Fallout Pt. 2

When I opened my eyes, I saw that my body was no longer mine.

My line of vision was plagued by some kind of robotic interface—I could feel metal wrapping my head and pressing almost painfully into my temples. The things I could see were shaded black, almost like I was wearing sunglasses.
I felt myself moving out of bed without thinking. I could say it was almost like mind control—but, in reality, that’s pretty much what it was. It’s happened to others before, to the people around me. To my family. The robots will break the door down, usually in the dead of night where the only thing lighting the streets is menial, smoldering flames. They’ll come into your room while you sleep and shove technology into, actually into, your face until you’re one of them. That’s how their armies grow. Seems like they forgot to wipe my conscience this time, though.

My body—or, I suppose, it’s not my body anymore, it belongs to them, even though I still am not sure who they are—walks outside to my porch and trots down the stairs. I turn my face towards the sunrise, stealing a glance down at my hands, gloved with leather and blackened steel, now reflecting the harsh red-orange light that the sun radiates. I can’t feel its blistering heat, though. Now that I think about it, I can’t really feel anything. Not the metal strapped onto me, weighing me down, not anything but the pulsing ache in my skull.
I hear blades whirring above my head and my body—which, I really need to stop saying my body—looks up towards the helicopter circling my house. It lowers itself to the ground carefully until it spits out a ladder, and I latch onto it. It starts flying away again before I’ve climbed up, but the magnets on the ladder make my gloves stick.

Once I’ve finally made it inside, I’m greeted by more people like myself. They aren’t really people, though, I’m reminded. I don’t get any pleading looks, no begging or crying or anything of the like. A lot of the robots don’t even look up. It makes me realize that, yeah, I’m the only one who has a thought process right now. Guess that makes me special or something, but I’m just alone now. In my head. Without control over my body.
 

Summit House-WCS

VT

YWP Instructor