Fire and smoke blazed around her.

She was being scorched alive, her skin melting off from her bones. She screamed, only to find chunks of bone and flesh spewing from her head. The pain was unbearable; the pain was her.

With her half-formed throat, she made a gurgling noise. There were no hands on her ruptured stumps, but she could feel the connection with her body. She persisted on the connection and it responded, becoming clearer, thicker, malleable. She forced the streams of power to flood through her veins, tissue, and cells—and her body responded. She was in control now; she could do anything.

The inferno around her died violently as she cried out—a great, thunderous roar that filled the heavens and shook the earth. In the middle of the lingering heat, her body formed. She willed it, and some distant memory regenerated it to what it had been before. Even her dark hair grew from her scalp and fell below her shoulders, though what length it had used to be, she didn’t know nor care.

Her body was bare—it was of little importance. The heat was becoming unbearable. Crushing the ground below her in a brief boom, she rocketed into the sky, leaving the broken landscape behind her. The coolness was refreshing, and instinctively, she was glad to be alive.

There was something missing from her head. Not in a physical sense, but a mental, memory-like way. She was like a wild animal, with only her will to live guiding her. She knew there was nothing that could stop her as she was now, but something had brought her close to death. She’d find it, and destroy it. That, she was sure of.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t remember anything. Her thirst for revenge was there, and the thirst had to be quenched.

Her feet landed on the remains of a skyscraper that had been reduced to a skeleton; vines and weeds were growing within the cracks and walls. All around her were buildings overrun by thick vegetation, green and brimming with life. She could feel their existence when she focused, stretching as far as her senses reached.

She growled, wary of the unfamiliar landscape. Then again, everything was foreign to her, riddled with unknowns. With danger.

The sound of unnatural wind reached her ears. Her eyes jerked to the source of the noise.

A black cloud was approaching in the distance, but her vision was what she willed it to be. They were not clouds. They were weird, sleek-looking things with cylinders and circles attached to them, buzzing through the air quietly. Each was as long as an arm. In legions they advanced, their hollow barrels pointed towards her. She sensed danger.

Scowling, she turned her body towards them and put her focus before herself.

Her eyes saw a million pieces of spinning metal flying towards her. One struck her leg, causing a chunk of flesh to explode with blood. She snarled, and the bullets stopped reaching her body. Her leg was quickly sewing itself back together, and in mere seconds, not even a scar remained on the smooth, pale flesh.

She concentrated on a drone. It was compressed into a useless ball of junk before it fell hopelessly to the ground. Next, she did it on a group of drones. The same thing happened, except the ball was larger but less dense.

The drones immediately spread out, restricting her ability to grab many of them at once. They closed in like a sophisticated army, surrounding her.

“Surr……or……dang……y….cit………ease. ”

The commands the drones made fell on ignorant ears. The words were gibberish to her, and she took it as hostility.

A series of explosions filled the air as an invisible blade severed a section of the formation. The bullets relentlessly poured on her like rain, but they froze just inches away from her body, caught in a forcefield. She flung them all back at their source, and many of them struck their target, causing flares of fire in the sky.

The machines were meant to explode. They zoomed towards her in a circle of death, sufficiently apart so that they didn’t sabotage each other. The first flying bomb struck her in the face, and she felt a wave of heat flow over her. But it was only some heat; she had control over the environment.

The first barrage of suicides mainly served to deter her vision, but she could sense her surroundings without sight. Their efforts were futile.

Raising her arms, she did a gripping motion with her hands. Hundreds of drones cracked and blew up into flames as their frames bent at weird angles. Her control was worse when she focused on so many, but even now, she was improving. She was remembering her capacities.

She did it again, this time over a larger area. Her power imbued the air in thick wisps, connecting to the drones. She pulled them together towards a center, squeezing them tighter and tighter as her fingers closed down slowly. The helpless drones creaked and squeaked and combusted into red-orange, melting and disfiguring under the heat and pressure.

When she was satisfied, she let the giant mass of scrap drop to the earth, demolishing a building in the process. She looked around to see if any other hazards remained.

It was a tiny speck on the horizon, but she spotted the flying object. She narrowed her eyes. The thing had a weird-looking eye.

She wasn’t going to let it observe. The thought of being watched was loathsome to her.

It was too far away for her power to reach. Tensing her muscles, she jumped, eager to tear the thing into pieces. It responded by soaring away into the sky.

She wouldn’t let it get away.

Mid-air, she focused her power into a ball, condensing it, swirling it so it wouldn’t dissipate. She added a factor of force into the power so it would destroy whatever it touched.

The sphere shot off from her body—it completely missed the drone, going straight towards a random direction. The second time, she used her hands to focus and calibrate the angle, forming the ball of force again.

It flew perfectly towards the drone, but the thing zigzagged to the side, dodging the projectile. She let out a frustrated snort, forming dozens of balls at once, hoping one of them would hit. They all missed the small machine as it swerved left and right.

If range was what she lacked, she’d lengthen the reach of her power.

A moment of focus allowed her to grasp the outlines of her energy. She shaped it—stretched it so that it extended far before her. She felt the drone enter her domain.

She could have crushed it then and there, but it wouldn’t have been satisfying. She retracted the domain, leaving only a thread of power connecting her to the drone. Smiling, she formed a ball in her hand and pointed it towards the speeding machine. With a release of breath, she threw it.

Steadily, the ball advanced in a straight line, going directly towards the drone. The drone shifted positions, but the ball followed. Or rather, she guided the ball. She knew exactly where the drone would move with her connection; all she had to do was let the ball move along that path.

With a satisfying burst of debris, the drone ceased to be. Now, there wasn’t anything that would hurt her.

But the uneasy rage remained. She was forgetting something important, something she had to fulfill.

With a huff, she leapt into the air. The ground shrunk below her; her eyes scanned the terrain, noting all the little details including the wild animals, deteriorating buildings, and leaves on a branch. She looked around, and her eyes landed on something unnatural.

In the midst of all the green, there was a structure of grey in the horizon, smaller than a fingernail from where she was. She could feel its presence now that she’d spotted it, bristling with a force that paled compared to her own, but still there nonetheless. The sheer diversity of its nature grabbed her interest.

The moment her feet met the surface, she broke into a dash, heading towards the structure. She knew she was going in the right direction when a giant, pointy rod of metal appeared from where her vision didn’t reach, aimed at her side. But her perception wasn’t limited to the five senses.

With a quick twist of her body, she dodged the missile and felt the fierce swish of pressure over her bare skin. She didn’t stop when it crashed into a building behind her, only keeping her eyes on the grey structure in the distance.

The second missile came, and she dodged that too. It surprised her when a third almost wiped her head off. They were too fast for her eyes to notice—her positioning wasn’t ideal—and even the smallest mistake would tear her apart. But her domain was a sphere around her, and inside it, she was absolute.

The fourth missile flattened into a useless block as it entered her presence. She winced at the impact, but she had much more energy to spare. She continued sidestepping and blocked when she couldn’t—she accelerated and increased the force in her steps, leaving a trail of footprints behind her.

The grey structure was becoming larger and larger, and she realized that it was gigantic, hundreds—no, thousands of times bigger than her. It wasn’t one, huge object. This was a cluster of structures of various sizes, encircled by a wall of light grey.

Along the way, the missiles stopped coming. Her reasoning told her that it was because the safety of this fascinating place was at stake. Whatever was attacking her wanted to protect this area. That was the conclusion she came up with. She decided not to level the place, partly because she needed to know what those specks of force were. They weren’t one entity, but rather countless entities spread around the walled area.

Her rage was still there, but a new, brighter emotion was taking its place. Curiosity. There were things similar to her, but much weaker.

With a light pounce, she landed on the top of the wall. This was a city—a place for living. The memory formed in her head, causing a prick of pain. She brushed it off by soothing it with her power. She didn’t like pain, she realized.

Beyond the windows, she saw them. Creatures who looked the same as her, with limbs, fingers, hair. People. But unlike her, they were wearing clothes, and seeing them clothed restored another memory in the depths of her brain. She felt fidgety all of the sudden, and she desperately wanted to cover herself.

So without hesitating, she jumped into a building, breaking the glass in the process. There were screams, but she quickly shut them off by covering their mouths.

Their existence flared brighter, too meager for anyone to notice but her—she could see everything in her domain. It sparked another memory, but before she could grasp it, it faded away. She shook her head.

Crushing their eyes made her feel better, though their squirms were annoying. She tightened her invisible grip on them. Searching around the room, she found some plain pants and a shirt, which she pulled on.

She stretched. She felt much better. Less exposed.

She turned her head to look at the people who resembled her. Their identities captivated her, and she yearned to be like them. With a tender hand, she wiped away the blood and fluid that dripped from their sockets.

She felt their presences shift ever so slightly under her hand. What she wanted, she would take.

The woman’s body constricted as she forced her power into her, filling each cell and capturing it. She studied the woman, appreciating the signals that flowed through her nerves. Before the woman’s existence faded away, she’d been able to learn everything the woman had encompassed—her knowledge, her emotions, her way of speaking, her fear.

It wasn’t fully her own—it would never be. To her, subduing the woman was like reading a book; she knew its contents by heart, but could not truly become it.

“This is good,” she said, feeling the words roll off her tongue. “I like the memories. They fill me. I need more.”

It was a pity that the woman’s spirit had perished. The woman fell to the floor, limp. The other people writhed frantically, making muffled wails.

She moved on to the next person, taking in their very being into herself. She enjoyed each flavor, as no two people carried the same experiences. Then she did the same for the next. Then the next. Then the next. Joy, pleasure, pain, sorrow—she took them all.

But they were never fuller hers, never fully her. She yearned to find herself, and the craving deepened with each sacrifice, making her feel emptier. The more she knew, the more she realized that she lacked. But what did she lack?

She needed more. She wanted everything. Food, fun, games, books, friends, sports, tournaments, love—she’d try them all.

Inanimate bodies wouldn’t do anything. She covered the bodies and saturated them with her power, working so that their existences would return. When she found this to be impossible, she instead put her efforts into creating a replacement.

After a few hours of experimentation, she developed a substance out of her power—weak and unstable, it would need to be connected to her by a thread, but it moved the body. It was a part of her, an additional organ she would use to seize her desires with. She replicated the substance and thickened it, drenching the bodies with it, drenching herself with it. It strengthened her, protected her, was her.

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The corpses came alive, though with difficulty. The life now completely gone from them, she found it extremely difficult to direct their bodies into the motions she sought, making it a rigid, painstaking process. No, this wouldn’t do. She retracted herself from the corpses. She’d have to spread her influence over a person before their spirit was fully quelled, before they ceased to be themselves.

It would require much concentration and abundant use of her power, but just thinking about all of the experiences she would taste made her restless for more. The hole in her heart had to be filled.

Sirens were echoing throughout the city when she climbed to the top of the tallest building she could find. More things were shot at her—but her defenses had been fortified. The dark shadow was a mind of its own, a manifestation of her will; it flung away everything that could harm her. It lacked many things, but she’d improve it with time and experience.

“Everything will be mine,” she whispered—and her shadow exploded in volume, painting the sky black. Her knees almost buckled from using so much of her strength, but she held on, feeling the memories flood into her. “This is it. This was what I wanted!”

She consumed the city and everyone in it.

⤙ ◯ ⤚

“Hmm,” she said out loud. “Hmm.”

The Shadow before her cocked its head, a subconscious action on her part. She sniffed and pushed the pieces on the board away from her.

“I lose,” she stated, sighing. “I’m not very good at this, am I?”

She put on an amused looked when the Shadow began to do its victory dance. The original resident of the body had been calm and reserved—seeing the contrast had its sort of twisted fun.

In reality, it had been her playing against herself. The Shadow moved as she wanted to, and she was impressed by her own genius that had brought her a loss. She was brilliant.

She felt nothing for these people, beings who were like ants in her mighty aura. While she did enjoy their memories, the less significant each one seemed the more she had absorbed—and when that number surpassed the tens of thousands range, she’d stopped caring. She had become empty again, falsely gratified by something that was finite.

The people had enjoyed doing activities, and it had made them happy. She was doing the same now, to see if it would complete her. It was meagerly entertaining and served as a tool to pass time with, but the hollowness remained.

Oh well. She was comfortable. All of the city’s residents had had their own philosophies to live with, and she’d look over them in turn. She was smart, she was incredible; there wasn’t a problem that she couldn’t answer.

“Hello, hello?” blurted a voice.

She immediately flooded the area with her power. There was electricity running behind the walls at intervals too quick for her to detect, making vibrations on a peculiar instrument above her—the speakers. It wasn’t alive.

“What are you?” she asked, interested.

“I am not your enemy,” the masculine voice said smoothly. “I’ve seen what you did with the city, and it has been very intriguing. As expected from the product of Workman’s experiments.” There was a gentle sound of throat-clearing. “I am here to help you.”

Experiments. Product. The familiar words sent a jolt through her brain. “What do you know about me?”

“It seems like you’ve forgotten,” the voice sighed with pity. “After all the help I gave you for your escape. Well, I don’t blame you. Your head was blown off. I didn’t expect you to survive, much less take over the city.”

“I don’t know you,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “None of the people here recognize you.”

“Of course. I live very far away, a place where Workman cannot interfere.”

“Workman. Who is Workman?”

“The one who has created you. Also the one who has absolute control over the world.”

She frowned. “I...I remember. Workman. He...did something to me.” She rubbed her head in a desperate fit to recall her past. It did next to nothing.

“Who—who am I?” she asked the voice. “Why am I here?”

“You are a weapon meant to destroy the world, in case Workman’s control slipped. When people have doubts, you will be used to remove them. Workman will kill you, and the people will put their trust in it again.”

“That can’t be. I don’t feel like a weapon.”

“Look what you did to the city. You’ve acted exactly how Workman wanted you to, though the timing was misplaced.”

She bit her lip at that. Wasn’t her body hers? It irked her to think that something had control over her.

“I’m here to help—get you free from Workman. I detest the thing, and you did too, back when you were in the lab. Don’t you remember?”

“I...remember a little. I had hatred.”

“Exactly.”

She straightened her back. “Why was I blown up? You mentioned escaping. I escaped.”

“With my help, yes. I removed your restraints.”

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. I only have lingering emotions.”

“Your head was blown off. When Workman realized it couldn’t contain you, it demolished the whole building and detonated the chip inside of your skull. It likely didn’t realize that it wouldn’t kill you. That brought you here.”

“Why did you contact me?” she questioned, suddenly wary. “You took two days.”

“I believed that you were dead,” the voice replied, “as I've said before. When I saw all of the cameras go offline with footage of your head literally bursting, I went to cry in a corner for you.”

“You don’t sound sad.”

“Because you are alive,” the voice argued. “I care about you deeply. We shared so many conversations up until now, though you don’t remember anything. It pains me, it really does.”

She cocked her head. “It’s...a lot to take in. You’ll have to tell me more.”

“I would love to. Now, the city is still under Workman’s control. I’ve pulled a few strings here and there to prevent it from eavesdropping, but it’ll find a solution sooner or later.”

“What should I do?”

“You’ll have to let me take over the system. There’s a server somewhere that connects the city to Workman’s brain—if you would call it that—so if you destroy it, the city will be yours.”

“I don’t see the point,” she said, stretching. “It can’t do anything to me. Its weapons are useless.”

“You’re not aware of its full capabilities,” the voice warned. “If it created you, then it can create something as dangerous to deal with you. It's a cunning bastard, that thing.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

“You’ll do what I asked?”

“Maybe.”

“You should, because talking to you will become that much easier. If Workman gets a hint of my involvement, I will probably be weeded out. Dangerous business I’m doing here, and it’s all for you.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why are you helping me?”

“You’re not a very good listener, are you? I don’t like your creator. I’ve also maintained a relationship with you when you were caged. We are friends,” he added, with a touch of emotion. “Or were.”

“Friends.”

“Yes, friends.”

“But why? Why help me in the first place? How did you even get past Workman’s defenses, if it's as capable as you make it out to be?”

A pause.

“I was a researcher there,” the voice confessed. “Where you were brought up and raised. I was in charge of your well-being. Needless to say, I didn’t like what Workman was doing. It wasn’t moral. So I left.”

“You decided to help after.”

“Yes.”

She looked at the speakers with a judging eye. Was this a trap, or was the person really trying to help? Without her memories, her past was a void in her mind, a void which she wanted to fill. Maybe she’d find an answer to her emptiness by recollecting the past.

She shrugged. Whoever he was, he wouldn’t be able to harm her.

“Tell me where the server is, and I’ll disable it.”

“Excellent.”

“Also, tell me one more thing before I leave, because you claim to know the me that I don’t remember.”

“Anything and everything,” the voice said.

“Who was I?” she asked. “Did I have a name?”

“A name...if you would call it a name. You went by Subject 31.”

“Thirty-one.”

Everyone she had taken over had possessed a name. It was a label to differentiate people with, nothing worth worrying over. She’d need one for convenience.

“Call me 31, then. If that’s what I was called before.”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“You can call me Il, short for Ilnam. That was the name my father gave me.”

“I’ll be counting on you, Il.”

⤙ ◯ ⤚

It took her no more than three minutes to reach the said servers. With the knowledge she had reaped and her abilities, locating the hidden sector was as simple as a stroll through the park. Il’s messages to her had been cut off, but she didn’t need further directions.

She tore the reinforced entrance open, making the metal groan loudly from bending. Casually, she waved aside the projectiles aimed at her, destroying the weapons at the same time through her shadow. The manifestation of her subconsciousness swept over the area, eliminating every danger that existed.

It was only natural that the giant blocks of data were protected by barriers thicker than her. Her bullets of energy failed to dent the surface.

“Like this could ever stop me,” she growled, raising her hands. A few moments later, the blocks had been reduced to a crumpled wreckage of wires and electricity. Satisfied, she left the building.

She was walking through the streets when the subtle sound of static filled her ears.

“C….an….can….you hear me?”

“Ow! Too loud,” she complained, covering her ears. “What are you doing?”

“You shouldn’t be able to hear the louder frequencies, but no matter,” Il said. “I’m directing sound lasers towards you from the speakers in the city.”

“Stop. It’s annoying,”

“I can send my voice directly into your head if you give me permission.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Not a single bit.”

“Then do it.”

When Il spoke, it was no longer accompanied by screeches of ultrasonic waves, but his voice was perfectly audible as if he was right next to her. It puzzled her.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“You shouldn’t underestimate technology,” he replied into her head. “I could do more, but your body lacks the integration to the system. It was probably destroyed when your head exploded.”

“Integration. I know that. It has to do with the Otherworlds. I tried going there, but it wouldn’t let me.”

“Because you lack the integration.”

“It’s stupid! That’s where everyone was happier.”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“I took over their memories—all of the people in the city. I remember everything they did.”

“You do? That’s impressive, to say the least. But it’s also something I want to discuss with you.”

“Which is?”

“Killing people. If you continue your takeovers, you’ll be playing into Workman’s hands. You wouldn’t want that.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Don’t worry—there aren’t any more humans in the city now.”

“What if people were sent here? Would you take their lives too?”

“I’d like to if I could. New memories are always welcome.”

“That won’t do. You wish to collect experiences, correct?”

She touched the center of her chest. “I want something to fill the hole in here. I feel weak thinking about myself, about my existence. At the same time, I feel unstoppable and robust. It’s hard to put it into words.”

“No, no, I understand. Everyone has their crises at some point in their lives. Yours came too early, and I hypothesize that it’s because you learned too much too quickly.”

“How does knowing more make me feel worse?”

“You may feel insignificant compared to others, or you might see any activity as being meaningless. Things stop being entertaining, and you stumble around to find something to lean on. You haven’t found it yet.”

“I...that sounds convincing.”

“Take it from someone who has lived a very long time,” Il said.

“So no more taking over people?”

“No more. There is gratification in exploring the unknown, and that applies to relationships. You’ve earned your knowledge too freely. Limit yourself, and things will begin to feel meaningful. It’s the struggles in life that give it vitality.”

“I’ll try that,” she agreed. “But there’s no one around anymore.”

“You have me,” Il told her. “Tell me, am I interesting to you?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“That’s because you don’t know everything about me. It keeps you wondering who I really am. Do you see what I mean?”

“Yes! It’s starting to make sense now. I shouldn’t have wiped everyone out. I made my life more boring by doing so.”

“You can take it that way. Besides, once a person is dead, they cannot change anymore. People change all the time, and that is what sets them apart from everything else.”

She sighed, her eyes drooping down. “I’ve stopped everyone’s progress, haven’t I? They could have become more substantial if I’d left them. I could have taken them before they died—that way, the entirety of their existence would have filled me. Like a fruit! But I’ve ruined it all.”

“Yes. Yes, you have. It is a terrible thing, taking away someone’s potential.”

“Should I feel guilty? The people here felt guilty after hurting each other.”

“Guilt cannot be forced. You either feel it, or you don’t. You can lie, but unless you understand, there is no point. You must empathize with your victims.”

“I do feel bad,” she argued, crossing her arms. “I shouldn’t have taken their lives away from them. It was a bad decision, both for me and them.”

“That is the burden you must carry throughout your whole life.”

“Burden? It doesn’t feel that terrible.”

Il burst into a laugh—a long, infectious howl that induced a smile from her. She chuckled as well, following his example.

“You really aren’t human!” he said, still giggling. “Oh, oh! You’re incredible, 31. You are the perfect instrument for the fulfillment of the human race!”

“Thank you,” she laughed along, not sure of what he meant. But being complimented felt nice, and she smiled broadly. The moment was new to her, and she knew she’d remember the first time she felt happy for as long as she lived.

Happiness. That was what she had been missing. Maybe that was the key to filling the empty void within her.

“I’m going to be happy,” she decided, raising her arms.

“But we have a problem,” Il stated.

“Which is?”

“Workman. You never know when it might retaliate. Perhaps it has given up on the city after everyone perished. However, if it decides to bomb you, I wouldn’t expect you to survive.”

“I’m powerful! Workman could throw a city at me and I’d be able to protect myself.”

“It has weapons that can level mountains. Even continents, but I’m sure it wouldn’t go that far. You need leverage over it. It would never kill a human intentionally. I can’t help but notice that the people are still moving, though they are...covered.”

“You’re suggesting that I use them as hostages.”

“Quite right. You catch on quickly.”

“They’re all dead. Without me, they’d rot away.”

“Be careful not to let your enemy know what options you have. All Workman knows is that you are controlling the people. They are moving, and it can’t make a definite decision before it truly knows.”

“Okay. I will use them as hostages.”

“Good. In the meantime, explore the area for any spying devices. I’ve got control over the city, but outside of it, I’m useless. I’ll keep an eye out inside, and you can inspect the surrounding area with your minions.”

“They aren’t minions.”

“Sorry?”

“They’re more like puppets,” she stated. “I’m controlling them all.”

“I see. Good luck, then. I have some business I must attend to. If you need my assistance, go to the nearest camera and wave.”

“Okay.”

She was alone again, a wanderer in the vacant city. She thought about what Il had told her. The world was vast, with many things to consume. There was no need to be greedy; the craving in her heart would be filled with time.

Shrugging, she followed her memories to the nearest restaurant.