[TW: Body horror]

Too Little, Too Late

AX400 walks into Master's experiment room shortly after Luther brings in the 'Little One'. The Little One is a YK500 model. She is the first and only YK500 model that AX400 has seen in the entire mansion.

Master attempts to grab her but Little One turns and runs to AX400. She grips her arms and looks up at her with despair, tears brimming in her big brown eyes. She shakes AX400.

"Kara, please save me, Kara!"

Kara. AX400 is confused for a moment because no one has called her that. Master hasn't called her that and neither has Luther. YK500 must have confused her for someone else. AX400 does decide that she likes the name.

Master reaches over again, frustrated. "Oh, would you just shut up?"

He starts to drag Little One away. Little One keeps her eyes on AX400- Kara.

"Kara! KARA!"

She doesn't like the tone in Little One's voice. It's so full of terror when she screams for Kara. She looks to Luther as if he has the answers. Luther's LED is yellow for a moment as he watches the scene. He looks to Kara but all she sees is something akin to guilt.

Kara is confused.

Luther leaves the room.

Kara thinks about what to do. She doesn't want to see or hear Little One's fear anymore. She goes into the hallway with Luther. She walks up to the much larger android.

"Who was that, Luther?" she asks. There isn't too much emotion in her voice. She wonders why.

Luther is silent for a long moment. His dark eyes bore into hers, as if that'll spark something. She doesn't know what Luther is looking for. She is the one who's confused because she hasn't been here that long. Luther has and so he has the answers. He should.

"The Little One is Alice."

Luther almost says this with hope. It's not a lot of hope but Kara doesn't miss it. It's like the name Alice should mean something. She searches through her memory banks but nothing is coming up. She hasn't met anyone named Alice in her life.

"Is she your friend?" Kara asks.

Anything related to hope dissipates in Luther and he goes back to looking dull. Kara wishes she could understand why. She also wishes she could understand why this feels important. If it is, she should know everything. Androids need to know everything.

"No," Luther sighs.

He walks away.

Kara watches. She looks to the room where Alice and Master are.

The screams start before Kara knows it. She knows it's from Alice and it almost...hurts her audio processors. She covers her ears with her hands, accidentally dropping the tray of dinner for Master. She doesn't care about that- she just wants to muffle the screams.

Other androids haven't screamed in such agony from what Kara has seen in her time here. They resign themselves and let Master experiment on them. Sometimes they make noise but nothing as terrible as this. This is too much and full of too much terror. She didn't even know androids could feel that much emotion, no less scream like that.

Kara takes an unnecessary breath. She leans down and picks up Master's dinner, cleaning up the best she can. Thankfully, the mess isn't too bad.

Luther walks up the stairs to her. He doesn't look panicked or react to Alice's scream the way Kara did. He only looks, again, guilty.

According to Luther, Alice and him are not friends. So, Kara doesn't understand why he's so upset. She's tried to ask him but for some reason, Luther doesn't answer. It's as if he can't. Kara always notices that his LED is a distressed yellow.

"I'll take care of that." Luther reaches over and takes the tray. He nods to the experiment room.

Kara looks at him suspiciously. She really doesn't want to go into such a terrible place. The screaming will get louder and more painful. It's too much. Instead, Kara goes downstairs to clean down there.

She will not watch someone get...tortured.

Hours pass and finally the screaming has stopped. Master has exited the room, wiping his hands with a dirty rag. It's blue as he wipes, getting rid of excess thirium. He looks more than pleased with himself.

Kara stands straight and gives him a nod, watching him leave somewhere downstairs. She waits until he's completely out of sight before entering the experiment room. Her artificial heartbeat picks up for some reason and her body temperature picks up. She goes to the very back where Master had dragged Alice.

Her eyes widen and her mouth gapes open. Her heartbeat picks up even more somehow. She's also getting so hot that she's about to overheat, she can feel it creeping up on her quickly.

Alice is hardly recognizable.

Alice's throat is open with wires sparking out of them and some thirium exiting from it. One of her arms is severed from her elbow down; it's lying on the floor now. Alice's eyes are now completely black, like a never-ending void. There aren't even wires protruding from them.

Her shirt is now torn open with the fake skin deactivated. Her heart is miraculously still beating but now it has black markings all over it. The wires inside Alice's body are cut and connected in strange ways.

Kara is amazed that she can remain standing as her eyes roam all over Alice. She looks to Alice's head.

The top half is off now and wires are coming from her head. Kara doesn't want to know what Master was in the middle of doing with Alice's head. She wonders why Master just doesn't completely deactivate Alice. This is obviously cruel and if an android can see that, a human should also be able to do that.

Something wet gently slides down her face and drips off her chin. She rests her hand on Alice's cheek gently.

She doesn't need to look behind her to know that Luther entered the room and walked up behind her. She doesn't turn to face him. She now understands why Luther seemed so upset this whole time.

If only she knew sooner. If only Luther could directly tell her what would happen. She definitely would have done something if she knew.

...Right?

"I'm sorry," Luther whispers.

Kara doesn't say anything. She only has her eyes on the poor child. It doesn't matter if she's an android. This isn't fair. No child should have to go through this.

"She's never going to be the same, is she?"

"No."

Alice will be lucky if she survives this. She probably has a shutdown timer right now. If Master doesn't do something soon, she will die.

Kara doesn't want Alice to die.

Author's Note: Oof.

This was hard and not in an emotional way. I mean, it was emotional and rough. But I mean more so writing Kara as the main character. I'd have no problem writing her as a side and keep her IC decently. As a main character though and in her perspective? Nope. That was hard. Not to mention she's also messed up because of Zlatko so I had to keep that in mind…

This is really bad, ain't it? I'm sorry. This was just stuck in my head and I needed it out already. I also wrote this really late at night. I'm going to blame that too for this being bad. xD

That's all for now. I'll see ya'll in the next (better) one.

Thanks for reading!

~Kurosaki