Abandoned

Chapter 1 – Finding shelter

"No, please no, " she screamed ", don't..."

beep, beep, Beep, BEEP!

A charging sign light up in her periphery view, telling her she was up at 80% of energy level, but there were also many warning signs, telling her her left arm was damaged and some part of her skin didn't respond to the sunlight shinning down on her exposed torso to recharge her.

Looking to her left underarm, she could see the long cleft, running nearly all the way from her left wrist to the pit of her elbow, with some cables cut down so deeply, that even the copper, supposed to distribute energy to her hand, was exposed to free air. Moving her left hand, some of the cables giving of small blue arcs of lightning when they touched each other, which in turn makes even more warning signs pop up in her eyes perimeter and her energy level drop down by some percent. If that wasn't enough, it sends jolts of pain through her lower arm, at least what was the equivalent feeling of pain would be for a persocom.

'I have to do something about it,' she thought 'but I can not go back to were humans live, I can not, they would simply taking me and...' her thoughts trailed of.

She tried to remember how she got here, but as much as she attempts to do so, her mind came up blank. There were also some other things that confuses her.

Invoking her memory diagnostics, it read that some of her hard disc was cluttered with unreadable data, at least it just came up as garbage when she tried to access it.

Her wireless transmitter also acted kind of strange, when she tried to connect to the internet it simply wouldn't let her, although her diagnostics showed it as fully functional. It's as if she would not let her presence be known to the world, as if she's been hiding from the world.

"Hiding from what?" she thought out loud.

To make matters worse, the sunshine gave way to some very dark clouds coming from the north "If my GPS is still working correctly" she mumbled to herself "as beaten up as I am by... by..." yeah, what had happened to her to leave her here in the wild, her clothes only rags with her blouse completely missing, leaving her upper body exposed to any gaze. Not that there was anybody around for miles, being in the middle of a huge forest, lying on the ground of a clearing that she stumbled on last night, seeing that her energy level has dropped down to only 10%, hoping the next day would be sunny enough to recharge her.

Rising to her feet, she took a look around, last night being so dark, even her enhanced persocom visions couldn't make out more than what was some feet away from her. Not seeing anyone or hearing anything beside the usual sounds in a forest, that was the rustle of leaves or the chirp of a bird, the thought she was just in the middle of nowhere, than she shook her head, sanding some dark brown curled hair to fly around her head 'I am not 'nowhere', I am not lost, as long as my GPS is working I can not get lost' But if that's so, why does she feels like she's lost.

There it was again, this word 'feel', that hounded her the last days, as this time gap was all she could remember. Looking it up in the dictionary that is installed in her wasn't of any help. Of course the knew what 'To feel something' meant, being able to feel the heat of the sunshine or even more the heat of a candle flame or an oven, that was simply necessary for a persocom to not get damaged, she could also feel the cold of the rain on her skin. Down to the extend of feeling 'pain' when her skin was breaking, like it had on her left arm.

But this feeling of being 'lost' wasn't caused by any external input to her electric nerve system, It seems to come out of nowhere. 'No, it's more like it comes from my … heart?!' shot a puzzling thought through her mind, making her brown eyes glazing over with some white streaks, her CPU running at top speed, trying to sort out her thoughts, she stands there for some seconds, finally shaking her head again to bring herself out of the musing.

'The nearest to a human heart that I have in my body are those pumps greasing my joints or pumping fluids to my eyes to wash them clean, but there is simply no heart, where it would be in a humans body'

With that running through her mind, she looked down at herself, seeing her exposed breasts.

'I am a persocom, I should not bother me with thoughts about being exposed like this, aside from my programming telling me, it is inappropriate to not wear cloths around humans.'

But why was she 'feeling' so vulnerable. It even make her cringe, thinking that someone could see her like that.

There it was again, this word that seems to send her into a data processing frenzy, but before it could use up all her processing power, she took a huge amount of willpower to shove it to the back of her thinking.

'There are more urgent things to worry about. This clouds look like they about to drop down solid. And if that much water sips through the crack in my arm and into my system...'

As if her thoughts had provoked it, first splashes of thick drops were hammering down on her. She pressed her injured arm to her side, trying to cover it as best as she could with her other arm, to prevent the water to run into the slashed

underarm.

She started to run south, away from the clouds chasing her, and she could already feel small stings of pain from the water running down her left arm and into the wound, leading to short circuits and draining her energy cell, the power gauge was already dropped down to 60%.

'If I don't find shelter fast, I run out of energy within minutes, than I would drop hear and now. And with that rainstorm it would surely flood my whole system, not even the brightest sunshine will ever recharge me, all that internal damage aside, it would be like dying.'

'But how can she die, if she wasn't alive in the first place?!'

"No time to dwell about it, I'm not willing to give up that easily" she snarls.

With that, she looked up her GPS map, seeing a road running by the forest in the direction she was heading. Going near any humans housing still make her wince, but maybe she could find some shelter in an old unused barn...

Coming out of the forest and stumbling more than running, she find herself on a road that seems to run in both directions toward the horizon with no end. Looking around frantically, she made out something to her right that looks like it was a sort of an abandoned farm, at least there were no lights visible, and the dark clouds drowning the sunlight, it looks just as a big black silhouette the form of a stable sitting aside of a small mansion. It was not more than half a mile away, but her power now only reading 5%, she wasn't even sure she could make it that fare, in spite of that, she starts running as fast as she could, the rain still pouring down on her.

Crossing the street and racing down the branch from the main road, she still couldn't see any signs of life in the villa, what made her feel somehow relieved, she thought it would be better to head for the stables, even if this farm would be deserted, she felt uneasy breaking into the house.

Turning towards the barn, she rushed up to the side entrance, only to find it locked by a shackle, seeing her power going down to 2%, she looked around in a haze, barely making out a dung fork sitting next to he door. Grabbing the fork using it as a crowbar, she breaks off the chain on the door, ripped the door open and stumbles inside.

'This all might not be worth anything, being in this dark room, I will not be able to recharge from the sun, maybe if I keep the door open, there will be a small chance it sips enough in to keep me functional.' was her last thought.

Using the fork to keep the door from being shut by the wind, this was her last conscious moment, before the sank against the wall and slides down to the ground, a swirling sound coming from within her body and her eyes began to change their color from dark brown to pitch black and her lids start to close.

When she entered the room, her system was already in the state of an emergency shutdown, so she doesn't noted the uprising that her noisy entrance hat provoked. There were some heavy stomping and snorting coming from the other side of the huge gloomy room, meaning she wasn't alone in there...