I saw the silhouette of a man down the hall. When he passed through angles of light, I saw he was part man and part machine. Like a figure from a William Gibson novel, his humanity (if you could call it that) had forged with the bio-tech implanted into his body. Outside there was war being fought for the preservation of our homeland, and we were fading fast. The cybernetic hunter came nearer and I took off down the hall running. I was surprised to find my body so tiny and spry, like a child. Inside the darkness a voice echoed "child of the abyss".
I ran to an alcove and grabbing hold of the door frame I swung into the alcove and jammed my heels down against the edges as I fell fast. Several times that scene cycled over in front of me. Several times I couldn't run fast enough. No matter what I did he was always right behind me. By the time I reached the bottom it was too late. My arms were pulled out and shackled in mid-air as my feet hit the ground. His obsession with destroying our kind led him here, at the behest of his own people, who were on the verge of cutting off his assistance. He had gone too far, and they were unwilling to pay his price. But somebody would.
He pulled my hair back and sang frightful hymns in my ear. He wanted answers that I was unwilling to provide. Information about the Nexian advance. Information on military maneuvers. He didn't need to know if he had the element of surprise - that much was clear. He tore open my clothes and assaulted me, in search of something that I wasn't willing to offer, that he would claim for his possession just the same. Electric lashes burned into my flesh. Screaming for anyone who might have returned to the castle, but none were available.
As if peering through a window I watched as our men died one at a time. The only one to hear my screams was our Prince, but he was powerless to do anything. In front of my dissociated and hazy eyes I glimpsed a note from one of our own. His name was Alex. And before the haze I watched as he made plans to offer me up to the hunter for exchange for a chance to bring down the military establishment of the Nexian advance. In a flash I cried out to the abyss, and caught a glimpse of his undoing, when the Prince cut him down where he stood.
The war had ended in the Nexian destruction, but for me, the nightmare had only begun. I was taken back by the hunter, and imprisoned in the encampment, assimilated into a cybernetic creature like himself, and re-educated. When the cybermen tore our country apart, they generally took prisoners to train into soldiers. I gave birth to a son in the encampment. The hunter claimed me as a possession, in a loveless coupling.
Abuse and frigidity were the things he gave freely and often received in full. As the years waned he occasionally exhibited compassion, though I don't know where he learned it from. The only person I showed any compassion was my son. As for my son's father, I gave him nothing but hate and apathy. Living and serving in among the cybermen I learned how use that cold disposition to my advantage.
A few years later we fought one last time. This time in front of the boy. We threw punches and slit each other's sides with bio-engineered weapons. In the dialogue that followed I made it clear that he was the cause of it all - my hateful chill, my rejection of his passions, my refusal to show compassion to someone who could revel in the hate he had given me. Disapproving of the way I spoke of him in front of the boy he knocked me down.
As I turned my head to face him, I licked the blood from my lips and stared him down. I wasn't about to forget, and I made it known that he would never have what it was that he truly wanted. Deeply pained by this, and the guilt of what he, driven by his own passions and obsessions, had done to get it, he left us. He left the outpost. Later my son and I also left, but we never saw him again.
0
