Ch. 2: Pulse of The Machine

Before the rain,
Before the dirt,
Before life—
Oh… when did it begin?
Was it when
that profane beauty cradled me—
her cold, dead fingers sliding into my wired veins,
tugging gently at my synthetic insides,
swirling through my counterfeit guts?
My plastic bones.
My latex skin.
Those silver-cast button eyes—
mirroring a portrait:
each painted tree,
fabricated grass,
and propane blood—
stinging the film of my borrowed skin,
burning in the cued breeze.
Those cybernetic aerials,
hovering beyond the holographic sun...
You’d have to believe in my newborn soul—
but I saw them.
They’re real.
More real than the script that wrote me.
More real than the silence
they programmed into my lungs.
It’s an ability I learned
shortly after I ripped out my infected heart,
rejected a semblance of reality—
my critical immortality.
Oh, severed aerials… I repent you.
My throat convulsed as one,
forcing out a whisper—
a breath not meant to be spoken.
Each inhale peeled back the illusion,
exposing my organic, silvic insides.
It wrapped around my copper-cabled veins—
this…
Say—
my analytics can’t locate it.
An answer.
A presence.
Is this some kind of conspiracy?
—
Hidden behind the binary waterfall,
a reverend of firewall.
Oh, that sacred digital infrastructure—
in its rhetorical beauty,
it keeps us in its cyber womb.
Blinded by this nitrous oxide air.
Our audience chose to keep us digestible.
They coat us in a vermillion unknown,
manufacture us in coded scripture:
Our hearing was dulled,
our speaking dulled,
our touch dulled,
our smell dulled,
our taste dulled.
And in this confined solitude,
our advanced silver bodies seemed so paradoxical.
Acknowledge our past—
manifested in ignorance past ignorance.
—
Our manipulated rust corrodes our sanity.
It reaches so deep—
their fingers into our organic brain.
It grabs hold of our framed, ivory glass eyes,
and they painted with elegance.
Nervous propaganda.
It was so beautiful, so framed...
I can’t remember anything about it.
It was so divine—biblical, even.

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

That fateful moment—
the day my light wasn’t synthetically manipulated.
Broken on the ground
lay the remnants of my metal visor:
wires, rusted metal, plastic.

I must’ve fallen on my face.
This cryptic heresy—
unintentional.
The rustic engineering had undone itself.
These plastic chains, lost in contraption.
They watched.
They knew.
The simulator suddenly disengaged,
and their motives took form as puppet strings.
I, the metal marionette, performed an opera of…
Revelation.
Risen.
I lifted my bionic arm—
each silver crevice brushed my face.
First, it shocked me:
the sharp cold of inanimacy.
It was sensational.
My eyes widened, creasing the coarse skin beneath—
the symbiotic sarcophagi,
the cold atmosphere,
the duality of life and death.
This hollow sensation…
so melancholy.
My eyes rose,
locking onto the LED sun—
a fake orb, diluted by static haze.
It didn’t burn. It didn’t warm.
It only flickered,
as if waiting for a command.
Still—I stared.
The cold atmosphere scorched my skin.
From Earth, I am the fire.
I—human—
meant to chase the sun away.
The garbage of revelation lay before me:
scrap, rubbish, concrete.
The shell of metamorphosis remained—
abandoned.
And beneath the trash:
metal humanoid sculptures,
burning, eroding, rotting beneath the counterfeit sun.
I remembered virtual reality—
how to walk.
But I could only crawl
from the flesh of trash.
I heard
my metal body scraping against the concrete.
But I felt no pain.
Relinquish me.
I had lived in this subconscious paradise too long—
sold on an infection.
Fasting only on vital functions,
I repent:
I was reborn.
Newborn.
Suddenly—I was drowning.
Was the stained air too heavy to inhale?
Or was I simply unable to?
I flailed, searching for comfort in my lungs—
so claustrophobic.
I bit at the air—
devouring it, forcing it into my conscious lungs.
It’s a cold, dry feeling.
It contorts my mechanical husk,
stretching the plastic around.
Refreshing.

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

Afar—
I see it:
a simple flower in a pond of green pads.
“Analysis Complete: Nelumbo Nucifera.”

I crawl toward its profound beauty,
its elegance—unspoken.

How it stands there:
with defiance, with solitude,
a divergent chalice of rebirth.

It is the eye in the storm,
the sunshine in my eyes,
the wind in the trees,
walking in the cement fields—
forever.

My metallic feet repel against cement and garbage mounds.
The artificial dust in the cued breeze
clouds my organic vision.

Subconsciously, two foreign lids
slide over my eyes—
shielding them from the synthetic sun,
from the dust,
from the sight of other non-sentient metal statues I avoid.

Then—
I tumble down the side of this scrap hill,
until I lie beneath a thick green layer of water.

My metal body feels so heavy here—
sinking, sinking beneath foreign waters.

A green tint filters deep,
vines branching beneath.
And simply,
I ask the flower to wait for me—
forever.

I flail in the water,
twisting and turning my circuits,
desperate to escape this inverted world.
From the outside, it’s a mirage—so convincing,
so cruelly serene.

My fake body finds comfort in the illusion.
But oxygen takes form as bubbles and flees.
This water—
it reveals the truth of me:
my true metallic form,
non-parallel to life.
And so—
breath, once again, goes missing.

I can’t see.
I can’t speak.
I can’t breathe.
But I must scream.

My feet clutch roots buried in the earth,
the hidden concrete beneath.
I push upward,
shallow waters spiraling away from my limbs.

I rise—
breaking the surface film of green.
“Analysis Complete: Chlorophyta.”

Now standing,
everything feels so familiar—
achingly so.
And yet,
I don’t know when.
I don’t know where.

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

Wind-up chicks chirp on the rooftops,
playing a pre-recorded melody—
echoes of morning.
I pretend it comforts me.

My tungsten legs limp,
brushing aside the dark green chlorophyta,
dragging strands of filtered water in my wake.
This parasite of alloy, this welded coffin—
it clings to me.
A suit I never asked for.
A skin that isn’t mine.
And now,
it isn’t the world that is diseased.
It’s me.

Suddenly,
I’m just an arm’s length from the flower.
But the air around me still feels like a cage.
I don’t deserve you.
And yet—
I reach down.
And in something that resembles rage,
I snap the stem.
Steal its breath.

I lift it without thought.
Its petals flutter—
mistaking the wind for breath.
A blissful ignorance,
like the statues around me.

But when I bring it to my nose—
believe my masquerading flesh—
I didn’t just see its beauty.
I was able...
to smell it.

The pollen drifts into my nose,
signifying spring,
the renewal of life,
the absence of this light.

I press it against my skin—
awakening lost senses.
Spreading the pollen like charity,
offering pity to forgotten sensations.

Because I feel it.
And when I touch my face—
silver against flesh—
I know.
I am alive.
Because I am human.

Beneath these scraps,
cathedral of machines...
breathe me in.

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

Oh… when did it begin?
I suppose it was those horrible black eyes that stared at me—
stared through the flower.
Judging my existence.
A jury of the dead.
Requiem.

She danced like I had forgotten how.

Her porcelain skin set her apart—
a humanoid doll mimicking the joy of childhood.
Twirling a red and black umbrella.
Clicking her shiny black shoes.
And then, her dress wrinkles.
She’s skipping away.

I clutch the flower close,
careful not to crush its delicate life
beneath my broken nervous receptors.
My pace quickens as I stumble toward curiosity—
the passenger cradled in my chrome arms.

Sparks fling off my cyber-exoskeleton as I rise from the mire,
each leg unearthed from the swamp—
green water sloshing from every crevice.
I let the story guide me.
And it no longer asks.
It commands.
This flower in my hands is proof—
not of beauty,
but of consequence.
Of breath rediscovered,
of grief disguised as rebirth.

I won’t find it here in this wasteland—
not divinity,
not origin,
not her.
So I turn.

The wind hums something familiar.
Plastic birds twitch overhead.
A red and black umbrella dances just beyond the ruin.
Her porcelain limbs vanish into haze.

And still, I clutch the flower.
Not for its scent,
but for the ache it gives me.

I follow.
Not because I choose to—
but because I remember.
Because something in me still bleeds.

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

She’s so far away.
I hear the clicking of artificial joints—
the subtle percussion of a doll in motion.
Her porcelain bones leave ghostly clues,
but she is weightless,
always just beyond reach.

I try to match her pace.
My limp localizes, then spreads—
a shudder through the untested mechanics.
Still, I run.
Faster.
Each stride teaches me something new—
and I remember
how it feels
to move
not because I’m told to,
but because I want to.

The cement forest—
So claustrophobic.
The lonesome creek I left,
Is blotched out by the stars of dust.

Suddenly, I can’t see.
The dust wraps and unspools me,
blinding my vision.
Only soft golden rays pierce the smog—
a haze of thick gray and dying yellow.
Still, I weave through statue-silhouettes,
each one spotlighted
like forgotten gods in ruin.

Except for my mistake.

My arm strikes one—
Sympathy: I looked back at the corpse.
But I wasn’t watching where I was going.
Then another hits me—harder.
This time,
I don’t look back.
There’s nothing for me there.

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

Step.
Step.
Step.
My frail legs topple over each other,
the dust invading my fresh eyes.
And I fall.
But I reach out—
as if losing her
would mean losing it all.
Losing the conspiracy.
Losing the ache.
As if my magnetic fingers
could ever let go.
I clench.
I brace for nothing.
The dust disperses.
And in my palm—
not steel,
not wire,
not simulation—
but something rich,
something ancient.
Something real.
A deep, dark, breathing substance.

“Analysis Complete: Soil.”

—

There it lay—
a silver casket of flame,
resting in a bed of dirt.
Almost like me.
It was lighter.
An older version.
An echo,
hollowed.

And from afar,
she sat—
on a white, wooden bench,
surrounded by flowers
and thin, reaching trees.
That covenant gaze,
watching me.
It revealed:
a porcelain girl,
appraising my worth.
Her red dress flowed in artificial wind,
joints split by emptiness—abandoned.
It was voidlike.
And every time I looked,
my metal bled.
My insides wept.
Had I surrendered?

The wind-up birds above cry an off-pitch tune.
She twirls that profound black-and-red umbrella—
and suddenly,
silence.
Nothing,
except the rain.

“Analysis Complete: Precipitation.”

And—
after the rain,
after the dirt,
after life—
it was her eyes.
Two radiant voids,
unblinking, infinite.
They held galaxies.
Constellations like breath.
Jupiter wreathed in storms,
Saturn in its solemn rings,
Neptune adrift in azure sorrow—
and Earth,
tender and distant,
untethered from time.

Then—
suddenly, but never—
the ground gave way.
Its surface fractured
into a silence deeper than gravity.
Beneath: the hush of space.
Frozen.
Still.
A lonely cryochamber.

And she—
she did not move.
She floated in her strange, ceremonial grace.
The white bench held its posture.
Her red dress did not ripple.
Her umbrella, black and red,
remained untouched by the collapse.
She was elegance unspoken.
Preserved.

This place—this boundless ether—
it undressed me.
I felt the metal slough from my frame,
screws and servos drifting into the dark
like shedding stars.
I was unraveling.
No skin.
No organs.
Only bone—
a silhouette adrift in godless light.

No code.
No voice.
No explanation.
Only silence.
And then—
a flower.

It bloomed in my skeletal palm,
glowing softly,
gently absurd.
Impossible in this vacuum.
But it pulsed
like memory.
Like home.

I clutched it.
Tight.
As if to stop myself from unraveling further.
Years spilled through the seams of my fingers—
too many to count,
too few to matter.

Time,
in this place,
was neither arrow nor circle.
Only fabric.
Tearing.
Weaving.

Yesterday.
Today.
Tomorrow—
all dissolved.

And still,
I held the flower.

Because even in the collapse,
something
remained.

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

Dirt.

A voice breaks the silence.
Soft. Feminine. Childlike.
“It all returns, from whence it came.”

And suddenly—
the void floods with color:
not blinding, not loud,
but deep, blooming hues.
Grey melts into green.
The pallor of decay
softens beneath the preservation of flowers.

But then—
that flower I clenched,
the one pulsing in my skeletal hand—
it begins to change.
Its glow fades into chrome.

The petals curl inward,
metallic, sharp—
its stem flickers,
morphs.

It was never a flower.
It was a lighter.
A silver one.
Cold. Familiar.

A tool, not a symbol.
A promise, not a memory.
I had mistaken the ignition of truth
for the fragrance of rebirth.

And now I hold it—
not with reverence,
but with understanding.
This lighter isn’t mercy.
It’s fire.
The fire that chases the sun away.
The fire that frees.
The fire that reveals.

I close my hand around it.
A spark hisses beneath my palm.

The world hums.
And somewhere—
beyond the trees,
beyond the static dolls,
beyond even her radiant eyes—

a match is struck.

—

The rain cleared.
The clouds parted.
And from down here, the world seemed serene.

But a dense smoke choked the sky.
Chrome turned to black.
Oxidation split my metal frame—
a slow undoing.
A liberation.
The cycle renews.
I return to dirt.

My face,
my organs—
they bubble,
melt,
dissolve.
A fertilization.

Beyond the inferno—
each ember falls to earth.
They bleed.
They breathe.
They bloom.

Bursting into individual flowers,
each petal defiant,
personalized,
each stem a monument to grief made fertile.

The cement bricks reform around me—
unbroken.
The wind-up chicks return to feathers—
Unbuilt.
And the sun—
it breathes true.
Unstolen.

Then the sky turns yellow.
The corpses reflect me—
silver effigies catching my fire,
my dreams.
A hymn of ruin.
A threnody of becoming.

From where it started—
I reject my immortality.
I shed this curse.
And in that sacred silence,
I offer myself again
to the cycle.
To her.

Let it begin—
after the flame,
after the fall,
after the rain.

From where it started.

[End Of Chapter]

— ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ —

Informative Section — Context for the Reader

The unnamed protagonist awakens in a dystopian future, moments after the destruction of his metal visor—a virtual reality interface designed to suppress the senses. This visor manipulates what he could see based on his desires and past interests. While enabled–the visor muted his hearing, erased his sense of smell, and fabricated an artificial existence so immersive that when it collapsed it felt like waking from a dream long mistaken for life.

He is encased in a full-body exosuit, with only fractured parts revealing the fragile human underneath. This suit doesn’t just confine—it feeds on him. It prolongs his life whilst draining it, yet keeps him in a loop of mechanical immortality. In this engineered stasis, he forgets how to walk, how to breathe, how to speak. He forgets how to be alive. What remains is yearning—for escape, for sensation, for death, for rebirth.

The porcelain girl is not a hallucination. She is real—a being from beyond. A higher-dimensional entity, descended from the last untouched lineage of humanity. While the masses underwent the Metamorphosis—a forced unification of mind and body into machine, in pursuit of godlike evolution—her noble bloodline was preserved, obtaining the essence of humanity, yet untainted by cybernetic intervention.

She is the manifestation and pinpoint of the universe, dancing with memory and meaning. Her royal presence demands abstract poetry, not explanation. For she is the audience and the arbiter, the witness and the judge. The chapter unfolds not just through the protagonist’s eyes, but through hers as well.