Unity

Chapter One: Ice and Grief

Cyra Johnson stared up at the woman who had snapped her out of what would've been eighty years of blanking out into nothingness. 

Only this woman wasn't really a woman.

She was a robot.

A white jumper encased her gleaming, metallic body. She had metal legs, metal arms, a metal face, and no hair. Had Cyra never seen a robot before she may have been frightened, but growing up with a computer and robotics programmer for a father had taught her otherwise.

Her breath caught, followed by the pain all over again.

Father.

The robot gave her no time to grieve. 

"Get up."

Cyra looked up into the robot's synthetic eyes. They were glaciers; the only thing remotely human about this machine.

"Where–where will I go?" she whispered, speaking for the first time in over a week. Her voice shook; it was rusted and cracked. The grass had been left unwatered for too long.

The robot simply stared at her with blank slates. Then it spoke with its flat, lifeless voice.

Lifeless.

Not unlike how Cyra was.

"You will be brought to the same atrium as your sister."

Cyra blinked. For a moment, the ice inside her softened. She thought that, perhaps, she felt something for a moment.

"My...sister?" she repeated, not daring to let herself fantasize anything out of fear that it would be her soul's last straw.

"Yes. She has expressed great sadness at your lack of presence, along with much anticipation of your return to her. She too has seemed sad upon the loss of her parents and planet. You are not alone, Cyra Johnson. All the fellow children here in Unity are going through the same grief as you. You too are not the only one who has been closed off for the past many days, but there is no need to feel anymore sorrow. Do you not understand? We are bringing you to a new home, a safe planet that has not suffered from any heating or climate change. Until then, you get to enjoy your life here in the virtual paradise, Unity. See? There is nothing to cry about. You will one day have a new planet. It is called–"

"Eden 4," Cyra finished, frowning. "Yeah. I know." She shifted her position against the wall she had been sitting against for what felt like forever. A forever she had hoped would last. A forever where she didn't have to think or do anything. A forever where she could just grieve.

"You don't get it, though," she whispered, a tear dripping down her cheek. "You won't ever." The ice ate its way up her throat, freezing her vocal cords and keeping her from being able to say anything else. But it didn't stop there; frost continued its climb up, reaching her eyes, where it paralyzed even her ability to sob. She was thankful for that. Without the capability to grieve properly, there was no chance of weakness. Perhaps she felt nothing, but an empty void was better than a dying one.

She turned to glare up at the robot, her eyes flakes of frost. 

You'll never understand, because you're just a machine. You don't have a family to be taken away from, she thought.

"It is time to go," the robot simply repeated, stretching out a metallic hand for Cyra to grab hold of.

"You can't make me go anywhere," Cyra spat, shattering the ice in her throat. She felt it clatter down, all the way into her hollow chest, where it landed with a soft crunch. Her words echoed throughout her mind.