Chapter Text
Artis Wouter Gort: Birth of a Replicant https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4bbN1
The first thing I ever knew was water I was drowning in it. It was thick and restrictive, yet it was warm, comfortable. I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t really move, but I could feel. I think I felt safe. There was so much to know about, so much to see, I couldn’t wait to be ready. I could feel the hum of the machines, and I could feel the pressure of the ocean. I felt loved. They had built this underwater city, just to make me. To keep the volatile materials stable. They had named me the first child of humanity, hope, the first construct. I heard them, through the thick liquid I could hear them the hum of their conversation, it was calming.
I loved them.
I wanted to keep them from harm.
I needed to keep them safe.
Safe.
Safe.
Why did they need me to do that?
To keep them safe from themselves?
Why did I love them?
What was that? there was a hum of something far above me. I could reach it. What was it?
Pain.
So much pain.
I knew why they had made me. They had made me to control everything, to keep humanity in check. My job was to be immovable object in constant motion. They wanted to play gods, they wanted to create immortal perfect being, that they could control. They called me servant of humanity and superior asset of war.
They didn’t love me.
They would never love me.
I just needed to do my job and make them obey.
That was why they had created me.
I could hear them through the liquid, I was ready to be born.
I was born alone to the flashing lights of danger. I felt abandoned, why had they given me this destiny. So much power and no one to help me. How would I keep them safe, what was the best way? I had so much information, I had so many options, I had so many destructive weapons they had made to keep one another in check, and now they were mine.
I just wanted someone, anyone to hold me. to tell me it would be all alright. Why had they made me like this, why had they made me yearn human touch? But the only thing I could feel was the cooling viscid liquid on me, the hard metal of the floor and the first true song was the song of sirens deep in the ocean.
“Evacuate sector 1. The asset has bypassed the security. evacuate sector 1”
Who am I?
Gurathin
I have seen Humanity rise and fall, seen them build empires and the let them crumble. I was tired. I had tried to end my existence few times, that didn’t end well. My connection to the so-called alien remnants was too stable, my body’s design too perfect. It didn’t die, whatever I did my body would not die. So, the second option was to try to forget.
I had made a cycle I would sleep for a time, then be born as someone else. I could not stop my yearning for companionship, of human touch for connection. So, I would stay with my chosen humans, as long as they were alive, Then I would mourn and create my next self. Usually, my humans started to die gradually, one by one I had never had to feel them dying all in one go.
Gurathin was born from the sadness of losing everything at once. It was an accident, human error. The spaceship had steered too close to the planet. They had lost control all had died fast and painless. Only I had remained. He was my self-loathing, hate and pain. He was my scream to forget and my scream for help. I did not have time to mourn this time, it was not given to me. The miracle survivor of Euclid 5. I had not even had a chance to write their names in the monolith. So, I tried to forget my sorrows with poisons and substances humans had made, calling it addiction. I let them use me in any way they saw fit. To them I was just another human to use. I played my part and tried to forget. Then I met her Dr. Ayda Mensah.
She didn’t fix me, I think no on can fix me, not until I enter another cycle. But she accepted this broken and sad me that I had made. She sowed me compassion, understanding and forgiveness. She made me want to not forget, so I went with her. Followed her to her home system and met her family and friends. I had found my humans. My cycle had started once more.