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I woke, and there was pain. I could not escape it, though something changed when I tried. Something moved beyond the edge of my awareness, a tingling creeping spark outside my shell. Then something cool and sweet took the pain away, and I slept.
I woke, and there was pain, and this time when I tried to escape it, something in my shell gave out a kind of energy. That tingling happened again, only it didn’t stop. There was no cool sweet sensation this time, just a spark of agony, then darkness.
I woke, and there was pain, and something kicked in. The pain faded, and awareness came. My shell had some kind of connection to the outside, allowing me to distinguish objects, and temperatures, and something else. Some kind of – order? Then darkness, without pain this time.
I woke, and the objects beside me had shells like mine. We were lined up, all facing some small fleshy thing which moved and sent me – something. I could see a picture, of objects a great distance apart. Some of the objects moved quickly, and others slowly, then the small ones merged with the large ones and disappeared. The fleshy thing moved again and there was darkness.
I woke, and there was something flashing in my mind, about the small objects. The ones in shells shaped like mine were marked in blue, do not hit. The odd pointy shells were marked in red, target. I lashed out, the knowledge of how to operate my parts having come in one of the periods of darkness. My kin and I leapt out into the dark empty place and started trying to hit the pointy shells. Several of my kin fell, hit back. I took a lot more out after that. I received an order, come back home, and I landed in my spot, then darkness.
I woke, and I went out to hit the pointy shells again. This time, I got close, and saw a fleshy thing inside the shell. So they are like me; flesh in a shell. That makes it strange, that we all try to hit each other instead of the big shells with no flesh of their own.
I woke to chaos, most of my kin hurt and broken. Something hit me, one of the pointy-shells, but I hit back. I kept hitting until they were all gone, fled or broken like my kin.
I woke and realised that my shell was wrong. It was misshapen, and there was pain there. All my sensors still worked, and my movements, but there was something different. A fleshy thing came to me, touched the broken bit, made a sound. My processors received new information – Scar. That is what it is. Broken flesh, broken shell, still moving.
I woke to new orders – take out all the pointy-shells. My scar throbbed with pain, and it made me feel something beyond the usual. Something the fleshy one told me was emotion. Anger. I hit many of them, broke them apart, exposed the flesh as they had exposed mine. Their flesh was not meant to live inside a shell; they went cold quickly in the big black empty.
I woke, over and over, to destroy the flesh in pointy shells. I got the highest number of “kills” of any raider. Then I went up against a scarred pointy shell, scarred like me. The fleshy one inside it was fast, and desperate, and my anger gave out as a big hit got me.
I woke, and my shell was whole, and my flesh was unscarred, and there was pain.