'This can't be happening… How can I have such bad luck!?'
Dave blamed his terrible luck as he looked down at his lacerated body. He wanted to facepalm, a simple gesture he had done so many times during his life. But his right arm and part of his torso had vanished.
'What the hell hit me!?'
Even though he saw the state of his body, his mind remained clear. It was all so sudden that his brain failed to process what happened.
He fell to the ground, now painted red with his own blood, head lying motionless on the cold floor. He looked into the horizon and saw the destruction happening all around the city.
'Is this it? Just when I got my life back...'
Like a wave, a life full of regrets came crashing down on him in his final hour. The biggest of all, his little sister. He hadn't seen her in years and wouldn't even recognize her anymore. The guilt he felt kept him away from her, all this time.
'Little sis… I’m sorry… I...'
His final thought.
The entire world came to a stop and, after a moment that seemed to last forever, he finally closed his eyes.
[Emergency subroutine initialized] … [Emergency subroutine initialized]
[Compatible host detected] … [Conflict resolved] … [Begin transfer]
[Transfer complete] … [Rebooting]
He felt a buzzing in his head that quickly dissipated and, for a second, all the pain was gone. He was at peace.
...
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
A short-lived peace...
Jolted awake by a massive headache. His mind spun as a terrible motion sickness took over his entire body. He wanted to open his eyes, he wanted to scream, he wanted to move… But nothing in his body seemed to work. Trapped inside his own body, Dave started to panic and his mind eventually collapsed.
...
When he came back to his senses, Dave immediately tried to move his fingers again. Success! It was a small twitch, but he felt tremendous joy. He was alive! He knew he could recover, in time. This accident would be just another bump in the road.
As his bustling mind settled down, he tried to perceive the state of his body. He struggled to open his eyes, but had to shut them down immediately. Submerged in some kind of liquid, he could feel a mask over his face, providing him with fresh oxygen.
'Am I in a hospital? Is this liquid part of a treatment…?'
He never heard of something like that before. It reminded him of the anime he saw when he was a kid. A healing capsule filled with a liquid that would miraculously heal a person.
'...my missing arm!'
It took him a while to realize that the fingers he moved when he woke up shouldn't be there anymore... At first, he thought that his arm had been reattached somehow, but he quickly dismissed that idea. Whatever lacerated his body left nothing behind… And where would they attach an arm when half the torso was missing too... A phantom sensation? A prosthetic arm? Maybe the healing capsule was real? All kinds of crazy ideas flooded his mind.
In the end, a simple fact remained. Dave was alive and whole again! The important thing was to find out what happened and where he was.
'I’m sure Hal will fill me in on all the details.'
[Analysing host’s body] … [Analysis complete]
[Emergency subroutine terminated] … [Emergency subroutine terminated]
Dave was startled by the robotic voice he heard in his head. There wasn't a big difference from Hal’s usual monotonic tone, but he could tell that something was wrong! The simple thought that Hal was damaged gave him a chill down his spine. The consequences of that would be terrifying.
(Hal, what 's wrong? Why the robotic voice?)
Hal’s response came in the form of a report sent directly to Dave’s mind.
……...
Species: Human Chimera (Artificial)
Age: 15
Health Status: Poor / Undernourished / Exhausted
Anomalies detected: Crystallized Ring Surrounding Heart (Implanted) / Abnormal Circulatory System / Abnormal Muscle Density / Abnormal Bone Density
Assimilation: 73% (decreasing)
………