Through the darkness my senses returned to me one at a time. First it was my sense of touch which slowly transformed into discomforting, numbing pain localised to the back of my head while everything above my elbow was sore and even my ankles ached something fierce. It felt like some top-heavy person stood on my ankle for a whole minute. Even with my eyes shielded shut, my sense of sight was returning to me. I sensed the dim light breaking through to reach my eyes, I started squeezing them shut to give me more time to rest, I wanted to sleep. But alas my efforts were found to be futile and I opened them hesitantly, what I saw proved to be more shocking than I had expected. This is when my memories decided to come back to me in my shocked state. The demon, Thomas; I remembered he placed something over me before I was surrounded by darkness while those baleful crimson stare staring deeply into me long after the world had faded into darkness. Everything around me was shaded in a bright red colour or some variant shade thereof. Darker or lighter I still found it to be shown in red. It was more than overwhelming for my mind to process it all, a heads-up display was graffitied on my view. Lots of information was blatantly vandalising my eyesight and I couldn’t make sense of it yet. My eye movements kept trying to look away in some hope of seeing beyond the information but it moved along with my eyes. I feared I had made a grave mistake having cyber gear installed.

In addition to the compounding headache I was suffering from, I felt parched and starving. I tried to reach over to massage my scalp, instead my reinforced synthetic hands hit my head and I cursed under my breath. I tried bringing my hands to my eyes and as I had expected they were changed and replaced. It was eerie how lifelike my forearms looked were it not for the visible joint lines dividing my forearm into smaller components. I held my synthetic hand up to my face and suddenly realised it felt like my arm had gone numb, it was still there, still attached to me and obeyed my whims whenever I flexed my proverbial muscles, but I could not feel it. Breathing became shaky and my anxiety started to overwhelm me. I looked around the waiting room to see Thomas sleeping on the couch. For a moment, my panic driven mindset made me think he was dead the way his head leaned on his shoulder. His body jumped and his eyes suddenly opened and he looked directly towards me, his hand went up to his face and rubbed the crust that had gathered around his eyes while making a soft moaning sound.

“T-Thomas?” I said shakily.

He responded by standing up and hastily walking around the coffee table to kneel down next to me and placing his hand on my forehead.

When he spoke, the words came out distorted with a slight echo. “Hey there buddy, how’re you feeling?”

After two unsuccessful attempts to massage my head ending in failure, I made one final attempt but this time Thomas grabbed my hand and set it back down on my lap. “What are you trying to do?” He asked with worry.

I explained to him my skull splitting headache and he placed both his hands over my ears, his face showed me concern and worry. I felt sad.

“Anything aside from the headaches? Numbness, low picture quality?” He continued in a modulated voice.

I tried to establish eye contact, but all the information displayed over my cornea made it difficult to focus. “I… Uhm, all I see is red and all this useless information over my sight” Rotating my wrist around my face to further enunciate my problem. “I hear things but it sounds like some kind of voice filter.”

After giving me one gentle nod, my older brother stood up with his arm around my back to support my wobbling stance. My now inorganic replacements for feet didn’t register to me until I felt the pressure in my ankles confuse me, Thomas said something, groaning while struggling to lift my limp form off the ground and over to the surgical room. Even though my hearing had become crystal clear in quality, I was still fazed by the distorted voice that made me unable to clearly think about something Thomas said. The longer I stared through those faux replacements the less I was certain that I was still human.

Thomas sat me down gently on the surgical chair and in an instant, pain had sharply gripped my body. Thomas apologised, sucking through his teeth, he sat down on the stool next to me and leaned toward the diagnostic machine. The clacking of the keys being pressed in rapid succession and the silent chirping of the computer powering up its interior workings was all I could hear before I felt something invade my neck. My whole body flinched and I tried to lean away from it, regardless that I still felt the intrusive feeling insert itself into my neck. Shortly after a progress bar popped into existence across my vision, pale blue filled the bar quickly reaching one hundred percent in only a few seconds. I started to panic about what it meant; was I being hacked like I heard so often?

“Buddy, relax. You are going to be fine” Thomas said reassuringly.

I wanted to believe him, I wanted to feel safe but nothing has felt safe in weeks. Now even my own thoughts and actions might not be my own anymore. The pounding headache I was already a victim of worsened its assault in me before I let tears flow from my prosthetic eyes. I hated this. I want to be normal again!

Thoughts turned sour as I struggled to get out of the chair, Thomas rapidly tapped at his keyboard before triumphantly tapping at the enter key. Instantly the fog that clouded my thoughts soon lifted, taking the migraine along with it. Finally, I was free of the pain. It was so relieving that my eyes had grown misty again from the tears welling up again only this time out of joy and relief which was just enough to make me forget the soreness that I felt everywhere.

I turned to face Thomas on my left side when he started speaking “You were panicking, I accessed your processor and got your brain to release endorphins into your body to help calm you down.”

“Funny word, isn’t it? Endorphins. Sounds a lot like dolphins, doesn’t it?” I said chuckling.

Thomas planted his hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, it’s meant to make you happy, I need you to relax while I synchronise all your gear. That’s why your hearing is funny and the reason why your heads-up display isn’t going away. This won’t take but a moment.”

For a few moments I sat idly staring at the white tile ceiling while Thomas worked. The fruits of his labour soon made itself known as my hearing became clearer and normal sounding once again while my vision cleared up, suddenly colour was returned to me and everything wasn’t viewed in a bright red shade. Even the white tile ceiling was colourful in ways I never noticed before. Something clicked in my brain in my idle state, something that felt like a piece was missing but has now been returned to its rightful place and I couldn’t figure it out. I turned again to face Thomas and tried to give him a thumbs up for restoring my eyesight and it finally hit me. After seeing my hand respond how I wanted it to, it finally made sense that the feeling I had before was my processor connecting to the new limbs. I could feel my fingers move to how I instructed them and the sensation of pressure returning to me. I sat up in amazement observing my wrist movements.

“All your new parts are connecting and talking to one another through your coprocessor; you should be able to move them as though they are your real parts. Try touching each finger to your thumb.”

I did as instructed.

On both hands, my thumb tapped each individual finger in quick but clumsily succession; Index, middle, ring, pinkie. First time it seemed as though my coordination was off by a centimetre which I attempted to correct on the second attempt at the excersize; Index, middle, ring and pinkie finger. This time it seemed as though I had improved coordination within the next two attempts of the exercise. I told my brain that my last two fingers were slightly longer than my organic replacements and thus throwing off my coordination.

Third time truly was the charm, I smiled as I succeeded on the fourth attempt. I heard the door to the office open and I looked up to see Senator Clarke enter the room and look at me with a sense of pride.

“Looking good, there.” He pointed a finger gun at me. “How do you feel champ?”

“I’d say I feel like shit if Thomas didn’t just tell my brain to make happy juice” I spat unknowingly.

Clarke looked over to my brother, then his eyes glanced back toward me shortly before excusing himself out of the surgery room. Thomas ran more setup programs and established the connections in me. How did he do it without realising he had butchered his own brother for this I will never know.

“How long was I out?” I asked him.

“Roughly fifteen hours.” He responded. “Not nearly enough time to fully recover after the work that’s been done to you.”

The effects of the applied dose of Endorphins began wearing off, it became apparent that Thomas knew this when he started observing my face quite closely with a worried expression. I wasn’t going to lie to him by hiding the fact that I did indeed feel tired and sore again. Nothing could be done about it while my processor scrolled data across my view as it executed functions and established connections to my other parts.

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After ten minutes of sitting and looking at each other I was relieved when Thomas told me it was okay for me to start walking on my own two feet which had been removed just like my hands. Before I was quite adamant about having unnecessary work performed on me but Tom was quite convincing if he could install Feliform Digitigrade replacements for my lower legs, claiming it was capable of muffling my footsteps, especially with the acoustic dampers installed.

Thomas assisted me in getting out of the surgical chair, it creaked and groaned as I felt my back slowly peeling off the faux leather upholstery and on to my newly prosthetic feet which had looked like a pale imitation of a large cat or some animal with a raised heel. Thomas warned me that the added height would throw my balance off even if I was an inch and a half taller than I was.

I asked Thomas when we were going to leave and he assured me we would leave as soon as I was fully recovered and then we would make our way to the Barrier and run. He went on to explain that while I was unconscious, he and Clarke had already made sure to have everything packed, they plotted out the route we were going to take to get out.

Shortly after I lied down on my bed pile, I let the unconscious realm state consume me. Ever since I woke up a short while before I had felt the energy being sucked out of me from pain and recovery, I wasn’t ready for something like this. Most patients just take drugs after getting such an extensive surgery but I had no such luxury with me, I was lucky to be able to use my remaining natural body under the weight of my new machined limbs. When I closed my eyelids, I began a series of thoughts about whether or not I could still dream. Would I still see my dreams through my minds eye, would the random assortment of mildly altered memories and kaleidoscopic colours be recorded by my neural coprocessor? Sold off to the mega-corporation’s when they return to rebuild the community in their perverted image?

Three hours of rest later I found I had no recollection of my dreams if I even experienced any. It seemed so trivial and yet the fact I didn’t had me concerned. I found that the new limbs started feeling more normal to me. The pressure sensors built in to simulate the sensation of touch seemed to be working fine which allowed me to be able to stand up and use my hands in a fashion I was more accustomed to. Didn’t even feel tired at all now with the only pain I felt was my stomach loudly announcing to anyone in the room that I was hungry. Once I was inside the breakroom and unwrapped a protein bar and consumed it in my ravenous state, breaking it down to smaller portions before swallowing it. In the past I was always unenthused by our barely edible food stores but amidst my starvation I had consumed two whole bars in the span of five minutes. I caught myself halfway through consuming my third bar before I stopped to avoid getting cramps in my belly. Sure, enough I was proven right when shortly after I stopped myself I had felt full. Soon Thomas emerged out of the back entrance door and was glad to see I was doing better, to which he then complimented me on getting my skin colour back. I Wasn’t even aware I had lost it in the first place, nonetheless I responded by telling him I did indeed feel better.

Thomas then explained to me that he wanted to explain to me how to use my new feature, I cocked an eyebrow when he said it before he further explained. He elaborated to me by showing me how to use the software and weaponised components in my body so he took me to the service tunnel.

The first part that was taught to me was how to access the settings menu in my coprocessor which was linked to all my other implants. Thomas said I just needed to ‘will them’ into existence, treat them as though they were a natural part of my body and reach out to them. So, after straining myself I had accessed my settings menu which sent my vision back into the dark red filter I was already accustomed to. Similarly I had to will myself to select the options and scroll through them to adjust them to my wishes, however, Thomas assured me he had manually set them to accommodate my preferences so I took his word for it.

Next, he wanted to show me how to use the Hidden Blade in my arms. Alarm jolted me out of any concentration or awe I was experiencing before. It turns out that despite the expensive and articulate craftsmanship of the exterior form of my forearms contained within a concealed weapon that could be exposed at will. I held my arms out in front of me and imagined the blade itself coming out of my arm. The top facing plates of my forearms split and opened wide to allow the blade to rise out the interior casing and extend itself to almost twice the length of my arm in one split second motion. I felt an array of mixed emotions ranging from shock, terror and awe and intrigue. The sensors in my arms' dermal plates had continued operating as the plates opened up which sent alien and unfamiliar sensations to my brain.

I shook myself out of my surprise and brought the blades up for a closer inspection; long and narrow with a serrated edge pointing outward made it look like a comically large bread knife. I couldn’t resist the urge to practise swiping at the air, hearing the whoosh of the air as I sliced through the air cutting up invisible opponents. Thomas instructed me to imagine them going back into my arms to ‘disarm’ myself. Likewise, the blades shrank in on itself before lowering back into my arms while the exterior dermal plates closed in over them and sealing any proof that I had them. I stared wide eyed at my forearms with my mixed expressions.

“Pretty neat, eh? Fun fact: Those blades are made out of alloy called Ithinite. They don’t rust, corrode and once they are sharpened, they maintain that razor sharpness for years even with extensive use.” Thomas explained.

My lips quivered, struggling to speak. I found it difficult to find the words to convey exactly what I was thinking amidst the chaos of conflicting sides in my mind. On the one hand I felt a juvenile simplicity of enjoyment out of it and yet this was contrasted by the rational and ideological part of my mind that screamed at me to be repulsed, sickened, disgusted at how I look. And I did, I hated how fake I looked, I was nothing more than a hypocrite who sold out, not even the rationale of justifying it made the guilt and disgust I felt inside any easier to cope with. Maybe the cyberware would come in handy but until then I would never forgive myself for submitting myself to be butchered like some kind of sheep.

“Are-are these blades even legal?” the words blurted out.

Thomas chuckled heartily; his voice carried greatly in the concrete hallway. “Honestly? No. Those blades sell a fortune on the Black Market. The factory we got them from was probably transporting them to someplace where it is legal. Trioro probably; just about everything is legal there. But I doubt anybody is going to care about something like that right now.”

A frown etched its way onto my face. Thomas took notice of this and placed his arm around me in an attempt to comfort me. It seemed like he was doing that a lot more often than I was comfortable. Perhaps he knew I was suffering from extreme anxiety and this was his way to help comfort me. I made no attempt to talk to him about it. After a productive evening of learning more about the settings and adjusting them to my preference and likeness Thomas and I settled back down in the waiting room again. My backpack rested against the couch, sitting idly for the day for me to sling it over my shoulders and carry it with me to our journey. My hands ruffled through the pile of clothes that were either torn or dirty until I felt the creased photographs I kept of our parents and extracted it out. I touched their faces as my eyes grew misty from the spring of emotions bubbling deep inside me.

Is it normal to feel so emotional after such an extensive operation? Was it normal for me to be like this? I don’t think I am emotional but why am I like this, suddenly?

After setting the photo down and putting it safely away, I glanced over to Thomas who had his head buried in his hands. He mumbled something but even with my sensitive hearing it was still too muffled to be understood. Deliberately ignoring him I was then suddenly struck with a question that I hadn’t asked before.

“Hey Thomas, where’s Clarke?”

“He went to scout our most likely route just to make sure its all good. He should be back soon.” Thomas said, looking up out of his hands. “Hopefully we can avoid encountering any of those creatures.”

Without intending to do so I woke up abruptly from my nap, dammit, I just tried to close my eyes for a brief moment instead of going to sleep again. My mind told me someone was knocking on the front door but I ignored it. I had to be dreaming; Then I heard it again, the sound of someone’s hand clapping against the metal door with such rapidity it could only be interpreted as desperation. It was quick to get me out of my tired state that I shot up to my feet as my heart raced all the while I felt my hands shake. Odd, I would have suspected that the implementation of prosthetics would prevent this reaction from happening.

After forcing the door open, Clarke shoved his way in through the gap that was barely wide enough to let him shuffle in before closing it behind him. He looked short and out of breath, on his forehead a massive gash bright red and freshly bled drew my attention first so I reached out to touch before Clarke abruptly brushed my hand aside. He hunched over as he heaved deeply and took ragged breaths, speaking intermittently between each one. “Where is Thomas?”

“I’ll-I’ll go g-get him!”

Thomas was where I suspected he would be; in his office slumped on the desktop. He groaned and mumbled when I shook him awake and gave me a dirty look for disturbing him. “It’s Clarke, I think something is wrong.” I spoke.

Sure enough, his dirty look quickly shifted to suspicion and walked out of his office to see the still hunched over senator. Clarke shot up to greet Thomas had also tried to tend to the obvious gash on Clarke’s forehead, sure enough he brushed Thomas’s hand aside as well. At least I know it's not just me.

“What happened? What’s going on?” Thomas said worryingly.

Clarke took a deep breath before he began speaking. His face soon became bright red and his skin glistened as beads of sweat forming before trickling their way down. “That leader, Xareith. He’s looking for you guys!”

Thomas and I looked at each other eyes wide in shock “What!?” We said in unison.

“Well, actually. I’m not certain if it's you two they are after, but they are rounding up and collecting people to take to those camps they set up. Apparently Xareith knows about you two and that weird glowy magic shit.”

“You told him about that!?”

“I had to tell somebody; it was a weird thing.” Thomas defensively spoke. “Clarke, are you sure about this?”

“Positive, they are taking people that remotely resemble you guys. I don’t think Xareith knows it's you two but that dragon you encountered must have given him a vague description.”

“FUCK!” Thomas paced around the coffee table. He brought his hand to cover his mouth as he looked deep in thought. I had run my fingers through my hair as I started to feel my anxiety working up again. It was interrupted by Thomas who spoke loudly. “I got it, we leave right now. We take everything we packed and we go now.”

We all nodded in agreement, I didn’t want to stay here any longer and the thought of what would happen if we were discovered proved to be nothing good. I ran through the contents of my bag one final time, tugging at each zipper to close the compartments and then throwing my bag over my shoulders. The weight of the backpack was far heavier than I expected. Heavens above, this is going to start becoming a problem before we reach home. Thomas came out of his office with his backpack strapped to him along with Clarke who had his bright orange backpack hoisted upon his shoulders, I noticed that he leaned forward slightly from the weight of the bag might have exceeded his capabilities.

I asked Thomas about Marco and Kinsler looking after the shop and he replied, saying he was going to get in contact with them shortly, after that, he proceeded to instruct me to turn the power off at every switch and I did. First,the break room was powered down, next, I proceeded to turn off the equipment and lights in the surgery room, from there I then regrouped with Senator Clarke and Thomas who were eagerly waiting on me by the front door. Thomas was the first to exit through but not before instructing me to turn off the lights in the waiting room. As I reached for the switch I took a quick glance over to my bed pile one last time. What caught my eye was the photo I kept of mum and dad poking out of the folds of the blankets. I frowned looking at it and reached out to grab it and shove it into one of my pants pockets before turning off the light switch, leaving the room in perpetual darkness. The only light source came from the three moons outside which bled through the gap in the door. I saw Thomas gesturing to me to hurry up and after getting my backpack through the gap, I followed suit and closed the door behind me for the last time before turning around to face the city encapsulated in darkness. Were it not for the moon light I would not have been able to see the towering, lifeless monoliths of capitalistic greed. Hollow shrines dedicated to money now lay abandoned by its masters. Down below the balcony, the numerous fires burn brightly throughout the streets, dimly illuminating the surface.

“Alright, is the path still good?” Thomas said. I turned around to face him only to see he was talking to Clarke.

“Yeah,” Clarke nodded. “It's good, on my way back I noticed they were looking for you.”

Thomas extended his arm out pointing to the end of the balcony. “Alright, lets go. Come, Michael.”

I followed closely behind them, after ten steps I stopped and turned to look back at the front door one last time then I whispered “Good bye.” Before turning around and taking my first tentative steps toward our journey. Towards the Cauldron and towards the Dragon Lord. The adventure finally begins.