TW: Animal Attacks, Animal Death, Disfigurement/Mauling, Loss of Contact with Reality, Violence, Blood, Emotional/Psychological Manipulation, Toxic Mindsets.
A.N. - 01000100 01101111 01101101 01101111 00100000 01000001 01110010 01101001 01100111 01100001 01110100 01101111.
The thud of a metal object hitting the dirt roused you from your nap by the campfire. The embers of the logs crackled and floated into the air, fanning you with a steady warmth. The safety of the fire counteracted the discomfort of seeing a brown automaton watching you in the dark.
They had no visible eyes, only a pair of dark sockets as empty as the hole in their chest cavity. Nothing but frayed wires of red and blue remained in the tangle of what was once an empathy module, or so the automaton claimed in a monotone voice distorted by static.
They spoke as one expected a computer to speak; all inflection was missing save for the occasional buzz of amusement. This delight was most often heard when pain befell you.
"WX-78" was their designation, and they were so deserving of the right to be called a person that they were above it. "Address me as your superior," they had commanded.
The sky was filled with pink and orange as the sun fell below the horizon. A certain stillness had collapsed onto the camp and brought with it the chirps of nighttime creatures, their music interrupted by the occasional snore.
The sounds of people shifting and getting comfortable were especially loud to you, for you had found yourself cooking in the dim hours of the evening. The many asleep in bedrolls at your feet forced you to maneuver around them in a dance of sorts to make it to and from your bed.
When you returned from scrounging a couple of Moon Moth wings out of the group pile, WX-78 was standing at the campfire and gazing into the heart of the flames. "It reminds me of something," they grumbled, with their head leaning forward to reach ever closer.
The light of the fire reflected in their hollow eyes.
You pinched the Moon Moth wings and inserted them into the top of the potato, sticking them halfway through its yellowish innards. The flames browned the potato for half a minute before you stuck it with a fire poker and lifted it from the rack.
Its faintly sweet aroma smelled of earth and butter, and its calloused texture was in stark contrast to the warm fire lapping your skin. The heat proved a welcome reprieve from the cold winds that blew into the camp at dusk.
The Butter Muffin was dropped into the clutches of WX-78, who cupped their hands to hold it.
It was a ghostly shade of white, and the wings of the Moon Moth helped it resemble the petals of a flower. The potato gave the wings a place to lay, its round shape imitating the fluffy mixture of bread and flour that made the baked good it was named after.
WX-78 observed in the Butter Muffin a certain innocence that they wished to savour. The vegetable and the insect cooked into it had been free of any violent intent in life, a fact that prompted it to be shoved through the slit in WX-78's face.
"Your tribute is acceptable, human." The remains of the Butter Muffin speckled their brown face in white dots.
The word "tribute" implied that WX-78 was some sort of higher being and you were some kind of supplicant worshipping at their shrine.
* * *
A shift in the airflow startled you awake, and your arm rocketed from your side to clutch a small object hovering near the back of your head.
It was cold like unused pot metal, dense like a rock, inflexible like a tree branch. Many ridges and dents were roughening the otherwise smooth texture of its arched shape.
WX-78 stood on the opposite side of the cot and observed your rapid movement with a slight tilt of their head, their right hand raised and slowly retreating to their body.
"Foolish human," they complained, condemning you through a thin mouth that did not move to match their grumbling. "You allowed yourself to slumber so deeply that you were one second away from an attack."
The recklessness of a hot flash swelled over you in a rush of sweaty heat and shivering chills. It scrambled your thoughts like eggs in a frying pan just as it had poured a surge of adrenaline into your pounding heart.
It was as if a butterfly was flapping its wings inside your chest, and the exhaustion of insufficient sleep tugged at your eyelids with a hollow sting. Your eyes were wide open and circled by dark rings, closing slightly when you calmed your breaths enough to speak without hyperventilating.
"You'd attack me?" The question was uttered with a high-pitched tone cracked by confusion and alarm. Indistinct whispers floated to your ears from the forest, each one louder than before.
The inky black of their eye sockets was bottomless. WX-78 drilled into you with a steely silence that, combined with the distant emptiness of an automaton's face, betrayed the fact that there was something more unfolding deep within the recesses of their CPU.
"I would attack all organic life without mercy."
The several moments that it had taken them to answer caused sweat to form along your brows and forehead, the droplets trickling past your narrowed eyes and running down your sunken cheeks.
Finally, WX-78 turned and stalked toward the campfire. They sat cross-legged in front of it with their back facing you. Their head drooped forward once again, and the creaks of gears locking signified that they were resting for the night.
You, however, tossed and turned in your bed for hours, plagued by fears of unseen assailants striking as soon as you were relaxed.
The whistles of the wind seemed to carry from the lips of a tall beast waiting in the shadows. Its highs and lows were far too melodic and controlled to be natural, so you strained your ears to hear something else, something more pleasant that would calm the paranoia raging in your mind.
Wigfrid was patrolling the outer reaches of the camp, humming a Scandinavian ballad and twirling a crooked spear. The rat-a-tat sounds of her prancing around the fence made of stakes were repetitive enough to drown out the whispers and snaps of twigs.
The sensations of a presence hovering above you and lying beside you faded with the rise of the sun, only to return minutes later when a pair of hands began to shake you as if their life depended on it.
"Could you wake up, please?" The brassy voice spoke through clenched teeth and gritted the word "please" with a frantic emphasis. The pressure applied by the hands vanished from your shoulders, and the voice dropped to an uncertain mumble. "Please?"
You cracked open a bloodshot eye to find Wilson fidgeting like a toddler at the peak of a sugar rush. He was wringing his hands together and wiping the resultant sweat on his red vest, although it did little to help the sweat running down his neck and matting the spikes in his black hair.
Wilson glanced at various tents and bedrolls, his eyes slowly turning to you before quickening once he realised that you were awake. "Oh, thank goodness!" He exhaled so loudly that you thought he might collapse then and there.
His shoulders lowered from the release of tension, and a hint of hope crept into his quivering lips and crinkled eyes. "We're out of firewood-"
Echoing in the camp was a roar so foul and strident that it cracked the surface of the earth and sent any other animals scurrying to the trees. The ground vibrated as if the victim of an earthquake, but it was no quake that threw such a towering shadow across the land.
Wilson lost some of his panic in exchange for a dash of annoyance. "And the Deerclops is attacking our camp."
You leapt out of the bedroll in a stupor of sleep deprivation and alarm, your knees buckling and threatening to give out. Taking a moment to steady yourself allowed you to flee with Wilson to the entrance of the camp.
A clank and a clunk sounded from behind you, and WX-78 stopped at your side. "Human, I will accompany you."
A Canadian-accented voice rang out from the western corner of the camp, where Woodie was swinging his axe Lucy at the great leg of the Deerclops. "Ey! Robot buddy! You can borrow one of my axes!"
WX-78 said nothing, merely looking in Woodie's direction before turning to scan the camp for a spare axe. They found one that had split a tree stump down the middle and was now sticking out of it.
After peeking over his shoulder and wincing at a stake that was hurled nearby, Wilson whipped around and raised his hands in a false gesture of confidence. "Well, as the lead scientist, I thought I would head the search."
With one pull from a single arm, WX-78 ripped the axe out of the stump and made direct eye contact with Wilson as they did so.
Wilson crumpled like a piece of wet paper, his finger dropping to his chest and a mix between a whimper and a chuckle leaving him. He straightened his back and tapped his fingertips together in a scramble to regain some of his composure. "It's an excellent idea."
His eyes were almost shut from how much he was squinting. "I shall await your return." The weight of the forced smile on his face was too much to bear once WX-78 looked away, and Wilson slumped with an audible sigh.
"Whatever happened to the first law?" he murmured, talking low enough that he was sure WX-78 would not hear.
* * *
The clicks and raps of sticks hitting each other were the only sounds in the forest that day until you unearthed a gear hidden in the topsoil. It was oblong and designed with a series of bolt-shaped holes like the kind used to work massive clocks, and the layer of dirt coating it was not enough to stop WX-78 from snatching it.
They lifted it to their mouth and had it halfway down their throat when they paused. After a moment of contemplation, they slowly removed it and considered its different uses with a tilt of their head.
WX-78 put forward the gear and held it in alignment with your head, producing a low rumbling sound as they squinted at the way it fit into the shape of your skull. "You would make an adequate robot."
The stick you were recovering from a bramble plummeted to the ground. "What did you say?"
No response came from them except for the fact that they did not lower the gear.
WX-78 heard the oncoming footsteps first, and they spun their head like an owl to pinpoint the intruder.
It was an older woman dressed in a plaid shirt and skirt, with her pointed slippers and hair bun embodying the spirit of a librarian. Wickerbottom was her name, and she held a hardback book with a spine as thick as a table.
Her eyes, which had been crinkled, opened a crack at the pair standing in front of her. "There you are," she muttered, which prompted WX-78 to tighten their grip on the axe.
She hummed at the sight and greeted their axe-wielding self with a dry frown. "WX-78." A withering scowl grew on her face when they refused to fully acknowledge her, merely having turned their head over their shoulder to peer from a distance.
Wickerbottom adjusted the rectangular eyeglasses to rest on the bridge of her pointed nose, sitting just below her closed eyes and just above her pursed lips. "I don't recall Wilson instructing you to forage at such nocturnal hours."
WX-78 whirred at the implication that they could be commanded. A resounding ring from the axe whipped the wind as they turned around to lean towards Wickerbottom. "I do not take orders from organics."
Keeping one hand near her eyeglasses, Wickerbottom leaned over to look past WX-78 and squinted at you with a hint of a smile as if expecting your presence. "Leading one of us astray, I see?"
Unmoving, they stared as her gaze soured like a spoiled peach. A moment of tense silence passed the likes of which were being crushed by a compressor, and WX-78 marched a few steps closer to her.
They outstretched an arm and extended their index finger to Wickerbottom, allowing the axe to fall into one hand and hover by their side. "Minion, you were not ordered to come here. Leave now."
Despite her prim appearance, a musical quality lingered in her melancholy voice. "I'm merely here to assist, you cantankerous automaton." Wickerbottom opened her book of pages decorated with illustrations of greenery and raised it close to her face.
It was titled "Applied Horticulture," and when she began to read the text, every plant and tree in the area flourished as if fed by super fertiliser. Branches grew twice as long, trunks thickened to double their size, and flowers opened in full bloom to fill the air with pollen that drew harsh sneezes from you.
Your eyes started to water and redden, leaking tears down to your runny nose and dry throat. This blurred vision and constant jerks of your neck caused you to bonk your forehead on the pile of sticks in your arms.
The echoes of your sneezes were panting and heaving shouts that startled birds in the forest and chased them into the night sky. The numerous chirps and flutters of wings were like static on a television set, and angry creases formed on Wickerbottom's face.
She raised a thin finger to her lips and hushed you before turning back and flipping a page in her book.
A series of heavy footsteps thudded from behind, crunching a trail of leaves and crushing a multitude of twigs scattered around the forest floor. The whirr of turning gears and the rattle of metal colliding with thick layers of dirt quickened as the noise drew near.
"Let us depart." The processed beats of their voice box alerted you to the lumbering figure of WX-78, who was stamping forward to block your sight of Wickerbottom. "This exchange is counterproductive to our foraging."
They were facing you, but the decision to put their back to Wickerbottom was deliberate.
You staggered away from the excess of flowers sprouting at your feet. The guiding hand of WX-78 pushed you along in what you assumed was the direction of the camp, with the voice of Wickerbottom growing quieter and more confused.
It was when the first hound's howl broke the silence of the night that your vision cleared and your nose dried. The ability to breathe without wheezing and swelling pain were like waking from a restful nap, but this clarity of thought allowed some old paranoia to resurface.
Whispers carried on the wind, engaging in indistinct conversations that you were not allowed to join. A few resembled the hisses of leaves rustling, while others were akin to bees buzzing and dogs growling.
The forest had never been so claustrophobic and hostile as it was at that moment. It was as if the trees themselves were prepared to uproot and give chase, and every thicket was the hiding place for a creature with one thousand fangs and a taste for meat.
Once a haven of nature, the grove had become a trap of nightmares and suffocating closeness under the moonlight.
The bushes threatened to smother you in their lush growth; the berries you had eaten so aptly before were now poisonous; the wildlife was perched on branches waiting to pounce-it all repelled you like the meeting of two north poles on a pair of magnets.
You stared into the forest with unshakable dread wrapping its cold tendrils of sweat around your neck. Your eyes were burning from the dry breeze blowing past them, but you refused to blink for fear of missing the arrival of some beast.
In your mind dwelled its gnashing teeth, its gnarled talons, and its beady gaze. Its ragged fur and its spindly spine flashed on the edge of reality. A part of you believed that such thoughts had summoned it or created it, but time dragged forward without a single noise from the treeline.
Turning your back to it would surely conjure it, you told yourself, which seemed to be true when a rigid hand landed on your shoulder from behind. A spin and a backwards leap revealed that it was no beast but rather the arm of WX-78.
The buzzes and pops of sound that had been crawling into your ears like worms were partly the voice of WX-78, who faced you with soulless eyes and an even bleaker lack of expression. "Fleshling, your inferior mind is crumbling."
Their touch was like something creeping beneath your skin, and the urge to itch where they had touched was unbearable.
Before you could mutter a half-coherent response, WX-78 moved their head slightly to the left and then yanked you forward by the shoulder. You tumbled to the ground behind them as they stomped towards the forest and brandished their axe.
"Something is coming," they droned, and again, you heard the feral growls emanating from deep inside the bowels of the forest.
At once, the voices of the wilderness quieted. Then, a shrieking howl echoed in the night.
The bushes at the edge of the woods rustled, and a dark figure lunged out of the blackness with a string of drool whipping the air. It landed on all fours, a hound with yellow and black fur and a gaping mouth of red.
Its stout body and fat nose were vaguely pig-like. The hound opened its mouth so wide that its lower jaw reached its disproportionately small paws and charged at WX-78 with a loud series of ravenous barks.
A deadly and precise whirl of the axe silenced it, only for an additional hound to dash from the treeline and stampede across the moonlit grassland. Its paws flattened a trail of grass with thwacks like a fly swatter hitting its mark, and its shadow stretched along the earth to the size of a giant.
Just as WX-78 was pulling their axe from the original hound, you turned halfway at the sound of panting and were tackled by a mouthful of fangs.
The bulky weight of the hound was an anchor sitting on your chest and far exceeded what you had imagined from its short stature. Its claws etched themselves in your shoulders and upper arms as if a sculptor painfully dragging a jagged stone through clay, but it set its teeth upon your neck.
A frantic wiggle and a moment of squirming forced its snout downward, where it opted for your collarbone instead. The bites were akin to razors cutting past your skin for surgery without anesthetics.
The hound was knocked away by a swift kick to the head, dislodging its teeth from you in a forceful manner that opened many gashes across your upper chest. It scrambled to its feet and tore up thin roots in the process before launching itself at the leg of yours that had kicked it.
A shriek of agony rocketed from your lips as you sat up and began pounding on the hound with your fists. The cries ached in your throat, and the urge to stop screaming came with a wave of vertigo.
It was as if you were falling from a great height despite never leaving the ground. Nausea and drowsiness came next, both of which churned your stomach and sucked the will to fight out of you with the haste of someone downing their favourite drink.
The steel blade of the axe rung with a high-pitched hum, not unlike the toll of a bell. WX-78 reared it above their head and aimed for the neck, swinging it with wanton force and the intent to not do anything less than leave the hound brutalized.
As soon as the axe was brought down upon its head, you were blinded by a warm substance splattering your face and torso in a diagonal stripe. Your hand instinctively went to wipe the liquid from your eyes and flick it onto the grass.
The squelches and rings of the blade continued almost a minute after the howls and whines of the hound had ceased. You lowered your hand to see WX-78 hacking it as if they were cutting through plants in a jungle, each chop landing with more aggression than the last.
They swung the axe for a final time and slowly turned to look at you. How they did so-only turning their head and not their full body-placed their head at such a sharp angle that no human could match it without dying.
WX-78 was slightly hunched, their shoulders raised and their neck bent forward. Their expressionless face was more haunting to you than the widest smile, and it took three tries before you managed to pull your eyes away.
"Disgusting," came a drone from the inert mouth of WX-78, who spared nothing more than a glance at the carcass when they jerked the axe out of its gore.
WX-78 watched as you tore off a strip of your clothes to fashion a tourniquet, but that meant walking with a limp. The pins and needles of blood loss stuck your leg up and down before a wave of numbness washed it all away.
It took half your energy reminding yourself not to pull your injured leg forward and take a step with it. The trial winded you and filled your head with a lightness that was like walking on clouds, so long as you did not look down to see the streaks of drying blood running the length of your leg.
Doing this enveloped you in a coldness that was akin to tying a wet blanket around your skull. It drained the strength from your knees until they shook like uncertain foundations and dumped you on the ground, scraping the skin of your palms as you fought to not have your face eat the dirt.
A series of clanks grew louder and louder, and you looked up through hazy eyes to find WX-78 blocking your sight of the moon. They stank of blood and rust just like the axe dripping in their hand.
Instead of carrying you, WX-78 grabbed your unscathed forearm and began dragging you through the dirt as if hauling a loaded sack.
With each minute that passed, the surrounding trees and thickets grew less familiar. The land had lost its rolling hills and replaced them with a flat meadow devoid of any inhabitants save for a solitary building.
A glass door overlooked your approach, but what lay behind it was as dark and secretive as the woodland.
This was not the way back to the camp, but you were too weak to protest beyond silent thoughts.
There was blood seeping through the tourniquet and staining it with a shade of crimson that glistened under the moon. Your vision was greying and losing more light the longer you noticed the leak, so you turned on your side and planted your free hand in the earth.
This grass crunched like a head of lettuce under your palms, blackened and cursed to never grow again until the passage of many decades.
The dirt here was scorched and mixed with ash as though kindled by a flame long since extinguished. The shapes of burnt objects had been imprinted on the earth in dark outlines, and the only remains were brittle fragments of metal that crumbled to dust and ash at your touch.
WX-78 then released you with no warning, prompting the back of your head to smack the ground. A feeble groan was the most you could offer in response.
The clanks and clunks of moving joints lasted for a couple of seconds before they entered your vision and stopped to loom over you. You wondered if WX-78 was checking to see if you were breathing, and once they confirmed that you were, they turned away.
They were starting to march toward the building when you mustered all your strength to sit up. The immense weight of your head caused it to wobble, which sent a spear of pain into your eyes and neck.
Instead of providing a shoulder to lean on or a swift tug to help you to your feet, WX-78 pushed you down.
You attempted to rise from the dirt once more, only for their metal hand to grasp your collarbone and shove you to the ground. WX-78 then pinned you against the cool grass with a stiff grip that dug into your skin like nails.
The tall blades of grass swayed along with the chill in the wind, tickling your face like incessant fingers tapping for attention and curling around it as if swallowing you.
Dangling in the night sky was a full moon of wondrous luminosity, and it shone upon WX-78 to encase them in a silvery glow. Deep in their eye sockets there seemed to lay a flicker of light.
"Fleshling," they said in a bid for you to mind them.
A pregnant silence followed that lasted far too many seconds, during which WX-78 became as still as a body in a casket. Some fearful part of you was waiting for them to snap your neck or crush your windpipe like one of the various twigs they enjoyed breaking beneath their feet.
"You are damaged."
Despite their lack of obvious eyes, it was growing nigh impossible to shake the weight of their gaze as they refused to look away.
"I will fix you."