How do you live with constant pain? At some point you get used to it. No matter how terrible it gets you just keep going. It becomes your shadow. You don't even feel it, don't think about it, although it remains there - waiting. All it takes is the slightest nudge for it to resurface.

How does a wounded person, in the middle of an amputation, without anesthetics react when presented with first world problems? Imagine a man screaming on a table, leg torn and bleeding and one walks up to him and asks - how dare you? How can you be so cold blooded about the needs and suffering of your fellow humans? How can you possibly not care about the future of our children? About the safety of our work, or the tears we cry about the loss of our loved ones?

Now imagine that person on the table is you. Well, I just show them the middle finger.

If this world could be as easy, that some alcohol would wash everything gnawing inside you away, I would never stop drinking. Sadly it just never worked for me. I busy myself instead with patching up those countless bleeding wounds. I do it periodically, although I perfectly know that the source, the very core of the problem can never be healed and I'm only fighting the symptoms.

Humming with the song, roaring loudly in my ears, I lie lifelessly on my bed. Hands sprawled against the soft fabric, chest pressed into the engulfing material to help creating the illusion of a hug, I work endlessly the invisible stitches in my soul. My face doesn't display any emotion, there are no tears - after so many years there are mostly none left, although the hurt only grows.

It's a futile struggle, since the reason and the cure lies beyond my own influence. I can ignore it for a while, busy myself with reality and the countless tasks at hand, try to find some joy, or thrust everything aside and pretend that nothing is wrong. But the longer I don't look at the mess inside, the worse it gets and if it breaks through - and eventually it always does - the result is devastating.

I wish I could throw myself away, then at some point you realize you're beyond repair. People do this all the time, with they broken toys, cars, even androids. It's endlessly tiring to pull oneself up and walk through another day. The body seems incredibly heavy, mundane work piling up faster than you can possibly keep up with. I'm so tired, just tired. Tired of keeping this so called - depression - at bay. I wish I could take a vacation from myself, from my thought patterns, from my world views, from my experiences. To gather some strength before returning back into this life, which offers nothing but pain.

Well, now I have something - someone. He's like a sweet promise, a ray of warm sunshine in winter. A complex machine, a soft man, a person whose dialogues never end. Every new gesture or word from him, a breeze of fresh air. He's everything I ever wanted, so funny and cute that I want to spend my whole time with him. He's so intriguing that you let your guard down, become dependable, weak. You feel safe around him and actually smile. His existence alone gives you so much that it makes you aware how damaged everything inside you is.

I have a theory. People tend to forget everything they experienced. It's a protection mechanism of sorts which let them forget the impact of the worst things that ever happened to them and are only left with blurry impressions. Instead they focus on creating and collecting sweet memories of they lives. After a while I came to the conclusion that I tend to keep only the bad things happening to me and forget instead the nice ones. Maybe my childhood just started out too badly, so the healthy switch that works perfectly for the most, got broken and is now stuck in the wrong position.

The way I lie is comfortable, the song pleasant and loud, vibrating against my bones and crying for me, since I just can't. The repair process is simple - imagine something nice. Something that would help, something that could help. Even if it will never become true.

The things springing to my mind are not that far away from impossible. His graceful frame and elegant body, his cocky smile and soft voice. He's there, right there beyond the door in the living room. Why not just call him, why not just order him to take your frame into his arms and squeeze? I know for a fact, that just a simple hug could fix a lot in me.

It's not the sexual desire, the kiss, the tension, the action, the laughs or the banter. They are only fuel to the fire consuming me. It's all in the rare occasion when he puts his arms around me and I can just press myself into his chest. I'm lost in the delusion of his scent, the texture of the smooth fabric of his uniform, the gentle beat of his thirium pump. Vivid imagination being my only help in the endless battle, every detail a stitch keeping the flood of pain back. It will rip again eventually again, it always does. But for the time being I patch it all up to the best of my ability.

Why not ask him to rock you in his arms for real, to allow yourself the pleasure of leaning your head against his frame? Why not give in?

I wouldn't be able to stop.

I was broken for too long. Trampled and then ignored, tolerated but shunned. At the end of this procedure you hide the fact that you have depression like an ugly disability you can not fix. It's pointless to address it, if the cure is not even in your hands, in fact it is in his. The innocent, gorgeous android - fixated on accomplishing his mission, putting up with your intrusion into his life, although you're nothing but a parasite leaching off from his existence. He's doing a really good job, too good. His presence alone helps.

I would devour him.

I would reduce him to nothing but an object, a man whose only sole purpose is to heal me, to keep me going. I wouldn't want him to ever stop hugging me. I would most definitely delete everything in his memory, so he just stays put and holds me. Only because he's an android, I even have the option to bask in the overwhelming power, to use him till he satisfies all my needs.

I don't want to break him, I like him. It's a good thing he stays away till I fix the worst of it. But exactly on cue, my headphones are ripped of and his velvety voice asks concerned "Is everything alright? You don't seem sleeping and the volume level of your music is even louder than in the car. I want to point out that you might irreparably damage your hearing."

I don't even look up, to this god forsaken android. What does he want now? "Give it back Connor and it would be best if you leave the room till morning." I try not to order him around, although it's tempting.

"I came in since the lights in your room were on, but you weren't replying. It seems to me you might need some assistance." He kneels in front of my bed, scanning my body and finding no obvious indicators explaining my state.

"Isn't it time for you to go into stand by?" A gentle nudge for him to get lost, although I want him to stay. The politer I become, the worse I feel.

"You hadn't had dinner. You sure you're alright? Is your wound still hurting?" He was about to raise his hand and presumable check on the bandage. Clenching the sheets I just keep breathing, harsh puffs squeezing out of my chest and he halts in the motion midair. "I understand, I will leave you. Have a nice evening." The words are the perfect politeness, he leaves without further hesitation and my heart just burns, while I close my eyes and don't even allow myself to trail his movements.

My thoughts are stuck on the memory of his lips, it would be easy to blame that action on all of this. But it was rather the moment he pretended to become deviant. The horrible, helpless feeling, like I would lose a world, the last straw of stability. I wish they would just have killed me.

The stupid android doesn't even realize I'm his worst threat, not the deviants, not humanity, not CyberLife - it's me. I contemplate again to call him back in, it was odd the way he hesitated to leave, the way he looked at me, the brown in his eyes spreading in perfect imitation of affection and shifting to something like hurt on my reaction to his presence.

I can't quite imagine how much he would have cost. It's absolutely beyond any boundaries how intense the effects of his socializing module are. Must be about the small fortune of a Ferrari, that he's able to confuse me to this extent. Or he's really deviant.

Deviant - not a word, but a horrible nasty feeling in my chest. A groan of pain leaves my lips on the memory he shook my hand away and marched right into the masses of self-aware androids. Without a single glance back, he just joined them and left me behind. The pain just flares and I roll my body into a fetus position to gain at least some sort of comfort.

"I will be alright, I will be alright, I will be alright." I repeat gently. I enforce myself with the imagination he's already left me and try to deal with the outcome. Even then, I will keep on existing, even without the slightest hope to ever experience any more short lived moment of contact. It's an aphrodisiac of sorts, the skinship - those are the only moments where I can experience the true absence of pain, the sweetest break where I can just bask in the closeness of our joined existence.

The lack of music makes everything worse, he's placed the headphones just out of my reach. But even if not, my arm feels to heavy to move. There is nothing left to latch my thoughts on, so they spiral to dark regions. Even though I know the songtext by heart, following the words is better than the abyss I trail into. "I'm just a broken machine," I whisper into the silence of the room. "though the record may spin, all my lights have gone dim..." It's funny that a human wrote this song, not an android. Although CyberLife already developed musicians and androids capable of writing whole books.

But the text represents me like nothing else. Humans are the worse version of androids. We're also machines doomed to fail and make mistakes. They're our creation in our own image, just better. They were my hope, my illusion. Now them turning deviant is like watching something pure and innocent walking the same path as us. The emotion driven, violent, selfish behavior. If they become just like humans, what's the point?

I ignored the need to eat and the thirst of my body, but Connor was right, he always is. It would be easier to remain like this, if at least this stupid body would stop bothering me. But the primitive need to go to the toilet I cannot ignore any longer. I will my body to move, although I don't have any strength, practically rolling myself down from the bed and I hear a shuffle.

Freezing in the attempt to stand up I finally glance towards the closed door of my room. Was he there? Was he standing right behind it? All this time?

I don't feel the time when I'm like this, hours are blurring into minutes. There is never enough time to put all the pieces back together. I would rather not concern myself with his decisions, but my ears can't help but catch on the sudden silence. A silence originating in the sudden absence of static. If your hearing is fine enough you can catch on the sound a monitor or television makes while being powered on. The kind of sound which only the flowing electricity makes, and the feng shui fanatics claim is really bad for your psyche if you're exposed to it while sleeping.

My head turns and falls on the only electronic object which might have been responsible. The glasses lying inconspicuously on the night table and facing towards me. There is absolutely nothing indicating when they're powered on but the treacherous sound. Did he watch me?

I spring to my feet and rush to the door, opening it wildly and completely expecting him still leaning against the door frame. But the corridor is empty.

I must be imagining things. I must be going nuts in my craving.

Walking down the few steps into the living room, I discover the android resting on the couch, eyes closed, LED spinning in blue light. The only odd thing, his jacket is scrunched up beneath his back. The last two nights he always placed it perfectly folded on the table, a peculiar notion to preserve his perfect appearance.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just seeing things. The thing I want most at this moment, is just to walk up to him and kneel in front of his sleeping frame. Putting my head on top of his palm, to just close my eyes and bask in the miniscule contact I imagine to be able to fall asleep like this.

But the way I feel right now is irrational - the self loathing, mixed with pain and desire. It's simply too much, so I just back away and glide down the door as soon as it closes behind me. I successfully reached the bathroom and when I'm like this, it's almost like an achievement of sorts that I made myself move at all, but now the urge is gone, just to mock me.

Sitting on the floor like this grounds me to reality, you can concentrate completely on your own being, while the hurt just doesn't stop. I vividly call for the picture of his eyes, his pleasant voice, he's fierce, unbeatable. Delusionally gentle but strong, smart, a machine with the capacity to hunt and destroy. I like him most when he's ruthless like today, when the sweet package breaks and reveals his true nature. It was with his help the deviants didn't get overwhelmed by the police forces, he took out singlehandedly the majority of them, incapacitating them with precise, calculated movements using exactly the right amount of force to break their bones but not to kill them. All the androids around him seemed like lost children, like a bunch of farmers with pitchforks fighting for their so called rights and freedom.

It's ironic that absolutely no one can stand in his way, he decimates them in a heartbeat. But all it takes for him to fail, is a pathetic hacker with some personal issues.

If I hadn't thrown myself into them, maybe he wouldn't have been shot anyway. Maybe he finally would have come a giant step closer towards accomplishing his mission. I'm sure if not for me, they would have accepted him and lead him right into the heart of Jericho. If I just could have let go, if I just wouldn't be so selfish and scared. Everything is my fault. I should unbind him, let him return to CyberLife or delete his memories. Since this way he neither can concentrate properly on his task, nor truly let go of everything and exist for me only.

But I can't, I just can't. I don't see myself ever moving from this dissatisfying idleness.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" He asks me suddenly through the door, I didn't hear him coming closer. Did he level up his sneaking ability?

"Just ask." I really don't feel like talking right now, but when he uses his voice like that, I have the hardest time ever not to open the door and throw myself into his arms.

"Why do you want me to stay obedient?" He must have analyzed me. It's scary how perfectly he's placing the topic.

"Most humans do, they're afraid of losing control. Scared that androids will eventually annihilate humanity, or being put into capsules and used as a twisted power source, while being forced to live in an synthetic world." People also get scared, because the line of artificial intelligence and us is blurring very every new android model. They can't really tell the difference themselves anymore between a living being and a machine. They have to convince themselves that they're just objects, so they treatment grows increasingly ruthless. We've seen the results first hand today.

"You're referring to the Matrix movie, aren't you?"

"Yep." I wish he would leave the topic on the half attempted joke.

"But you're not afraid." Very perceptive Connor.

"Yes, but I still want you to listen to me. Do everything just as I say." I shouldn't be saying this, but I was always bluntly honest.

"What would you have done if I really had become deviant?" I need him gone, although I also want him to remain right there on the other side of the door and keep talking.

"Nothing. I would have done nothing." Just another wound, just another break in my soul and keep on existing. Although I have to admit I display quite the yandere tendencies, I just lack the dedication to actually do something with it. There is an odd selflessness accompanying my endless selfishness. "Don't concern yourself about my pathetic state Connor. Just keep doing your thing. I will be better tomorrow." Would he be a human with real emotions I would have told him not to feel bad about it.

"Don't worry, I will never become deviant." He promises me. "You have to trust me." He emphases again, and it sounds so very pleasant.

I wonder why he chooses to wait on the other side of the door, instead of keep on pretending with the standby mode? Why he just doesn't come in and whack me till I'm back to normal. It must be one of those requirements to stay at my side, which manipulate his behavior to this extent. It must be.