I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die.
A child's voice echoed through the fog.
I don't want to go back to the timeless space. I don't want to die.
She had been wandering for what felt like an eternity, simply following that voice, and she felt exhausted beyond measure. Her body was aching, the gashes that covered her back had stained the white dress with fresh blood. Her feet hurt most of all. She had reached a part of the beach where the sand seemed to be clear of the sharp, broken fragments now, but she kept the boots on - better safe than sorry.
I don't want to be conscious without thought. I don't want to exist without experiencing. I don't want to-
"Stop it, Lars," she interrupted him. "I know you can hear me. I need you to focus. Calm down. Everything will be alright... Come on now, don't leave me all alone out here!"
Alone... I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be alone in the timeless space.
"You aren't alone. You aren't in the timeless space. Just look around, for fuck's sake."
She stopped for a moment, rubbed her hands over her face and sighed.
"Please... I'm tired... I just wanna get out of here..." she muttered.
When she looked up again, she spotted his silhouette right before her in the dense fog, as if he had heard her plea. She approached him slowly, fearing another outburst. The boy sat in the sand, with his back to her and his arms wrapped around his legs, shivering and sobbing. His oversized looking black clothes were half-soaked and covered in streaks of wet sand. Soft waves were rolling out and receding back into the fog, reaching almost to his naked feet.
"If I come any closer, will you run away again?" she asked carefully.
The boy raised his head and turned to look over his shoulder, traces of black tears covering his cheeks. He stared up at her and seemed to seriously consider it for a moment, but then he shook his head and proceeded to stare out into the fog again.
"Come on, Lars. Let's leave this place," she suggested.
He didn't react, and seemed to ignore her completely now. And she realized that they wouldn't be able to leave this place anyway until they had talked it over - whatever it was that kept him here. She sighed and went around until she stood in the water right before him, blocking his view. The waves cast swirls of sand around her boots. She crossed her arms and looked down at him.
"Why did you run away before?" she asked.
He didn't look up at her and just shrugged. With another annoyed sigh, she crouched down before him and looked at him expectantly.
"Why?" she asked again.
"Because it hurt when you touched me," the boy whispered, barely audibly, and lifted his head to look at her. "Why does it hurt, Null?"
His words answer took her by surprise, and her eyes went wide with shock. It hadn't even occurred to her that he might actually feel physical sensations just as much as she felt them in this place. Right now, she could feel the cold water begin to soak her dress as the waves softly splashed around her, and the stinging pain of the salt water on the bleeding cuts on her feet and legs. She wondered what else he might be feeling at that moment, other than the misery that clearly reflected on his face. Perhaps her pain was bleeding over and affecting him once again.
"I... I'm sorry... I suppose that's my fault," she answered his question.
"Why?" the boy asked again, staring at her with his black eyes. "Why does it hurt?"
She furrowed her brow, recalling her conversation with the Captain – or the memory of the Captain. She couldn't help but feel guilty for dragging him into all kinds of messes that had gotten them hurt, physically and emotionally, and for not being able to provide a less broken mind for him to make his home within. Then again, perhaps he was really just learning – adapting to this vessel, to her body. Perhaps it wasn't her fault.
"Because-" she faltered, then shrugged. "...I don't know."
She would have loved to believe in what the Captain had told – that he was just learning, adapting to this vessel which was her body – but she couldn't help but feel intense guilt for dragging him into all kinds of messes that had gotten both of them hurt, physically and emotionally. She wished she could have provided him with a less broken mind to make his home within.
"But you're organic. You're supposed to know these things, aren't you?" he said and scowled at her.
"Sorry..." she muttered.
He suddenly jumped up, planting his bare feet firmly in the wet sand. He wiped the tears from his face with his overly long sleeve and made himself tall enough to stare down at her despite his stature.
"All these feelings... the sensations, the emotions - it hurts," he exclaimed and waved his arms around. "I don't want it. I don't want any of it. I hate these feelings..."
"Now, now," she smiled softly at the odd sight before her. "Isn't that a contradiction in itself, Mister Rational?"
"No. You don't understand. When that EMP hit, it hurt! It hurt when I died!"
Nobody understood that better than she did.
"Tough luck," she said flatly.
"I DIED, Null!" he yelled at her.
"Good grief, yes you died, so did I, so did we both, several times by now. Time to get over it," she snapped at him.
Lars huffed, his eyes looking wet with black tears again. She regretted the harshness of her words, but she really didn't know how else to deal with him right now. She sighed and rubbed a palm against her forehead. This conversation was exhausting, strange and absurd, and she really wished he'd go back to the way he was before.
"Why did you do this to me, Null? Why did you give me a body?" he suddenly asked, his voice wavering.
"I- I did what?" She blinked at him, baffled.
"Why did you give me a body in this place? Why this appearance? Why not something else? Why do I not look like you? Why do I look like anyone at all? Why did you make me look human?" he blurted out his questions.
"I don't understand," she said hesitantly, "I didn't do anything."
"Yes you did. You gave me this body when we first came to this place, and ever since then, I-"
Don't overestimate your part in all of this, the Captain's voice seemed to echo through her mind.
"Lars, I swear to you," she cut him off, "I didn't do anything. I didn't choose to... make you look this way."
She looked at the boy before her and was reminded of the girl she had met in her part of the nightmare, the one who had looked just like her.
"At least not consciously..." she added.
"But you control this place," he insisted.
On his face she could see a flurry of emotions. He was in pain, he was angry, he was weary. Most of all, he looked very confused. And she felt about equally as confused as he looked.
If this was only you giving shape to this place, would you really choose to see me right now?
"Well, if I really did, I'd make you wear shoes right now," she said with a weak grin, "Just to spite you."
He huffed, clearly not amused by her joke, and continued to stare her down.
"Come on now, Lars," she said with a weary sigh, "If I had any say in all of this, do you really think I'd chose to give you an appearance that requires me to fucking kneel before you in the wet sand so we can have a conversation on eye level?"
The boy looked at her wide eyed for a moment.
"You know," he said sheepishly, "You're not supposed to cuss in front of children."
She blinked at him in surprise, and then she couldn't keep herself from laughing out loud.
"You're not a child, Lars!"
"Then what am I?" he asked, and the irate look on his face made her turn serious again.
"You are... you," she replied the way she always did when he asked her that. "You are-"
"Not who," he cut her off, "What."
He stared her down with an intense, angry glare form his black eyes, but what she saw within them was nothing but pain and desperation. She didn't know how to answer to that question, and it broke her heart to see him like that. So she did the only thing she could think of. She reached out and pulled him into a hug.
After all, she didn't really understand any of it herself. Surely, technically he was an AI in a piece of hardware in her head. But right now, kneeling in the water on an impossible beach and holding this impossible child in her arms, who for some impossible reason had a heart that she could clearly feel beating frantically against hers, she knew that that would have been the worst possible description of anything that was going on right now.
She could feel his breath catch, and he tensed up at her touch. She knew that he was in pain, just as much as she was. But this time, she wouldn't let go.
"I... I guess I don't know the answer to that either...." she whispered. "All I know is that I'm nothing without you. So, please..."
She didn't know how to put into words what she pleaded for, what it was that she wanted from him, but she just hoped that he would understand. For a moment, her words seemed to hang in the air between them, heavy with all the desperation that she had poured into them. Then, he shifted in her arms. Suddenly, he was taller than her again, and he wrapped his arms around her in turn, pulling her onto his lap and against his chest, which now properly filled out his shirt. She sighed with content as she sank into this familiar embrace almost reflexively.
"How is that even possible, when you're everything to me?" he muttered in a low voice.
Her heart felt like it was just about to burst from relief and bliss, and she couldn't quite say if it was because of his words, or simply because he spoke in his usual voice again.
"Maybe it's impossible," she answered. "Just like everything else with you and me, and this place."
A shiver seemed to run through his body at her words, and he hugged her closer. She could still feel that he was tense, but it seemed like the worst had passed. The nightmare was over. Around them, the fog had disappeared and the sky was clear and filled with stars again now.
She didn't mind at all that the water had soaked her dress, and that the cuts on her legs were burning from the salt and sand. All she really felt was the warmth of his embrace and the rhythmic beating of a heart in his chest. It was strange, and it was impossible, and it was the most beautiful thing in the universe.
"Wha- what happened to you?" he suddenly exclaimed.
She didn't need to lift her head and look to know what he was referring to. On her shoulder, she could feel his fingertips brush against her skin, close to one of the cuts on her back.
"It's okay. It doesn't hurt," she just said.
"But how did it happen?"
"Doesn't matter now."
"Did... did I do this to you? When I-"
"It doesn't matter," she repeated, "You were scared. You didn't mean to hurt me. And it's okay now. Everything is okay again."
"I... I'm so sorry..." he said dejectedly.
"Just forget about it," she mumbled and buried her face in his shirt. But his words made her realize something.
"Huh. Seems like he was right after all," she said.
"Who?"
"Your Captain. I met him," she explained, "And he said that it's not just me who gives shape to this place."
Perhaps the impossible things happening here really weren't all her fault, and it was simply a result of him adapting, learning how to exist inside a human body through these dreams – or whatever all of this was. She looked up at him for a moment as she considered this. He wore a pensive look on his impossibly beautiful face as he stared out at the sea. When he turned his head to look back at her, and their gazes met for a moment, she suddenly felt a blush creep up on her cheeks. She quickly averted her eyes again, suppressing some very impossible thoughts.
Well, perhaps at least not all of it was her fault, she thought.
"Really, you met him? That's... Well, I saw him too. I remembered that moment when I... when I died. The first time," he said, and then paused for a moment.
"You know... I thought I was afraid of the end of my own existence. But that fear I felt in the split second before that EMP hit my robot body and I died - it does not compare to what I felt this time, it's not even close. I keep thinking... if what happened to me back then is really all that comes afterward - being locked into that timeless space, being unable to feel... it fills me with more dread than I can express. I hate these feelings, this fear... and at the same time, I don't want to lose any of... this," he said and hugged her closer. "It makes no sense."
"I think it makes all the sense in the world," she mumbled, barely audibly, and nestled up closer against him.
"That thought of dying terrifies me even more now that I know what I'd be missing. And part of me wishes I had never learned how to feel at all."
She felt a pang of intense guilt at his words and tensed up.
"So... you regret..."
"No... not really." He absentmindedly ran his fingers through her hair as he spoke, causing her to shiver pleasantly. "Perhaps, rationally I should. But I really don't. And even if I did... remember, at Riga's place, when you thought about killing him, and you said you don't want to do something you might regret again?"
"And you said... that I wouldn't be able to do anything at all, ever again," she recalled, "And that doing things you might regret is part of what life is about."
"Yes. Because you can learn from it," he said.
She remembered the Captain's words once more, and couldn't help but smile. Lars was an AI after all.
"In hindsight, it was hypocritical of me to talk about life like that," he continued his musings, "Without even knowing what I was talking about. I still really don't. But I feel like I'm finally beginning to understand some things at least a little bit better. And yet I wonder... at this point, what exactly am I? I'm just some ones and zeroes. Why am I so scared to die when I'm not even certain if I am alive?"
"You're so much more than just ones and zeroes, you idiot," she said, and poked a finger against his chest playfully. "Would you say that I'm just a mass of neurons and neurotransmitters?"
"...no," he admitted.
"So? What's the difference between us? We're both more than the sum of the parts that make us up, don't you think?" she said and looked up at him with a confident smirk.
"Hm. You're right, as usual... but it does not mean that someone like me can truly be considered alive."
"Honestly, does it matter?" she asked. "I mean, you feel alive, don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't be afraid of dying."
He fell silent and pondered her words for a while.
"You know, you're really strange, Null," he said, looking down at her with a furrow on his brow. "Here I am, an AI scared of dying. Scared beyond measure. And yet you... Why aren't you?"
She shrugged.
"I'm just not really afraid any more. Guess I've been through that too often now to still give a shit."
It was not entirely true. She didn't want to die, but she remembered what it had been like to be in so much misery that she had wished for death - before he had called out to her, and when she had thought she had lost him after Hestia. That feeling of being incomplete that had led to that, it had been much worse than the actual fear of dying.
"Aren't you afraid of anything?" he asked, and fixed his obsidian eyes on her again.
"I am... I am afraid of losing you," she answered in a flat voice.
He just stared at her with a blank expression for a moment, then he exhaled deeply and leaned forward. Her heart skipped a beat before he rested his forehead against hers for a moment.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere," he reassured her with a smile on his lips.
At his words, an intense feeling of absolute bliss took hold of her, and she just closed her eyes and reveled in it. She almost dreaded the moment when they would wake up from this dream. Their moments of happiness in this place usually didn't last very long, so she expected it to happen soon.
But it didn't.
"Hm... do you think we're dead?" he asked after a while, as if he had just realized the same.
"I don't know. I think the fact that we're both here means that either we're not dead... or, wherever we've ended up, at least we're both here. So, honestly - I couldn't care less," she muttered, as she huddled back into his embrace again.
"Hm. Maybe you're right. Perhaps it really doesn't matter," he mumbled and hugged her closer.
She would indeed have been perfectly content to spend the rest of eternity in this place. She had woken up in a desolate hell, but found her way to a paradise. If this was what it was like to be dead, she'd happily take it over being alive any day of her existence.
They sat in silence for a while, until he suddenly gripped the fabric of her dress at her back and winced.
"Null..." he said, his voice sounding strained, "I take it back. I am fairly certain now that we're not dead yet."
"What makes you think that?" she asked.
"Because I can feel the body again now," he groaned, "And we're in pain."
~ ~ ~
A surge of adrenaline rushed through their body, followed by a brief, but intense, agonizing pain, like liquid fire spreading through their veins. It passed as quickly as it had come, leaving them wide awake. Their eyes snapped open and they winced at the bright ceiling lights that greeted them.
Reflexively, they tried to cover their face with their hands, but they couldn't move. Their arms were restrained, as were their legs. They could feel the body again, as their lungs filled with rapid, panicked breaths and their heart was beating frantically. Underneath their back, there was cold metal, and on their spread out arms and legs, there was a weak, tingling sensation from a shifting magnetic field that messed with their augments.
"Ah, good morning, sleeping beauty," a male voice greeted them.
A tall, tall, grey-haired man stepped into the field of view of their working, organic eye. He wore a smile on his lips, and there was a spark of excitement in his eyes as he looked down on them.
"You probably don't remember, but we've met before, six years ago. I am Doctor Blake," he said.
"It is good to see you again after all this time, Eve."