Technology was Pandora's Box, masking itself with the deceitful allusion of a world without limitations.
Once unhatched, mankind unveiled an unstoppable force of impossible dreams.
Like a parasite, technology spread like wildfire, casting a permanent shadow over the world while underneath, something poisonous bloomed.
Now during the 24th century, nothing remains untouched by technology's harsh, ruling hand.
In what was an attempt to advance our species into a stronger, more unified race, only pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. In its place, a race of lifeless, animatronic corpses.
From flesh and bone to gears and metal; from memory and emotions to wires and hard drives. These are all that remain of a once promising race.
Now it seems as if almost all has been lost as I fear I am the last of my kind.
Small bursts of light permeate my vision as I slowly ease my eyes open.
No matter the multiple times I close my eyes, my efforts to block out reality serve useless as my fate is clearly marked from beyond these iron bars.
Soon they'll be coming for me.
Soon these cold, torpid walls are brought to life with pleasantly spacious tunes of silky reverberations stemming from an instrument I never once believed I would hear again.
The sonorous contrivance, eliciting soothing and emotional sensations, resonate to innumerable past memories.
I'm instantly taken back to my first recollections of life, to the first time that pure, lustrous tune touched my soft ears as mother played the strings. She said it was the one thing technology could not lay ruin.
As the clear, glassy tunes vary in richness of sound and note, I begin to accept my fate.
Today is my 18th birthday, the day I must undergo full operation.
Today is the day I die.
The violin sung it's last note, dying off into the dry, empty air.
One haunting thought however, never once surpassed my mind as I feel the weakness of my bones cannot withstand the burdening of my guilt.
The memory of that night tormented my mind once more, the night we snuck into Archives to find any clues hinting at our parent's whereabouts.
After they had found us, only I managed an escape.
Soft streaks steadily etch down my cheeks at the haunting remembrance of my brother's hand slipping away from my grasp.
But what hurts the most was seeing him after the operation. Never will I forget what they did.
Breaking the deathly silence, I spoke, "That was a beautiful song. My mother used to play it to me."
I watch as the shadow next to my cell moves for the first time. A raspy animatronic voice followed after moments of lamented silence.
"I had a daughter once... But she is gone now... Gone."
Reaching through the bars, my hand comes into contact with a cold, metallic shoulder. The figure rises, stepping into the light, revealing the remnants of my mother's memory, a figure almost unrecognizable to my eye.
"Mom?" Immediately I feel an eruption of emotions inside. "What have they done to you?"
There was no reply. The foreignness in which replaced my mother, left her soul trapped inside an unbreakable shell, imprisoned by her own body.
I see the same thing in her tired, metallic eyes as I do in my brother's: emptiness.
In that instant there is a clamorous unlatching of a heavy metal door.
"Mom, please wake up. It's me, your daughter!"
Suddenly, stiff metal hands grip my arms as I beg them to let me stay.
"Im not ready! Please!"
Yet my efforts are rendered useless. They cannot hear me; they possess no emotion to even care.
As I am thrown onto a chair, tightened with restrains, the anesthesia progresses as life rapidly begins to fade away. Four surrounding metallic faces are the last thing I see.
This is it, this is the end.
Yet somewhere within the infinite darkness, I could hear a distant voice, calling out for me repeatedly.
I had awoken; however, not in the same dark and forsaken world I once was.
Blinded by an immense white light, I shield my eyes as three approaching figures become clear. There right before my very eyes was the life I could have had; a life destined to fail.
Almost 30 years ago, reproduction was banned entirely. Babies were no longer born, they are genetically created in a lab.
So by the age of 17, my mother had me in secret. Which is also why she was forced to send my brother and I away by the time her full operation was due.
My brother steps forward; I had almost forgotten his real face.
"Sis, this isn't about the life you could've had, it's the life that you can still have."
"How?"
"Everything will become clear, but for now, it's time to wake up." My father's voice speaks; a voice I could hardly remember.
"Find us!" Mother cries out as they are succumbed to the light.
In an instant, all was revealed. In a flash I had already tore through the restraints. Without warning or time to react, four bodies soon came crashing to the floor.
Peering down at my hands, it appears as if nothing has changed. However, with a quick glance into the mirror I timidly touch one half of my face, already succumbed to the operation.
As I examen the mirror intensely, I realize I was not the same timid girl as I once was.
I feel energized with a growing sensation of being connected to the system, and yet didn't lose my own mind.
For the first time in centuries, hope unveils itself from behind the shadows as I am now the biggest threat the system has ever faced because I know everything, including their own demise.
A wicked smile crystallizes behind flesh and metal until a presence against the mirror catches my surprise. I turn expeditiously to the haunting face of my nightmares.
"Hello, sis." The monster speaks malevolently.