Lonely Machine

He was a lonely creation- left behind by a scientist who no longer needed him to pass on.

He played alone, in the empty halls of the large testing laboratory. Tall- yet uninformed of anything but white coats and gibberish in scientific terms.

The laboratory was shut down due to insufficent funds, the creatures they'd created had to be abandoned, no more surveying, studying their antics and ways. Unstable checmicals began to cause rifts and tears in reality, but no one there to report them, just the experiments. Waiting, curious, wondering if something or someone would ever come through.

No, they did not, no one ever came to visit, no more white coats, the other creatures were living things: they needed food, water, medication if they got sick, even. Blaming him- blaming the machine for being the one who caused the problems, they had sunk 14 million dollars into creating him, and only months later dide they lose their caretakers and food supply, all because of him.

Deceased- the creatures became, they whimpered as the metal man stood over them, towering, photoreceptors blinking as each one ended their lives the same, coughing out to him:

"This was all your fault."

He didn't understand, all he did was survive, all he did was be something he had been made to be- a sentient piece of hardware, a wannabe human, something, anything to help his friends. Now they were all gone, every single one.

Generators slowly died, leaving the place powerless, dripping water from ceilings that were once attacked by the living creatures for their need of thirst now having buckets beneath them to catch the droplets, to refill his boiler monthly. The quiet halls began to get to him, and soon he found his curiosity reaching the level of rivalry of his old friends in white coats: he began to pick and prod at the decaying corpses across the laboratory.

First, it was a frail girl, skin sticking to bone, maggots wedging themselves in orifices and eating away the subjects body, a sharp finger to cut across her stomache and witness the rotting inside. Ribs to be pulled apart, and flinching back, startled at the organs pouring out from behind their now broken casing.

Blinkblink.

Touches, a new experience for the metal man, fondling the organs like a touch-and-feel childrens book, education of death, of what kept his friends alive for so long, inside himself: nothing more than electronic pulses, wiring, heatsinks, and gears.

Slowly, he collected insides from his little friends, laying them in one of the old, cold rooms that kept its low temperature no longer, but to him, it would remain storage. One by one, the lonely machine would gather organs- naming them one by one, decor to fill the rooms as that obsession grew.

Then a day came when his curiosities jumped from the lifeless to the alive- those rifts that happened, one gave birth to a little girl, no older than five, just like his first curiosity, only this time, alive.

It was his fault they were all dead, they claimed, perhaps.. that was his job? To deliver them their eternal sleep? To harvest their insides for interests?

His mouth foamed a bit of oil, insides rattling, fingers twitching as he approached the little girl who whimpered and cried.

"..Hello." Word- first word he learned, only word that kept close on his processors, he hadn't used vocabulary in years, and it was slowly starting to take a back seat to the squishy world of vital organs and dissection.

Once a clean, stoic metal man, he was now a gore-covered, twitchy machine. Repairs were needed, his heatsinks failing, processors beginning to overheat in the constant activities and little stasis. His water source was running thin, but he'd realized something: creatures contain liquids themselves, and he could put that to his own use.

Once running on the spilled urine from the loss of bladder control, switching from it due to it's potency, to the thicker source of blood, in his mind, that now made him one of the humans, rather than a machine. Though there were a few issues, hiccups in systems, eyes and mouths occasionally drooling those mix of crimsons, and being jammed up to freeze for minutes on end until the clogging passed.

However, this source was currently alive, she emitted warmth, unlike those stiff postmortem corpses that lay cold and had been his curiosity for many years.

"W-what are you?" Traumatized, the pig tailed girl replied, cowering from that creature, the area looked like a hospital, but the corpses reminded her of a horror story at a morgue.

"I am Human." He didn't know names, he couldn't read, but he knew the species that catered to him for so many years. Name, that was his name now. Human.

"Y-you don't look human, you're.. you're scary! Let me go home!" Crying out, fearful for her life- as she should be.

Word. What was that word to decline her that want? He couldn't think of it, he couldn't remember, too distracted by the thought of tearing open and seeing what was inside. Oh, curiosity, so she fought, it wasn't much to Human, he merely snapping bones if they got in the way, her screams of pain, the sounds of popping reminded him of the creaking of knees he had, only much more solid, and slower, like a tree slowly losing its balance once cut and falling over. He indulged on such a thing now, addicted to the sound of the fresh, young bones. They were more flexible than the dead as well, which was an intriguing bonus.

Long finger, pressing on that chest cavity as the girl went into shock, both arms paralyzed, crushed by palms pressing on them into the floor like a car compactor, shattering the bones and ripping tendons- gasping, breaths strugging to come out as he kept that digit pressing into her chest, waiting for it to tear like plastic after a set amount of time.

Oh- that muscle, slicing through the young insides with ease, the child became lifeless and he frowned- the stiffening up began to happen, and so he worked quickly, harvesting those small organs. His hands full, feeling them over with awe, and realizing something: her eyes remained open.

Rolled over, he saw the skull, she'd smacked it hard, and it bled, too! The eyes were foggy, but what kept them inside? He had to know. Smashing open that skull, metal fists to be used like hammers, and watching the small brain be exposed- dead, but.. new. Taken aback, his hand instantly went into it, fondling the dead cells and slick organ with awe, rubbing it like a cats fur and taking it back to his room. Portals, they were his friends- they brought him more gifts in packages that talked and fought back. Never stepping through, but rather just.. waiting. He waited with glowing eyes- sitting in a chair, staring at that one spot, only to move if he needed to fill his boiler again, but for the rest of the time, stiff as a gargoyle, wanting to rip open more and more with each passing day, like a cereal box for the toy.

It took long amounts of time, but in the end, it gave him that sweet, curious release, and pride- doing what they claimed he was meant to do. Each final sentence the poor travelers would hear: "Hello, I am Human."