As I awake I realise I've been moved. I'm lying on something very soft. As I look about me I realise with horror just where I am. There is an arm lying next to me. A dead arm. As I look to see where the owner is I feel so sick. It's the old man who was in my neighbouring pod. This is where the machines put the dead. The machines moved me, thinking I must have died after the fall, ready for my body to be destroyed. I sit up and turn around, trying no to disturb the bodies out of respect for the dead. There is a machine picking up the bodies and placing them in a tray. There is a strange whirring sound and I see the tray being drained. Through the transparent tube leading away from it I see the product of the exercise and am stunned by what I see. The goo in my pod was a body. A dead body. They have been feeding us on the dead. I cannot describe how I feel. It is beyond words, beyond imagining. I want to cry. I want to give up and stop fighting. I want to die so I can be free of this agony, but something won't let me. I have to keep going. I have to know. I want to know what's happened to me.

I crawl off the pile of bodies and scramble away from the pile, terrified that the machines might realise I'm alive and plug me back in. Once I am out of sight I stand up and stumble along a rough path. I keep walking. I have no idea where I'm going; I just want to get away from these towers. I don't feel very hungry, I'm in shock, but I am starting to get thirsty. I spot a small stream running nearby. The water is murky, covered in a strange scum and has a very funny smell. I decide that as thirsty as I am I can make better progress dehydrated than ill. I leave the path, and start following the stream. I reckon I'm less likely to be found.

A few hours later (I have no idea of just how long) I spot a pool. The water looks slightly better here, and there is another stream that joins it. The water coming that way is very clean, so I wade across and have a drink. It feels wonderful after the grime of those towers, and the dead flesh. I decide to follow that stream, thinking it would be nice to have clean water nearby.

I keep going that way for a few days, but I can't be sure how long as there is no sunrise or sunset. It is perpetual nighttime here. It's very creepy. By now I am beyond hungry, I will eat anything. The thing is though I can't steal food out of rubbish, as machines don't need to eat. I did mange to find a dead rat, but it was so rotten that little meat remained. It did me no help at all. I am ashamed to say that I have managed to find a good meal though. I was walking along next to the stream when I noticed many tall pillars spanning as far as the eye could see all around me. I looked up and with a jolt realised what they were. The machines were growing humans! They looked like huge bean stalks with babies instead of seeds. By this time I had seen so much that I just accepted it. I didn't feel anything for the babies; they would never know the truth. As I walked something came crashing down in front of me. When I realised what it was I knew what I had to do. A stillborn baby boy was lying in the path, having just fallen from the metal plants. Don't judge me for my actions; you would have done the same. It was my only sustaining meal of my whole travels. That dead baby enabled me to survive. You have to understand. It was the hardest thing in the world, but I'm glad I did it.

My adventures came to an end when I had passed the growing fields. I was on the outskirts of the machine activity when I tripped and fell onto a rock. I don't know whether I just gave up and fell asleep or was knocked unconscious, but I blacked out for the final time before I met him.