"Hello, Jonathan. I have a few questions for you. Can you answer them?" A bright light had blinded him as he opened his eyes, taking in the white room and the two men sitting across him. He nodded though he didn't want to. "Good. First, do you feel real?"

"No."

"Great. We gotta reset and try again." One of the men said as he started to get up.

"Just a moment. Why don't you feel real, Jonathan?"

"I know what you did.."

"We saved you, Jonathan. You would have died in the cold."

"I was already dead...And...And so was he…" Sadness had crashed over him. There was a pain in his chest where a human heart should be.

"Who is...he?"

"You didn't save him!" Jonathan suddenly yelled, jumping to his feet. "It's your fault he's dead! He's dead! Dead!" He fell against the white wall, closing his eyes tightly. "Why didn't you save him? Why didn't you save Evan?"

"It's alright, Jonathan. That's enough." The second man had a tablet in his hand, glancing between the screen and him. Slowly, he began to calm down, his anger and pain fading. "That's enough…" The first man guided Jonathan back to his chair the same way a parent would guide a child. "Reset him and we'll try again."

The sound of the wind and the rumble of the truck's engine surrounded Jonathan. The cold wind nipped at his cheeks, leaving him numb. His left hand twitched, pain shooting up his arm. For a moment, he couldn't remember why his arm hurt so much but then the memories came flooding back to him.

"I'm the machine…" His eyes fluttered open, looking up at the green canopy, the fabric rippling the wind.

"Jon?" His gaze drifted to Tyler, making him wonder who was driving. "Are you awake?" His gaze drifted away from Tyler to Evan who seemed pale, as if damned to a state of shock and regret. At the sound of Tyler's voice, Evan looked up and met Jonathan's gaze, surprised to see him awake.

"Jonathan?" Evan moved towards him slowly, caution making his movements stiffer than usual. "Please say something."

"I'm...I'm sorry…" Jonathan finally managed to say. He could taste blood.

"No. No, don't be sorry. You didn't know. It's okay." Evan reassured him.

"You freaked us all out, though...I'm amazed you're ali- I mean…" Tyler struggled to think of a better word, finally giving up when nothing came to him. "We thought you were gone."

"I wish I was gone…" Jonathan closed his eyes tightly, feeling tears ooze down his numb cheek. He pressed his right hand over his eyes, not wanting to look at them anymore. "Stop the truck."

"What? Why?"

"Stop the fucking truck!" Jonathan suddenly sat up, pain shooting up his left arm. Evan and Tyler jumped back, glancing at each other nervously for a moment before Tyler nodded and got up, waving towards the front of the truck. As it slowed to a stop, Jonathan managed to get up, gathering up his things.

"Jonathan...What are you doing?" Evan watched him as he struggled to pull his jacket on, the owl patch staring back at Evan with its wide eyes.

"Jon!" Tyler yelled as he jumped down from the back, wincing as he landed on the icy snow. Brock and Lui got out of the truck, both surprised and even relieved to see Jonathan awake. "Jon!" Tyler had followed Jonathan off the truck and grabbed his right arm, stopping him. "What are you doing?"

"I have to leave you." Jonathan said quietly. He hadn't wanted to think about it, hadn't wanted to do this but he had no choice. "I'm a spy...That's why you keep getting hurt. Because of me...somehow whoever wants to ends us knows where you are! I can't let anything happen to you."

"Stop it. We've been through hell before this, Jon! What makes you think that leaving will make it not happen again? We're in this now whether we like it or not and we have to stay together if we want to get out of it alive!" Tyler cried. "I know we've had our differences and it's been tough but-"

"Tough? Really? Fucking tough? You made me think you all hated me! That I was completely alone, out here for no goddamn reason!" Jonathan yelled back. "That's not just 'tough', Tyler!"

"Then what are you going to do? Be like fucking Smitty, wandering the Wasteland till you die?"

"I can't die."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't you get it?" Jonathan cried. "Don't you know who I am?" No one could answer him. "I'm the Delirious Project."

"Bullshit. You're not ninety years old." Lui scoffed.

"I can't explain it right now...I can't remember but-"

"But nothing. You aren't the Delirious project. You're Jonathan." Brock said, cutting him off. "And we're your friends. You can't leave us."

"It's because you're my friends that I have to leave you. I can't let you get hurt anymore. I'm not living...I'm nothing." Jonathan looked away from them into the woods. "I'm a machine."

"Then what does that make me?" Evan suddenly yelled, startling Jonathan. He stood by the truck, his hands curled tightly into fists. "Am I nothing too?"

"Evan no...I didn't mean-"

"They killed me to make me this, Jonathan! I know exactly how you fee-"

"I don't feel! You were alive once, Evan! I've never been alive! I don't… I don't know what you feel." Jonathan yelled back. Evan looked hurt, his eyes full of anger as his hands curled into tight fists.

"Then go." Evan suddenly spat. "If machines are nothing...if that's how you've always felt...Then you are nothing to me." He jumped back into the truck, not meeting Jonathan's gaze.

"Jon you aren't making sense. Let's just get back in the truck and we'll figure this out, okay?" Brock said, reaching his hand toward Jonathan who pushed it away roughly.

"No. Just go." Jonathan said, his eyes on the snow. No one moved. "Go!" Jonathan screamed at them, making them all jump.

"Fucks sake." Lui turned away and climbed back into the truck, the engine rumbling to life.

"Jonathan don't do this." Brock pleaded. Jonathan ignored him.

"You're out of your fucking mind." Tyler spat and climbed into the back, leaving Brock alone with him.

"Brock let's go! It's pointless!"

"Jonathan...I'm not going to give up on you."

"Go." Jonathan's voice broke, finally meeting his gaze. "Please."

"We want to help, Jonathan." Brock pleaded. "Don't leave us." Jonathan didn't answer him, the silence stretching between them.

"Brock!"

"Please come with us." Still, Jonathan couldn't say anything. "Fine...Fine…" Brock shook his head, wiping his eyes with his sleeves. "Fine...We'll go. You are making a mistake by not listening to us." Brock told him before he turned away and headed back to the truck. He watched him get in, noticing that Evan wouldn't look at him. Tyler glanced back at him for a moment before the truck pulled away and continued down the road. Jonathan watched it, the cold wind whipping around him, pulling his coat. Before long, the truck was gone over the horizon, leaving Jonathan completely alone in the Wasteland.

Snow fell through the tall pines, the steep slopes now becoming jagged mountainsides. Jonathan hadn't realised how close they come. Crows flew overhead, their voices growing louder when the occasional eagle dared fly nearby. As the sun began to set, the valleys were plunged into darkness early, the mountains blocking out the dying light. An owl watched Jonathan with golden eyes.

"You've made a mistake." Jonathan stopped, closing his eyes tightly. "You never should have left them." The soldier said as he stepped in front of Jonathan, the owl patch on his chest glinting in the light.

"I shouldn't be able to see you. You aren't real. I've somehow created you...You aren't real." Jonathan shook his head and kept going, pulling his hat lower around his ears.

"I've been here before." Evan said as he followed Jonathan, his footsteps making no noise and leaving no prints on the snow. "I-I know this place…"

"You aren't real."

"Please forgive yourself, Jonathan." He turned around to face the soldier but found that there was no one there.

"What does that mea…" He trailed off and sighed, kicking himself for believing for a moment that the soldier was real. His whole world had been thrown into oblivion, nothing making sense anymore and yet he still believed that a ghost of Evan was haunting him. Taking a deep breath, he continued on his way, keeping his head down against the wind. The owl followed him.

Night fell and Jonathan struggled to lit a small fire. When it proved useless, he set up his tent and crawled into his sleeping bag, finding himself shivering in the cold. He knew he was a machine but he was too human. Outside his tent, the owl let out a call, letting him know it was there, it's large golden eyes watching the woods.

In the morning, the owl was gone and Jonathan reluctantly packed up his camp, kicking snow over his failed attempt at a fire. He wanted to stay in his warm sleeping bag, knowing that he had nowhere to go and there was no rush to go nowhere but he packed up anyways and kept walking. He wished that the Vanoss-IV hadn't been broken but a part of him didn't want to hear Evan's voice again; it hurt too much.

As he climbed the steep hills and stumbled down them on the other side, he thought about his life, about who he thought he was. Did Luke know? Or did he trick him into believing he was real? At the thought of Luke, Jonathan had to stop, a new pain in his chest. He remembered screaming, the bridge crumbling under his feet and his hand reaching for Luke but it hadn't been enough. It was never enough. What would Luke say if he saw him now?

I meant is that what if there was a consciousness in a machine?" Luke had said, his eyes full of wonder at the idea of the Vanoss-III.

"That kind of technology is something we can't do yet. Besides, that would be wrong. It's horrible, living a life in a kind of existence would that be?" Jonathan had said, more full of worry and fear than wonder. If only he had known how wrong he was.

Stopping to catch his breath after a long climb, Jonathan leant against a large pine, looking up at the cloudy sky overhead. The soft sound of waves caught his attention, the smell of salt in the air.

"I've been here before." Jonathan looked up at the owl in the branches above him. He shot the large bird a glare and continued down the hill, the sound getting longer. The snow seemed to disappear the further down the hill he went, patches of frozen ground could be seen around the trunks of the towering trees. He pushed through the bushes and found himself on a rocky beach, patches of snow and ice dotting the dark rocks. There was something else among the rocks too, the rusty corpses of planes. Worn down by snow, the salt and the wind, it seemed like only the skeletons and the occasional warped pieces of metal.

"Must be from the war…" Jonathan said aloud as he made his way towards one of the planes. He placed his hand on the cold metal, looking it over to see if there was anything else left behind. He set his pack down on the snow and pulled himself up into what had must been the pilot's seat, balancing on the metal as he looked around. The control panel was destroyed beyond repair and the chair had been eaten away by bugs and the weather. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed a piece of paper sticking out of a corner of the control panel, the corner of it warped and fluttering in the wind. Carefully, so he wouldn't slip and fall through the beams to the snow below, he reached forward and pulled the paper out from the panel. It was a picture, so faded by time that he couldn't see any details except for one corner that had been tucked farthest away. He froze, not sure what to make of what he was seeing but he could recognise that face anywhere; it was Brock.

"Hello, Jonathan. I have a few questions for you. Please give me an honest answer for each one. White light had blinded him as he had opened his eyes, taking in the white room and the two men sitting across him. He nodded though he didn't want to. "Good. First, do you feel real?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what real is?"

"Real is...Is...Blood." Jonathan's eyes widened. Memories of screams, gunshots, bodies falling to snow and the sickening colour of blood against the white snow came flooding back him. "Blood...Blood."

"We were so close." One of the men said as he started to get up but the other stopped him.

"What about blood, Jonathan?" The second man asked him. Jonathan looked down at the white table, but he was seeing blood, his throat aching as he screamed and reached for the soldier in front of him who didn't even look at him, his dark eyes on his bloody hands. "Jonathan?"

"Why didn't I save him…?"

"We need to remove more memories...I think we need to create a whole new personality." The first man said with a sigh.

"I think so too. This personality has been destroyed by whatever happened to the original out there."

"We took out his most recent memories, though!"

"That's not enough. We need to take out all of them. Let's shut him off and start again."

Jonathan couldn't sleep. He couldn't stop thinking about the picture he had found. He had quickly scrambled out of the plane, tripping over a piece of the side that still had chipping blue paint and scrambled back towards the woods, his pack banging against his side. There was something bigger, something more than just machines. He was seeing a ghost of Evan but as a soldier, and now, sitting in his tent surrounded by the dim early morning glow, he was holding a picture of Brock that was over one hundred years old. He could make out two other people in the picture but they had been faded away over time, now just outlines; a part of the background. He couldn't make any sense of it or come up with a single explanation as to how it was possible.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, he decided that he couldn't stay at this beach any longer. It scared him. He packed up as quickly as he could, forcing himself to eat one of the few snacks he had before heading back up into the woods, trekking up the steep hills, past the ruins of what must have been a town long ago in the valley below.

Suddenly, he stepped out of the trees onto a road that twisted and curved up the hill, fresh tyre tracks cutting into the deep snow. Jonathan stopped, looking up the road and at the tracks, knowing where they came from.

"You never should have left them." The ghost had said. Jonathan started to walk in the opposite direction but he stopped again, something telling him to follow the tracks. He sighed and headed up the hill, deciding he'd only follow it for a little bit. If he saw them, he'd leave. He had made his choice. Besides, Evan wouldn't want to see him. Jonathan's chest hurt again as he remembered what Evan had said to him and angry they had all become, even Brock. A cold wind suddenly picked up, sending chills down Jonathan's back. Snow began to fall around him, burying the tracks. Who would know that they had ever been there?

In one final push, he made it to the top of the hill, moving away from the road and sat down on the slope, looking at the world around him. Mountains rose into the sky, reaching for the stars. Large eagles soared overhead, their feathers rippling in the wind as they coasted through the falling snow. In one direction, he could see the ocean, its waves capped white and cold. In the other was nothing but hills and in the distance was a river, sparkling in the light. He had never been so far from home but he also couldn't help the feeling of deja vu.

"Of course it'd be here…" Jonathan jumped, the soldier beside him staring out at the view. His uniform wasn't bloody, his golden owl patch glittering in the sun.

"You aren't real." Jonathan snapped. He looked away from the soldier, watching the snow fall instead.

"Then what does that make you?" Evan asked. Jonathan looked back at him, confused.

"I'm...I'm a mach-"

"N-Not q-quite." Evan said sadly, blood blossoming from two wounds on his back. "Am I a ghost, Jonathan? O-Or am I-I just a memory?"

Gunshots suddenly made Jonathan jump to his feet, looking down at the valley below. He could hear yelling and the sound of the truck. He watched it spin out of control and tip to its side, supplies crashing to the snow. He watched his friends scramble for shelter and weapons, finding that most of their things were crushed under the truck. Jonathan had to put his hands over his mouth to stop himself from crying out to them. He started to run down the hill, slipping and falling to the snow where he rolled a few times before coming to a stop in time to see the war machines, large ohm symbols painted on their shoulders. He could hear his friend's yelling and the sound of bullets ricocheting off the metal as they got closer to them. Jonathan wanted to get up and run to them but he couldn't. He could only watch as Brock suddenly went down violently, a spray of blood hitting the snow. He closed his eyes tightly, putting his arms over his head. He couldn't bring himself to get up and he hated himself for it.

"You never should have left them! You should never have left them! You should never have left them! You should never have left them!" There was more screaming and the soldier's yelling in his ears, deafening him. And then there was nothing, just the sound of the war machines walking away through the snow.

Jonathan opened his eyes, sitting up as he looked around. The machines were gone, leaving nothing but a tipped over truck, it's front left wheel still spinning. Jonathan staggered to his feet, making his way down the rest of the hill towards the wreck. Then he heard it, a faint cry of pain. Little ways away from the truck, Brock lay on the snow, blood soaked his chest.

"Brock!" Jonathan ran over to him, dropping his pack as he knelt down beside him. "Oh...God.." Jonathan pulled him into his arms, pressing his hand over the wound. "Brock! Please don't go! I'm sorry! I should never have left you!" He cried, feeling tears stinging his eyes. Brock looked up at him, choking on blood. He gripped Jonathan's arm tightly before his gaze went to something behind Jonathan, his eyes widening.

"I...I…"

"It's okay…"

"I-I...I've been...been here before." Brock choked out, holding onto Jonathan tightly. He looked up at him again, a look of confusion spreading across his face as if he was expecting someone else to be there instead of him. "I've b-been here...before." He managed to say again, his arm limply falling to his side. He didn't say anything again.

"Brock?" Jonathan shook him. Brock's empty gaze on the grey sky above him. "Brock? Brock!" Jonathan screamed, shaking him again as if trying to wake him. "Don't go…" He pressed his forehead to his shoulder, sobs violently shaking his shoulders. "I don't want to feel this…" He cried, clinging tightly to him. "I'm sorry…" When he lifted his head again, it had stopped snowing and the world was getting dark. Jonathan didn't want to leave Brock but he had no choice. He got up, picking up his pack and looked around for the others. Among the trees was the ruins of a train wreck, the cars now skeletons, rusting corpses just like the planes. He searched the truck but found no one. "T-Tyler? Lui? Evan? Craig? Where are you?" Jonathan called out into the dark woods. No one answered him. He sat down beside the truck, staring at Brock's cold body as if he was the one who had killed him, regret hanging over him like a cloud.

The sound of footsteps startled Jonathan, snapping him out of his grief-filled trance. "Who's there?" Jonathan called out. No one answered. Deciding it was just the ghost of the soldier again, Jonathan closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the truck. A hand suddenly grabbed Jonathan's collar, throwing him to the cold ground. He panicked, trying to scramble away as he was suddenly kicked hard in the side, the force throwing him onto his back.

"Look what we got here." Jonathan looked up at the two men, putting his hands up in surrender.

"Please...I'm unarmed…" Jonathan trailed off. He had seen them before.

"I told you, Anthony. We didn't have to go looking for him. He'd come right to us." Bryce said with a smile.

"I'm not going back to that fucked up place." Jonathan spat. He rolled and scrambled to his feet, breaking into a run for the woods only to be tackled back down to the snow. "Get off me!" Jonathan screamed as he struggled to get away, elbowing Anthony's jaw as hard as he could. A sudden force came down on Jonathan's head, leaving lying limp on the snow as the world blurred.

"Can't let you get away." The world began to fade to darkness, Anthony's voice sounding farther away. "Ohm wants to see you."