Submission (#448) Approved

Initiate start up procedures. Wake up with fists clenched so tightly that his joints are sore — that’ll need servicing later. Another thing that he has to do himself now, no hierarchy of same faced scientists to fall back on. A product. A soldier. A tool.

Beast comes to on his own, his face flickering into place. Impassive. He used not to have a face at all, but having these eyes makes him feel more real. More human, if that’s something he could ever be. He’s still not sure if he wants to be that, but he knows he doesn’t want to be what he was before, and so his faceless minion days are over. That doesn’t mean he knows where he’s going now, or what he’s doing.

September. The ninth month. A little flickering clock in the corner of his vision counts the time since he shut down, synchronising with the global clocks to let him know it’s been three weeks. Three weeks since he entered an unstable state and triggered his automatic shutdown procedure. He needs to find a way to disable that.

His vision is fuzzy at the edges, like what he’s seeing in front of him isn’t quite real. It gives an ethereal, unearthly quality to the world. He loosens his hands, reaching out and tentatively touching trees that stretch out above him. The leaves spinning down around him are a burnt orange colour. When he picks one up and holds it, his claws easily poke holes. Dry, brittle, fragile. Not as fragile as in the winter, the constantly online part of his techbrain supplies.

Autumn. This is called autumn. He’s never had the time to simply appreciate it before. Images flash through his head: bonfires with roasting marshmallows, people smiling through the layers of their coats; fireworks in a starry night sky, loud and crackling and resplendent; hot drinks warming cold fingers, steaming gently in the brisk air. All the things he knows intellectually exist, but that he’s never personally experienced.

Until now. His olfactory sensors feed him simple cues. Wood. Mulch. Grass. Is this the smell of autumn? Is this what he has missed, all those years? It feels mundane. He flexes his fingers experimentally, testing out the smoothness of his joints. Ah. He’s tired. It feels like so much has changed just these past weeks, the trees beginning to burn out as readily as he is. Perhaps by the time winter comes, he’ll sleep like the forest.

He curls his finger around a leaf gently. Change. The world is dying so it can be reborn again in the spring, new sprouts and seedlings to replace the rot and sickness. Beast holds the leaf, and he holds it, and he holds it. When the sun begins to set, he lets it go.