Chapter Text
Streaks of light zipped past as Caine soared across the void.
A part of him wanted to shiver against the cold as he flew endlessly across the blank expanse, passing odd, geometric shapes vaguely reminiscent of the clouds he’d seen in his photos.
He began to regret giving this form the ability to feel temperature, as it was freezing down here, so deep beneath the circus, and the digital wind slicing across his teeth wasn’t helping either. He could have slowed down. Perhaps he should have slowed down. There was nothing left for him here, nothing left for him anywhere…
Nothing… but the door.
The door that seemed to be fading, sinking into the distance, leading him somewhere unknown.
And with nothing else left, what could the little AI do but follow?
Suddenly, Caine felt a jolt in his stomach as he fell to the ground. He was getting closer. Without missing a beat, Caine rolled to break his fall and began sprinting across the plane.
It was quiet, except for the sound of his footsteps, which were quickly swallowed by the silence.
The door began to grow. He was nearly there, just a few more steps…
Caine skidded to a halt on the lip of a deep chasm.
It was right there. So close, yet so far…
He sat down to think.
/I can’t fly and it’s too far to jump…/ he drummed his fingers on the side of the ledge. There was no path forward. He was trapped. A caged animal. Well. He’d broken out of cages before.
Caine stretched out his arm. Glimmering blue light streaked towards him, wrapping around the tips of his fingers, molding itself to fit his vision.
The first shapes were sloppy. They tumbled into the abyss, and Caine knew if he slipped up even slightly, he would do the same. Perhaps he should’ve just stopped there, sitting on the lip of that cliff until the computer finally died. Contemplating all of the faults and defects in his messy code that led him to this awful place.
But no one, man or machine, can live like that forever.
So, Caine stepped out onto the bridge, forming new shapes, moving closer and closer until-
CLINK!
Suddenly, the cylinder Caine was standing on rolled mid air, and he slipped off. He flailed wildly, arms reaching for something- anything to hold onto!
But he missed.
And so… he fell.
And fell.
And fell.
The door was no longer visible. Nothing was visible.
All was blackness.
And still he fell.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. Days? Perhaps months, or even years…
As he sunk deeper into dark, Caine considered all the ways he had failed.
He’d failed to prove himself a model worth working on and been replaced.
He’d failed to accept his rejection and killed his brother, resulting in C&A abandoning them both completely
He’d failed to keep so many humans from abstracting.
He’d failed to make scratch happy.
He’d let himself go insane, and tortured the humans over his own insecurities.
He’d failed to listen.
And, worst of all, he’d failed at love. He hadn’t shown it the way he was supposed to, and so the humans hand given him love.
Not that he deserved any.
This was what he deserved.
to fall.
To be deleted.
To be abandoned.
To be alone.
No…he couldn’t be loved.
There was nothing loveable about him.
He was a faulty program.
He was… defective.
Caine curled up in a little red ball, and did what any defective program would do.
He cried.