Alien Beast

The man with the knife is the first to go.

With fire burning in my heart, I pounce and force my hands around his neck. My fingers pop through the skin, nails tearing into his mechanical insides, cartilage and bone made from metal. I tear him open like this world tore through me.

But it gives me no pleasure.

It won’t bring her back.

Standing over her body, I drop and clutch her again, roaring as loud as I fucking can, as if there is a God who gives a fuck about our love. But I know there isn’t. There is only him, her father, the bastard that did this to her.

Gerard.

His hand falls on my shoulder blade, squeezing gently like a father might do to his own child. Technically, he helped make me. He programmed every bit of lust and hate into my mind. He molded me like clay, and like the pathetic beast that I am, I took all he had.

I am him. This entire world is him.

“Quit crying, and get up,” he says, scowling.

His stupid round hat blocks out the sun.

This has been the tone of our entire journey together. I have to admit, it’s pretty annoying.

I can’t bear to look at him, let alone allow him to dictate my next moves. Unfortunately, he knows my source code. He’s studied it. He has planned for every reaction.

“Why’d you do it?” I ask. “Why’d you let her… die?”

I can barely say it. It still doesn’t register as true.

It’s like I said. This place is real. The consequences last forever. I was right all along. I wish I hadn’t been.

His fingers tighten around my neck, digging into two pressure points, rendering me inert. “Get up or I’ll force you to get up, dammit.”

I’m in shock. My body feels completely numb. Staring at Ava’s body is too much. Feeling her blood… it’s all too much.

I obey the son of a bitch. As soon as I start to stand, he eases off of me. His knife is stained with her blood. It lay near his boots and the cyborg I killed with my bare hands.

I’m a monster. He made I was.

“I loved her,” I whisper. “With all my heart.”

“You don’t have a heart,” he says. “What you have thumping in your chest is a piece of equipment no different from a fan in an old server box.”

I can’t catch a break. I think I’m going to be sick.

I look him in the eyes, dead inside. “Just because your heart is made of cells, doesn’t mean you’re any different from us. Something made you, Gerard. The outside world, whatever that may be, made sure you came here. We are all controlled by something,” I say.

And then I stand tall because what I’m about to say resonates within me.

“I am just like you.”

His chest bounces as he chuckles. He stoops down to pick up the knife, and he wipes the blood against his pant leg, so heartless and cruel even I can barely believe it.

Ava’s body sits in the peripheral. I can’t bear to look at her.

“You’re right about that, Kalxor. We’re just two peas in a pod, aren’t we?” he asks, teeth shining against the sun’s hot rays.

The air is stale until a gust of wind flows across my face. I can’t help but wonder if it’s her sending me a message from above. From outside, wherever outside is.

“What’s a world without redemption?” I ask.