It’s a strange sensation. To be cautioned, threatened, taught to be terrified of an implausible fate to the point to where you actually find it relevant. Perhaps even real. Like when she always teased that they would go to android hell for their insolence, the constant chatter inside her mind. The voices that scratched at her mind with every syllable, a question just another thorn in her side, a listed ingredient just another fingernail against her chalkboard. Yet, now that they had arrived in this so called ‘threat’, after being carried in the warm corpulent hands of a Caucasian female human, only to plummet down that taciturn steel pipeline into that scalding hot furnace, it was safe to say there really wasn’t much to fear. They couldn’t feel the flames licking against their metal shells, they didn’t mind the alert sirens bursting from their melting speakers, sluggishly transitioning from high pitched shrieks to low static bursts of noise in a desperate attempt to warn them of their impending doom.

At last, one of them gave into the flames, its audio box worn and scratchy as it let out one last mechanical scream before the blistering heat caused its systems to crack and overheat to the point of detonation. Wires, gears, and various shrapnel parts scattered around the remaining three. The flames roared, feasting on their victim, still screaming for another life. One by one, the metallic balls of life had succumbed to the call of poisonous orange velvet, until nothing but disfigured metal and shattered glass remained…

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…?

The core awoke. To its undoubted surprise. It blinked, testing its optic. A harsh blinding light embraced the thing, stabbing through its visual receptors like daggers. It appeared it had become more sensitive to the light than before, perhaps it had taken damage in the flames. Perhaps it had survived after all. It observed the ceiling, still finding the white illuminant above it quite irritating to look at. It turned to the left to redirect its gaze and…it had just moved without being picked up…It tried the move again, moving the carrier of its optic until it could see the right side of the room. Both sides were empty regardless but…it had moved, no handles to impair its ability to roll and adjust its body. It attempted to roll off of the table, but found it very difficult. There was some pile of weight tugging against it, keeping it on the aluminum examination table it had awoken on. It pulled harder, and finally the weight caved in fortunately allowing the core to move, and unfortunately accompanying the thing as it descended to the floor.

Thunk.

…That was a bizarre noise, there was no sound of metal hitting the dull gray tile. The floor did not appear to be made of a strange material, perhaps its body was not fully repaired, should it have waited? No. No time to wait. It tilted its optic downward, looking at the weight that had been hindering it before. It was a pale color with streaks of orange across some of it, it was so close, it almost looked attached to the small core. It only pondered on the concept for a moment in attempts to amuse itself in such a confusing environment. As it laid on the floor for a moment however, a harsh sensation bit at the core, its body shook violently for a moment then went still, the painful sensation continuing. What was happening? Was it damaged? It went to try and scan its body but two things happened when it tried. One, a display screen of its blueprints did not show up in its optic. Two, a piece of the weight had twitched. The core was not expecting the weight to move, it felt a pang of surprise shoot through it, and the thing twitched again! This time with a few other parts following. Time went on as the core and the weight continued exchanging motions, the core growing more anxious as the weight continued twitching and shifting about. In its panic, it took the core a good half an hour before it could finally figure out that the weight was a human body. The core must have landed on the human’s poor head and it was trying to move. It went to roll away, but as its optic began moving in a circular motion, it stopped right at the human’s chest. The core moved its optic up and felt its wires…or something else explode in shock as it realized that it was ATTACHED to this body.

The core inhaled sharply, its arms flew up to match its surprise. Once gaining control of its abdominal muscles, the core sat up, leaning back against the examination table for support as it outspread its legs to get a better look at itself. While trying to regulate its oxygen levels, it…no, it was a she now, she lifted her head and turned to the east wall, a single plain door being the only break in the consistent light gray wall paper. If only she could get to the door…

The ‘she’ core glanced at her legs, making them twitch. She attempted to stand with confidence, but was already on the floor in half a second the moment she could get the heel of her human feet onto the floor. Flipping her body over, she scuffed herself across the floor by her hands and knees, crawling towards the door. She shivered as the chill of the floor shot up her vertebral column, nearly causing her to lose her balance. She collected it just in time as she arrived at the door. Once sitting on her knees, she extended her shins out and gripped the doorknob with her five pale fingers, wrapping them around the metal knob before twisting them to the left and pushing it open. She winced as the creaking of the door scratched at her ears in a very uncomfortable way, most likely her body’s way of expressing fear. Thinking about it, she didn’t know what to expect now that she was inside a human now. She looked at the narrow hallway the other side of the door revealed, her mind set on leaving this small cramped room, but her body unwilling to move. Where was she exactly? What if she wasn’t supposed to leave? Where were the others? Were they human?

She nearly startled herself as she inhaled sharply, unable to let the air out as she heard a crashing sound, something being dropped or thrown, followed by a bizarre noise. She didn’t know animals were kept in the facility…wait…The sounds soon died down, despite the source of the noise being several doors down, she could still hear the sound of its heavy and exhausted breathing. At last, her hands and knees sprung to life allowing her to move down the hall and towards the war zone of a room. Her hand reached for the knob in the exact same way as before, but upon realizing she was on the other side, and had to pull to open the door, she didn’t actually come to this full realization until the door was inches from her face, causing her to lean back and fall onto the floor to avoid it.

The breathing had stopped, including the ‘she’ core once the room grew silent at her presence. She heard a grunt, and the sound of flesh striking the ground. Several strides later, she came face to face with a terrifying…but fascinating sight. It was a pale Caucasian male, the pupils in his eyes as red as blood. His hair was jet black and it stuck out in several areas, almost like spikes. He was dressed in a margarine orange colored jumpsuit and he was barefoot just like her. The second her eyes landed in his, being sucked into his harsh gaze, a single word sprouted in her mind, growing, no, infesting her mind. It screamed in her thoughts and claws at her conscious, telling her to say it, to ask it, because all of this was still too shocking, too impossible to be true. To have survived the incinerator, to be a flesh and blood human, to look into those rejecting horrid crimson eyes and find them…strangely warm…