Warning! Contains trigger warning for self-harm! The character involved is NOT in a healthy mental mindset.

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on my pain

The only thing that's real

-Hurt, written by Trent Reznor, sung by Johnny Cash

It was strangely beautiful; the color reminding her of things she had not seen in so long, that it took long moments to remember the word 'ruby'. It was impossible to stop noticing how the liquid gleam of it only reflected the light, instead of producing the red glow of circuits and energy. She tilted her hand, trying to find a better angle to watch it from; only to have the rounded drop run down the length of her hand and fall from the bend of her wrist.

That was not what she had wanted, she thought, seeing the splattered dots on the floor. It was alright, though, she could free more to watch.

There was the feel of stinging cold, so sharp it almost burned; and then the heat of pain set in as the slice of her disc bit through her, carving another thin line across her hand. She stared, entranced, as another few drops of the shining red liquid welled up. She was so caught up in the sight of the red trailing over her hand and beading up on her fingers that she failed to notice the door to the quarters that she shared with her only friend and partner opening. Unheard footsteps drew closer, halting near where she sat with her back leaning against the wall.

"Feral," said a soft, cautiously neutral voice. "What are you doing?"

The Grid's most fearsome—if not always feared, CLU held that distinction—program knelt down in front of her, reaching out to gently wrap a large hand around her wrist. The touch of his hand seemed to startle her out of the trance-like state that she had been in. "You have injured yourself," he told her, his voice the one that he used to calm wild bits. Rinzler tilted his helmet to regard her. "Why have you done so?"

If anyone had asked her during her old life, she would have remained silent, would have felt that the question was only leading toward an accusation of failure somehow on her part. Rinzler, however, was not doing so. Her partner-the person who both loved and was loved by her-would not have asked a question unless he wanted to understand. There was no sense of guilt-inducing accusation what he asked. He did not know if what she was doing was wrong or abnormal; he simply wanted her to tell him why she would purposefully injure herself.

"I had to see it," she answered in a small voice. "I…I needed to see it."

The dark and featureless helmet turned toward her face, and again that neutral voice asked her, "Why?"

Feral's gaze fell once more to where blood was slowly welling up in fat drops to run down her hand. "I've been here for almost fourteen cycles, Rinzler. I think in Grid terms, now. I have trouble remembering things, words, people—my friends and family—from before." The word 'before' seemed to carry its own weight when she spoke, showing him that she was referring to her earlier life off of the Grid. She continued speaking, "It feels like memory files that are being partitioned off. The only things that I had to remind myself that I'm not a program were those memories and —this." She held up the hand again, the thin, wet trails of red winding their way down her hand—and now, over Rinzler's fingers—shining faintly in the light of code lines and circuits in the dim room. Another few drops splattered on the floor when she moved her hand. "I'm losing parts of myself, and the only thing I can think of to remind me is the fact that programs don't have blood." Her voice grew small, yet thick with suppressed emotion. "I'm forgetting that I'm human…."

"This is disturbing to you?" he asked.

A small, disbelieving laugh burst from her lips. "Disturbing? No. It fragging terrifies me."

"Is it so bad, to think of yourself as a program?"

"No, what's so bad is to find that I'm losing myself."

Rinzler released his grip on her hand. "You have not lost yourself," he told her. "I understand, Feral. I lost the only world that I had lived in, my friends, my User…. I understand what it means to feel as though you are losing who and what you are. You have always been more than just a User—human—as you call it. You are more than just the sum of your coding."

You are the only one like you…even Flynn was not like you. You are the only person, program or User, that has spent this much time held by CLU's will and not given up or stopped fighting. You are the only person that I trust, and the one that I love…. If this is still accurate and applicable, then I do not understand how you have lost yourself." His next words were ones that she had been dreading hearing him speak.

"Have you injured yourself, other than this incident?"

"No," she said, wishing that she could close her eyes and disappear. "I haven't. I did it now, because…"

"Because I was supposed to be out longer on patrol; and you did not want to have to explain this to me," he finished. She nodded her head in agreement, not trusting herself to speak.

Her partner sighed.

"I will not stop you, if you chose to injure yourself again," he told her. "You know how I feel about what CLU has done to my ability to choose. However, if you do so; you may become injured past your ability to self-repair. And if you do, I will lose you." His growl was clearly audible now; the sound stirring up an old, almost forgotten memory of the drives on her first laptop—a used one that she had purchased from a pawn shop during her first semester of college—grinding to their demise. Rinzler leaned forward, wrapping his long arms around her to hold her close; somehow managing to fold himself small enough to tuck his helmeted head into the space between her collarbone and breast. In a broken voice, he pleaded to her, "Please, don't leave me. I don't want to lose you…not ever, and not like that."

Slowly, Feral's hands came up to hold him; the blood from her hand smearing across his circuits as she rubbed his back soothingly.

Unidentified emotions moved across her face as she looked over his shoulder and out the room's window to the Grid stretching out beyond.

"It's okay," she said, softly. "I won't do it again."

A/N-No, I am not cutting on myself. No, I have never cut on myself. The depiction of self-harm in this story is fictional; and meant to illustrate that I do not feel that anyone could be ripped away from everything that they knew, spend this much time in the Grid having no prior knowledge of such things possibly existing, literally have one person that they could love/trust in their new life...and NOT fall at least once into a screamingly bad unhealthy mindset; even if they do make it out of the other side mentally. Heck, I'm convinced that Kevin Flynn wasn't that stable at the end.

Thank you for caring; and no, you don't have to worry about me on this issue. However, not to sound like an after-school special...if you or someone you know is harming themselves, PLEASE seek help. I have known friends and classmates who self-harmed; and it is not an easy cycle to break. It is easy to do permenant harm, damage, or death-whether intended to go that far or not-while self-harming. It's not a failure, a joke, or a ploy to get attention. It's a sign that someone needs help and treatment to return to health.