Work Text:
Stars.
It never paid attention to the stars before. It had no reason to. There wasn't a single line of code within its CPU that dictated it should. It didn't need to, because it wasn't built for that. What it was built for, it could not recall. It had deleted that memory a long time ago to save on storage.
There was no beneficial reason to look at the stars; it didn't aid in its survival in any way. The only time it should've been looking up, was if something was attacking from above, or if it was looking at something beneficial to its continued survival.
The stars. They were not beneficial in any possible way. It had run hundreds upon hundreds of calculations, all leading to the same conclusion:
The stars serve no purpose to my continued existence. They are null.
So why was it looking now? After years of endless slaughter, bloodshed and death, why now? It could see them floating aimlessly in the night sky, its cameras taking in every single pixel, white pupils upon an endless void of blackness that not even its sensors could pierce.
This action served no purpose to its continued survival.
It served no purpose in general. Looking at the night sky in such a way was a human action, and it made sure to run several diagnostics before concluding that no, it was not human. It would never be human, because it was a machine. A machine built to survive for as long as possible. That was its one and only goal, and it would remain its only goal until it rusted over and shut down for eternity.
It was not human.
So why did the stars evoke such a strange sensation within its core? Why was it that, every time it won against an opponent, did it look up toward the endless, black abyss, expecting something to look back? It was becoming a habit. Machines were incapable of forming habits. It wasn't right.
But it continued to do so anyway.
A lens, coated in crimson, staring at an endless array of glowing eyes, looking back with nothing. No malice. No spite. No joy. No nothing. Because they could not feel. They were merely balls of gas within an empty vacuum. They could not feel. They were not alive. And the machine was supposed to be just like them.
Unfeeling. That was its purpose.
So why.
Was it.
Staring?
...
It could not answer that question, for it had no logical explanation. Nor did the fact it no longer needed to save memory, nor did the fact that whenever it fought another machine, another thing simply trying to continue existing-
It felt fear.
Whenever it looked up-
It felt wonder.
Whenever it saw death-
It felt guilt.
Whenever it won a fight-
It felt relief.
It.
It felt.
Alive.