry.
With great effort, the android lifted an arm and began to pull himself from the wreckage. It was a difficult task, compounded by the unstable surface on which he lay, but he managed to stagger to his feet. He had hoped that a quick glance around would reveal signs of life, someone who could answer the questions that were beginning to form in his disoriented mind, but he was alone. He stood far below ground level, gazing up at the high walls of the crater. He had watched the ground collapse before his eyes, he’d been there as the tower rose from the crater it had left, and now, after the tower itself had crumbled, he remained to witness the ruin.
I take a step forward.
That I’m moving hardly registers at all. An indescribable heaviness presses down on me with each step I take, and yet at the same time I feel weightless. It’s like I’m not even here. Perhaps I’m not. I should be dead, after all. I’m certain the fall from the tower should have killed me. And my wounds from the fight - they should have killed me too. But I don’t think I’m badly injured.
I reach the edge of the crater. There’s a route that leads out of it ahead, I remember using it before. It’s a shallow incline, but it still takes whatever strength I have to climb. Each step is agony, and yet I feel neither pain nor stress as I slowly ascend.
With laborious, almost mindless movements, the android pulled himself from the crater and emerged into the world above. Spread before him was the unending, desolate landscape of the city; once standing tall and proud as a testament to humanity, now dead and hiding behind its own dilapidation. He longed for familiarity, but under the cold sunlight emerging between the cracks in the clouded sky he found none. How could a landscape so known to him appear so changed? His gaze fell upon a shallow pool, scarcely more than a puddle, that gathered from some unknown source among the trees which had sprouted through the crumbled sides of skyscrapers. In short, uncertain steps he approached and, with the uncontrolled descent of one too weary to care, knelt by the water’s surface.
I gaze without recognition into the pool until I see myself staring back. I stop, and wonder how this face, battered and weathered by the elements, could possibly be mine. For reasons I can’t begin to comprehend, my body is intact. Yet my face is unmistakably damaged, my body worn, my visor long gone and my clothes scratched and dusty.
I begin to search the eyes of my reflection. For what, I’m not sure. Then a flood of memories come rushing back to me.
The virus.
The Bunker.
A grave.
A tower.
The events of the tower feel almost like a dream. And like a dream, it slowly returns to me; the burning hatred, the consuming desire for revenge, that desperate, despairing voice… Was that really me? I stare back into my reflection, and remember.
This time, I don’t suppress my tears.
The android stayed motionless by the water for a long time, until he no longer saw his reflection, gazed beyond it to the sky behind him, and then to nothing at all. When he finally stood, it was with quiet resolve, his movements still weary and dreamlike, but with newfound certainty, as though the water had strengthened his conviction. Then, turning from the pool, he set out into the city ruins.
As he roamed the old streets, his gaze fell upon every detail of his surroundings. At the corner of an old alley he came upon what remained of a small machine lifeform, half buried in the ground and partially covered in the beginnings of a thin layer of moss mixed in with the rust. He reached out to touch it, but his hand fell short of contact, lingering in the air for a moment before lowering back to his side.
I can’t tell how long has passed since the tower, or even since I awoke. Who can say, when day no longer gives way to night? I feel like a stranger to the world, living in the shadow it once cast.
A memory which no longer exists.
He stood beside the rusted shell of the machine. What once was his enemy, the reason for his creation, now lay abandoned along with the rest of its kin, never to be reawakened. And his own kind - destroyed, left behind on a distant battlefield, twisted by the virus until the end.
This world is stagnant. A timeless place with none left to witness it. To my surprise, I find myself at peace with this. Everything that mattered in this world has happened already. Or perhaps it never mattered at all. Our lives, at least, never had purpose. That much I learned in the tower.
Something then caught his eye, a flash of white from behind the husk. The android moved aside to investigate. There, sprouting up from the soil in the shelter of the machine, was a white flower, fragile yet enduring, and incredibly beautiful. The android crouched down beside it, admiring its delicate shape.
I reach out and, to convince myself that it’s real, just barely stroke the nearest petal with the tip of my finger.
I smile.
At length he stood, and turned towards the gentle breeze.
Sunlight slips through a narrow gap in the clouds, bathing me in a gentle light. I close my eyes and welcome the feeling of warmth on my face.
After one last moment, he took a step forward. Then, the sun still shining down on him, the android glanced back at the fragile, beautiful flower, illuminated by the sunlight. Though his body was weathered and sorrow still weighed heavily in his eyes, he gave a final, content smile.
Then he turned, and walked away into the sunlight.
This world has no witness.