Oyasumi, Canal
Canal felt herself floating; the reverberations of the resounding fight attacked her simple husk of a body as she made her way to her master.
To Kane.
Her body came crashing though the floor of Dark Star. She blinked, her senses halting and muffled by the damage she took. She heard a voice, Millie's, gasp from somewhere before her. Her face crumpled and trembled as she looked around, her eyes vainly trying to grasp onto to any movement.
"Kane! Kane? Where are you!?" she asked, floating in the air, her body a mere wisp of what it used to be. As her companions looked on they could see through her. Her once flawless holographic skin was marred by the severe damage that she took to get here. The pained look on her face, one of hopelessness and loss, tore Kane to the bone. "I can't see you!" she cried, her voice forlorn and terrified. She had the look of a person that had won and lost everything at the same time.
"Canal-!" Kane responded, reaching out. His finger tips, then his hand, passed through the flesh she had made for herself so many years ago.
"Kane? Where? Where, Kane!" she asked. Pulling his hand back from her, she fell down to him, her body fazing into the real world once more as she hovered before him, seeing, yet at the same time, not.
"Right here!" was Kanes saddened cry.
Tearful and helpless she smiled, her blue eyes narrowing and glistening in the light from the wreckage that used to be Volfeed, and from held back tears, "Thank goodness!" she reached out, her hands on either side of his face as he watched her, hoping that she could see him. "You are the one true light, Kane." bending her head to his, she stopped just before their foreheads met. "I won't be here for you, you don't need me... You will beat Dark Star... Volfeed, Volfeed will be here for you... always remember that."
Electricity cracked and snapped behind them, the ghastly, eerie light from the machinery lit her face up. A flush from emotions wavered across her face as her eyes narrowed more, the blue orbs darkening for a moment. "Good bye Kane...."
"No, Canal, you can't-" Millie gasped again, her hands across her face. Kane looked at her, not at Canal, trying to make sense of it all.
Canal would always be here. She was a computer! She was the Lost Ship Volfeed! She couldn't die! She couldn't! But, he saw Millie. Her eyes, normally bright blue were dark and tear-filled, the salt water ran down her face and over her hands that crossed in front of her mouth.
Kane backed up a step, his eyes searching, imploring, begging to her be lying. But he realized that she wasn't. His heart broke. Tears threatened as her words seared his heart and tore at his soul. His friend, his best friend and someone he loved like a sibling was telling him good-bye. She was dying, and there was nothing he could do.
He could reach out to her, vainly holding her from the darkness that consumed all. She reached around him, as if hugging him, "I wonder if a computer can go to heaven." she asked, her airy voice lighter and sweeter. It was cuter, childlike.
That sentence was devastating. For a human he would go somewhere, heaven or not, he was going somewhere. Canal, being a computer, would turn off. As it was she was looking at him as if she didn't know him.
Her memory chips were destroyed; he needed to tell her, before she died.
Before she left his life forever. No matter what he said or would do in the time to come, he would never see this Canal again, but he owed it to her to give her hope. He was supposed to die, not her. But she gave her life, knowing the outcome, for him, out of her love.
"Canal..." he told her, a smile upon his face while his eyes dared the opposite, "Don't worry. I promise I'll revive you... no matter what it takes."
She smiled, her eyes closing. She bent her head and pulled back. "Great..." her body fizzled and turned black, just the outline of her form was left. He watched it, trying to memorize every line, every detail. Canal smiled brightly, "I'll wait for you... forever!"
She vanished, like she had never been. The look of extreme lost had been replaced just before she faded away with hope and true love. She knew, somehow, that Kane would save her. That she would be with him once again. Her world was black... but she never saw it. Whatever memories were left in her data banks played in her head, as if emptying them.
She never saw the memory of him smiling, hands on his hips, nor the memory of the times she sat with him as a child after he was injured. She didn't hear the sweet tinkling of the music box, the small piper bouncing back and forth while it emitted a tune she had heard not only in his life time, but her other masters as well.
The darkness extended forever, there was no light.