Chime's Testament

Chime's Testament

I find myself unsure what compels me to commit these words to parchment. Perhaps some lingering habit from my former life, the due diligence the Magi drilled into me in training. Perhaps it's simply the need to array my thoughts in a way I can more easily process. I am not sure of much these days- certainly I had not expected life after death to be quite so literal. I had heard rumors, whispered in the neophyte dormitories, of hereteks embedding their brains in immortal mechanical bodies, or copying their mental engrams into cogitator banks to be spit back out into the world ad infinitum, but this... I suspect my situation exceeds even their wildest dreams. Or, perhaps, their darkest nightmares.

How would my former self have reacted? Awe, at such a marvel of mechanical prowess? Joy, to be so wholly one with the machine? Horror and revulsion that my humanity has been forever stripped away from me, replaced with alien sorcery rather than the Omnissiah's blessings? Perhaps she would have felt all of them in turn.

And yet... I feel nothing.

The Necrons tell me this is common. Emotions are dampened following the biotransferrence, deadened to the point of near nonexistence. All my life serving the Cult I was told I lacked the cold reason and objectivity to rise above the rank of Adept... now that I have them I doubt I would be welcomed home with open arms. Irony.

It's curious. I can remember emotion with crystal clarity. The wonder I felt as a child when I saw an Enginseer maintaining the air recirculators in my home hive, the nervous excitement as I boarded the ark Ineffable as a candidate, the awe as I first laid eyes on Forge World Cybelle from the void... the chagrin as I was scolded by Magos Locke for the clumsiness of my abjurations despite my nimble hands. I remember beaming with pride as I chose a simple brass bell to take for my name and confirm my acceptance into the Cult.

I remember lying flayed open on the Cryptek's operating table, mouthing half-conscious prayers to the Omnissiah for deliverance with vocal chords that no longer functioned, as the creature's alien instruments moved across my ruined body.

I know, logically, that the memory should evoke distress, or unease, or panic, but instead... nothing. Curious.

It seems if anything survived the woman I was, it was her curiosity.