The metal doors open as Cain enters the domed white room. He espies the empty pod his daughter was housed in, his tattered lab clothes, made refuse by contact with the spotless floor, his amalgamation gun, and the mangled clump of steel that had once been alive. A disturbing wreck in his eyes, the place is just as he remembers it, though creatures like him commonly misremember the occasional event. Of course, there is one thing missing from the picture in his memory. He had worn it and crushed it beneath his heel; it is his watch, their key, and it is missing because he seized it.

He walks to the crumpled form and stares down on it with remorseless eyes. He begins to pace back and forth, his glare unbreaking upon those twisted remains of Clara. He straightens his lab coat and begins to speak.

“In the last weeks, I have begun to notice a change in my daughter. She is drifting from the loyally timid girl under my thumb. She is questioning, disobeying, seeing her mother. I figured it would come to this.”

Silence.

“What?” He gives a shocked laugh in reply to the stillness. “No movement or sound to retort? I know you are in there. You cannot hide from me. My daughter saw you where I could not. She saw a Remnant.”

Fists clenching, he points at the curled contrivance.

“You thought you could stall my operation. You thought you could change things because of this.” The man holds up the remains of his watch and they glisten as they sway back and forth.

He grabs the amalgamation gun.

“She cannot leave now, you know. She cannot run or hide. I protect the girl, feed her, house her. I give her everything, and she will obey me. You want to believe you are helping her, helping everyone, but who is in that medical ward? Who is tending to her wounds at this very moment? Who stayed there for her? Me, and it is all because of one of your Remnants. Who’s fault is that?” His eyes begin to well up. “Why did you leave us? Why did you leave me alone at my weakest? Why did you leave your daughter all alone? She needs a mother, she needs you, and you abandoned her. You’re terrible, you’re despicable, you might even be worse than me.”

It was true her leaving had made a gaping hole in her daughter’s heart.

I had to run, you know that. I couldn’t take her with me. I couldn’t do anything to help her. I had to leave her, without my voice to encourage her, to love her, to tell her she could fight through one day at a time. I had to abandon her.

Ghostly weeping reverberates distantly, like a seashell breathing an echo of ocean waves.

Cain smirks and instantly his expression is blank and the tears go dry. As he turns a nob, his amalgamation gun makes a sound like a condenser booting up.

“She speaks! I knew I could bring out the truth. I knew my performance would work.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The metallic mass goes silent again, and Cain only laughs.

“See, that performance is how the one you think of would have acted, yet I am not quite like the previous one, as I am sure you know.”

He circles the remains, standing straight with an air of false dignity. His eyes narrow in thought.

“You know, there’s an old verse from my childhood, our childhood, that comes to mind in times such as these. I believe you know it: ‘By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.’ My personal enhanced Hive will ward your kind away when you’re gone.”

He points the gun, and Clara sends one last message to her daughter.

...

In a lower room, a hidden ward, Nora lay. Cain is here too, operating on her because of that Remnant, but of this she is unaware. All she hears is the running, the panting, the racing heart, and all she sees is the scene in her head. In her lucid dream, she knows this is a memory of her mother’s, a warning.

The woman fled down the dingy ally. Everything was too quiet, and she knew they were near. She jumped onto what looked to be nothing and climbed. Their illusions would not fool her. What seemed to be the sounds of vicious dogs could be heard approaching from the distance. They were not dogs.

She fled through a well-kept street. Kids ran to and fro and adults talked amongst one another, a smile on their faces. The people there looked happy. But should one look more closely, he or she would see the numbers on their wrists, the undying labor, the unmistakable black cuffs of Wardens on their legs, and more than this, the true chains that bound them to all of this. She screamed for help, but they ignored her desperation. Their minds were dazed as crowds of them began to join an endless line of people stretching to the horizon. She stumbled through the line, taking a key card from an oblivious man with an unnatural smile.

She swiped the door to a building. It opened. She could hear the creatures gaining on her.

With a quick attempt, it was clear the elevator would not operate for her, for a prisoner. She darted from one dark hall to the next. It was like they were everywhere, their shadows, their noises following in relentless pursuit. They came closer and closer. She bolted to the shelter of an open-doored, lightless room. The footsteps clicked and trotted by the door. She could see a beast and smell its foul stench. It looked directly at her and stared for an endless moment. When it eventually left, there was a brief moment of ease, then as quickly as it came, it ended.

First, the door shut, letting darkness abound. Next, the spraying noise began. It was the silent mutter of death, it was gas. She leapt to the door, tried the handle. Clawing, crying, pounding at the door, she knew she had to get back. She had to make things right. She had to be there for her daughter. She had to let her know she loved her.

However, nothing could stop the inevitable.

Nora knows what this was, and she knows what to do. She can feel herself choking back the tears. She had clung to the anger, the bitterness, the despair for too long. And now, whether or not her mother deserved it, both of them would finally be free.

“I forgive you.”

...

.̸͖̪͋̏ŭ̵̖͕o̷̝̪̯̔͑̓ÿ̶̹̘͈̌̾ ̸̦͙̑̆̃e̷̢̦͇͘v̴͈̥̇͗̀į̴͍̱͘g̸̡̣̉r̶̢̟͒̋͐ô̵͇͔̖f̶͉̥͛ ̸̛̠͒̓Ì̵̪͕̉

The melting spectral form jumps out at Cain and he fires. Humanoid screeching resounds, then it stops, replaced by polluted, false peace.

It is done. The Remnant of Clara is no more.

Two voices ring out in unison. “For you were made from dust and to dust you will return.”