00C Post: Dream Mk-II
He's chasing someone, trying to follow their back through the crowded street. The mass of people form into a thick barrier of faceless people, each the same as the next, and he struggles to keep the one he's seeking in his sights. Their hair changes, the color spectrum shifting as it lengthens and cuts, short and layer and long and straight and wavy and untamable and sleek, the subtle width of their shoulders fluctuating with their height, their gait uneven and each one distinct. It's one person and many inhabiting the same morphing body and all he knows is that he needs to get to them, be with them again, not let them slip from his fingers (again?).
It's getting harder to see them through the crowd, and just when he thinks it's too thick to take another step, the sea of people part and step away from him, finally giving him air to breath. Except now one of them is looking at him.
No, you're not the ones I want. Leave me alone, I have to-!
But then more begin to stop, circling him, pointing and whispering to each other and he can't see that person over their noisy chatter. The increasing attention is bothering him, making him nervous and uncomfortable.
Why are they staring?
"What do you think it is?"
'It'?
And he wants to snap at them, force them out of the way because can't they tell he's busy? And he lifts his hand to do just that, except his skin has started to dry and peel like brittle autumn leaves, flaking onto the ground to reveal veins and wires twisted around a metal skeleton reminiscent of a human's, but perfected. Tendons and tension rods merge into one, sleek and intentionally constructed to work in tandem. He wants to hide it in his clothes, but they're rotting away, colors fading and holes opening wide until scraps fall around his metallic ankles. He wants to cry, but his tear ducts are already gone, eyelids missing over his round, exposed optic lenses. He feels his face stretch in horror but without familiar landmarks like lips and eyebrows and correctly distributed mounds of fat it's just a bare skull with artificial muscles layered with the care of a lover. He must be nothing short of unrecognizable.
"It's probably just some sort of promotional gimmick." "I wonder what it runs on?" "I dunno, think they'll let us take it apart?" "Stop staring, it might see you." "What if it's dangerous?" "They wouldn't something dangerous wander around like that." "Still, we should turn it off, just in case." "This is what our tax money is being wasted on?" "That's not enough to end war." "I don't want to end war-"
He can't stand it anymore and shuts off his visual and audio feedback, curling to the floor in self induced darkness, blocking out the people (there are currently 49 heat sources confirmed to be human). He can feel his heartbeat, but he knows it's not real (the pump was constructed using the basic layout of a heart, used to circulate nanomachines through the enriched 'blood' in the system. Ingenious, really, as any test will come out saying the donor is blood type A. No one will know); he breaths heavily, but he knows he doesn't need the oxygen to survive (a way to both sample the air and create the illusion of being the same as everyone else. People would become suspicious of a being that does not eat, breath, and perform other basic living skills deemed 'mundane'). He can't even feel what temperature it is anymore (according to his internal sensors it is 31.6°C; within acceptable living parameters).
From this day on, what will I do?
His own voice echoes in his head, the air vibrating with something that wasn't present before (Particle concentration at 15%. One heat signature present, identified as Tieria Erde). Shocked, he reactivates his senses to be faced with an empty desert, a perfect likeness of his humanoid persona staring down at him with such a vulnerable expression he never thought he'd be capable of making. A green glow the extends over the endless dunes, disappearing into the distance (Current dimensions unknown, recalculating.. recalculating..). Their eyes glow technicolor.
I've lost too many things already.
'Lost'..?
Because of that, the light.. is vanishing.