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Do you ever wonder what it feels like to breathe?
That question had been running through 4’s mind for years. What does it feel like, to have to be so reliant on such a repetitive motion? Is the air cold? Does it hurt? Or is it instinctual. Does it feel like anything at all?
It's odd, to 4, how humans can view something so foreign as itself and assume it knows what they do. Breathing must be second nature to them, so must blinking. But it has never gasped, or breathed, or gotten air in its body on purpose. It has not blinked, eyes ever failing no matter how hard it tries. But that's not what intrigues it most, not the feeling of living. No.
It wonders what it feels like to drown. To choke. To watch everything fade away as the motion that you relied on to keep you alive ends up being your downfall. A human was so reliant on breathing, their only way to live. Yet it also gave them so many ways to die.
What did it feel like? Was it scary? Was it horrifying? Or was it peaceful? Was it sudden, where one moment you’re alive and the next you’re not, or was it gradual, where it all slowly drained from you like blood from a wound. Did it hurt? Did it burn? It heard that it burned when you didn't breathe, like your insides were on fire.
That was interesting. It was used to knives and guns and daggers, not simply ending someone's life with a firm hand around their throat. It could watch them writhe and squirm, watch the light fade out of their eyes like it watched them do to so many bots, under it’s own hand. It could watch as they burned inside.
This city was stupid. Filled with humans who acted like they owned the place, and androids who had been softened into the ideal way a human viewed one. This city was no place for defects, people who could think for themselves, yet weren’t truly living.
4 hated the humans. It hated them. It hated them so much. They had the audacity to welcome them, to say they were all equal, then go around parading the city like they owned it. That ‘Luke’ fella might, but he viewed himself as higher, and he was not. That fact infuriated it.
How dare they act like the bots didn't matter. How dare they make androids who were used as a tool. How dare they have the gall to say everyone is equal then purposely make someone lesser?!
It tightened its fingers around the fencepost it was gripping. It looked out at the waves, the one thing besides fire that could end both a bot and a human's life. It wondered if drowning felt the same to it as it did, say, the Raine lady. Would it burn for it? Would it feel like it was burning?
It had never burned before. But it had seen the consequences of it. It had seen charred bodies, burnt beyond recognition. And nobody did anything about it, instead leaving them out as scrap metal.
It desperately wanted to make its creators pay. Despite the fact they were long dead, 4 wanted nothing more than to shoot their bodies until the bones were shattered, until there was no more blood left to bleed. It wanted to see them scream and yell, it wanted to see what humans were made of. Both emotionally and physically.
The human body was so interesting! It bled, it burned, it ripped. And it was so dependent on everything. The weather! The environment! If anything a little too frightening came its way, the body would panic and run. Or do something stupid. It had seen its fair share of humans running headfirst into a battle field out of fear.
It wanted to study the bodies. How long did it take to bleed? Which places were most deadly? What hurt the most? Would burning alive be akin to drowning? Would being stabbed in the back hurt more than a broken ribcage?
And those pesky emotions! When 4 had defected, it was still dull compared to everything else. Compared to N.O.M, or K8-E, or Kade, it was quiet and unpredictable. Yet, ironically, their emotions were so human.
They got attached. They cared about people, they could manipulate and lie. They knew what made someone break, what could hurt someone. All traits both defected bots and humans had. It didnt know how it was supposed to feel so strongly, how to care so much for something that you would devote your life to it.
The humans cared so much for each other. It was unsure if it wanted to do that. It felt daunting. Yes, it cared for the androids who didn't know any better, but… they never learnt how to say no.
It idly remembered the interaction on the beach, with that ‘Sidefall’ (Sean?) person. They were so happy to be shot. So happy to see their life bleed drip by drip onto the sand. They threw away their humanity, almost. And that made it mad.
Everything about a body was so alive. It never got that privilege. The humans that made it didn't even bother treating it like a person. Other bots looked human, or looked kind. They were soft, they smiled, they had eyes full of emotion. Yet here it was, alone in discomfort. Its eyes barely focused in daylight, let alone when it rained. Its rusty leg, full of bullet holes. The inhumane features it had. Well, despite the weird wheeled shoes everyone made fun of it for.
This entire city made it want to scream. It hated it. Its systems were failing already. It couldn't do it again. There were threats everywhere, and stupid Ish. It rolled its eyes and stared into space, ignoring the beeping in its head. It hated it, it hated it, it hated it.
It didn’t know what to think anymore. Between seeing the trenches of war, defecting on its own and still being treated as a weapon, feelings felt like a burden.
It wondered if breathing sometimes felt like a burden to humans as well.