The doors open.

There is no light. Only shadows and silhouettes from the darkness that befalls the lifeless world earlier every day. Cain examines the room of his laboratory. A window is shattered, the robot that was once here is gone. Aside from this difference, there is the same desk, there are the same glassy cabinets, neatly divided golem pieces, tarped inventions. And there is that empty shell in the corner. That machine with her face, her hair, that replica that never could replace Clara. A deactivated remnant. The man hurries through the dark room, unable to direct his eyes to the imitation. He instead glimpses at the framed picture on his desk. The nightly shade hides its contents from view, but in his mind’s eye, he can still see it. It was taken that day at the beach. The joyous life that once was, the life it shows, taunts him. But it will no longer taunt him. Not after today.

He swipes a card and the great force of a door departs into the wall. The door closing behind him, he enters a domed room, white as snow and occupied by a single metallic object, tall as a pine and of cylindrical shape. A thin misty stream trails out from the top of the machine. He places a hand on its frigid surface. He can feel the levers and gears turning and hear a repeating “thump.” I am so, so tired, Cain thinks, letting out a heavy breath. But I suppose you are, too. The contraption seems almost to be breathing with him, to share the pain. It nearly appears to understand. However, while life is in it, it is not alive.

The man savors the simplicity of this room, the trueness. There are no distractions or advertisements, no lies or obscurities. There are no more people to be taken. There is only the life that is and the life that is to come. His goal will soon reach its fruition. His greatest creation shall now be reborn.

He reminisces. Even when all the people were taken away, even when the only company to prevail were beasts of intermingled wires and foil and creatures of synthesized scraps, he never once lost sight of his goal. In the darkest shadows, the most violent storms, when his sanity was beginning to unravel, he could simply look to this tower, look to this room, and remember. Something great was happening. Cain had always imagined this moment with a theatrical air to it. The lights outside this building, many reaching to the heavens, are like stage lights at a show. The metallic door is his curtain. And he–why he is the actor on-stage, but the story is not about him. It never was.

A scraping sound of crashing steel reverberates from the other end of the room. Cain sighs, shuts his eyes tighter. Perhaps he can will away the intrusion upon this perfect moment. The sound grows in intensity and volume.

“Why?” rings out Clara’s voice. “Why did you do it?!”

She stands by the now wrenched open door, the only way in or out. She seems different. She moves toward him with smoother steps, her expressions are more rigid. She is no longer a ghostly white color; neither is she transparent.

Cain does not turn or flinch, only implores bitterly, “Why don’t you leave me alone? Why don’t you return to your justice that died with you in the grave? It takes all the people I ever killed to face my machines. Why do you think you can stop me on your own?”

Clara’s lips curl into a smile, and she announces, “I am the only invention you made differently, the only person that you could not control. While you turned everyone–the entire world–into this city and others like it, I was the only one you spared. And look at what your mercy has wrought. You made my DNA into this robot to replace me. I reactivated it, and with it as my puppet, my physical form, I will end this madness. Your greed and want for earthen possessions and power has isolated you from humanity, turned you into a monster. Why did you do it, ‘doctor?’”

Cain remembers the day at the beach. The sand was so soft, the air so fresh and warm. The girl was there. She was the one splashing in the waves and tickling him until he fell into the sand.

He recalls that day at the hospital. The terror of Clara was nothing compared to the look of dread on the girl’s slowly dying face. She was on the other side of the orange door. It was her sickness he was fighting.

He recollects the day at the zoo. She always loved the sparkle very berry, and it was she who had been in the crowd with Clara that day. That girl that looked like a younger Clara, that form his ghostly wife had taken previously–she was not Clara.

“You think my actions were for possession, power?” Cain laughs drily. “I did it for her, to end her sickness. The life serum could not heal her of it, and it could not give her life when she died. I did it to get the DNA needed for her to live, and I killed people for having it, for getting in my way!” Tears are streaming down his face, and his body is trembling. “You still don’t get it?! It was never for earthly gain. It was for my daughter, Nora!”

Comprehension strikes the automaton form. Clara appears to test the idea in her head, to humor the possibility that her daughter could return, but she pushes it inside of her, sacrificing emotion for truth. “Why kill another innocent person? Why don’t you end this, Cain?! You can choose to stop it, you can choose to fix all you have done! You killed everyone! You murdered every single person! I know you want it to be possible–she’s my daughter too. I’m sorry it had to end how it did. But no end justifies this means, and you can’t bring her back!!” The machine Clara inhabits grows stiffer as ghostly tears fall from its eyes.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Cain clenches his fists. “I will never stop until my daughter is back in my arms.”

There is a quietude shared between the two of them, but not peace. Cain turns to the metallic body and their eyes lock. Both share disappointment, and both are ready for what is coming next.

“You know,” Clara whispers, “through it all, I don’t know why, but I still love you. I guess that’s love in its truest form. Caring, helping, no matter what… Know what I am about to do is for your own good.”

The mechanical Clara lunges toward Cain. He fires his gun-like apparatus, and she is launched to the floor. He fires again, and she darts out of the gun’s range, racing toward him. He turns a red knob on the weapon, knowing there is no better time than now. A continual massive blast emanates from the mechanism, pulling the robot further and further away as Cain struggles to keep the gun in his hands. The golem features of Clara begin to stretch and tear as she reaches out a mangled hand, shrieking inhumanly.

Her spectral figure departs from the robot body, the puppet, gliding toward the man with voracious speed. She knocks him in the head with a semi-tangible fist, sending him backward and halting the flow of the amalgam gun. She reinhabits her android guise.

In an instant, she knocks the item from his hand and is on top of him.

The man’s vision focuses on his watch.

4:56. Four minutes.

Cain reaches desperately for the gun as the mess of metal and wires strangles him. He can feel the device with the tips of his fingers, but vision blurs as air and might begin to leave him. His view is dotted with black as everything starts to dim. He reaches for ideas in his clouded brain. He fights back to no avail. Still reaching. He can feel his face flushing with heat then begin to grow cold. He reaches further physically and mentally, and then it comes to him. He grabs the instrument, and with the dying strength that lingers, he pummels Clara’s machine face, turns a blue knob, and fires.

A shining blue stream traces the features of his robotic wife. Her fingers splay. Her shoulders shrivel and her arms grow thin. The mask that is her robotic face disintegrates, and the ghostly features of her true face come to the surface.

“Don’t do this!” she wails. “PLEASE!!” It’s that face again. That sick horror, that look of someone peering not into the eyes of a man but a monster.

As the robotic figure diminishes, the ghostly outline blurs and fades.

Cain stops the gun. The amount of Clara's mechanical semblance that remains is unrecognizable, and he lay there with the robotic figure scrunched on top of him.

The man’s vision slowly restores itself as he coughs and inhales weakly. His body is numb and his head is light. Quivering, he pushes the curled residue of the automaton off of his body and crawls to his feet, hardly able to lift himself.

Cain inspects the tall cylindrical contraption. It is shaking, steam is furling out of it, and the inside of it is red. It is growing colder as the noise, the movement, the struggle begin to diminish. It is as if it is dying. The man checks his watch.

4:58. Only two minutes before it happens. Only two minutes before Nora is gone forever.

He feels the exterior of the capsule-shaped structure. A small circle of the smooth surface begins to give way, and he presses it. The front of the contraption forms into a large apparatus with a tube, a few buttons, and a screen. He places the handle of the gun-like object onto the tube, it clicks in place, and the life serum holding his friend’s remains dispenses down it. Time stretches on in a single unbearable moment, then the screen lights up. It reads “incompatible material.”

Incompatible.

His breath leaves him. His stomach lurches with sickened grief. This cannot be the end for her. He has no words. She was a bright and fearless little girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. He was going to give it back. He was going to save her from the fate that overtook her many years ago. But he failed. He was a thief, a murderer–and for nothing. It was all for nothing.

His knuckles tighten. His fingers clench deeper and deeper into the skin of his palm. There is no color until the maroon of blood drips down his hands and to the floor. He watches it fall, not a sound. So vibrant but so pointless in the end. Everything was pointless without her.

Cain thinks of all the destruction the serum had caused, the destruction caused by his own flesh and blood. Another stain on a plain of white.

A tidal wave of pure anguish overtakes him, and he watches it drip and drip and drip. More blood sacrificed.

There is nothing left for him to take or to give. She needs DNA that does not exist. There is no more hope for his daughter. No more people, no more DNA.

Except his own.

He extends his hands, looking into the deep stinging cuts on his palms.

He checks the time on his watch.

4:59. One minute exactly.

He looks up at his gun, at the machine. He steps closer, dropping the watch on the floor and stepping on it. He strokes the cylindrical surface with fervid care. He thinks of that day at the beach one last time.

A light shoreline spread out into an endless field of reflected yellows, oranges, and amber reds. It twinkled as Nora played in it, sending saltwater speckling in all directions. Cain’s wife pulled him closer, kissed him with sincereness, chased him in a spirited game of tag. The girl tickled him, giving that perfect, innocent laugh. The three of them lumbered into the sand. While sand dappled their hair, water was at their feet, along with shimmering seashells and rocks, smoother and grander than all the world’s gold. The family hugged each other and giggled and bonded all that day. That sweet, perfect day.

Nora gave him a sense of fulfillment and joy that he would not trade for the world. She was the purpose he gave himself. If only he could live to see her rosy cheeks and feel her warm hug one last time.

This is his last act, his final curtain, but there will be many more to come. He smiles, trying to imagine it.

His thumb clenches the handle.

“It’s just you and I, now, old girl,” Cain says with distant fondness. “We are going to make it alright.”

A wave of blue flashes before him, then all goes silent.