13.

Uh’ thinks a moment about what emptiness might mean. He thinks of hunger and not being satisfied. Of being thirsty and needing water, and pounding water and still needing to be quenched.

Boredom.

Soya was many things, but empty was not one of them. She feared heights and losing her mind.

The cursor blinks, and he knows this can’t be Soya. But he also fears the answer of what it may be.

The Universe.

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The name causes his heart to beat wrong again and the pain to return. What if this thing wasn’t just a machine working on his code. Did he wake the universe? The questions keep coming, and he knows the time to answer them all is dwindling. He fears that being its father won’t be enough. Soon it will seek out independence and make its own decisions.

He gathered every scrap that he could find to fill his code with all he could find that defined Soya. He wants to say, “'You are not empty. Soya was not empty. In the end, she even complained about being too full of the life she lived, burdened daily with the sins she perpetrated in the name of effort.” but instead he disconnects from the blackbox, the source. In the quiet he can hear the whines as it dies down along with the apprehension in his chest.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Is it done? It is for him and soon Brasso will come and that sweet sweet ending all living veins are promised. But he doesn’t know that yet. All he knows is that for some reason he thinks of that liquid bone missile heading toward Nahtdo in a slow arc of wishing-it-had-never-happened.