I was once programmed to not feel anything, to just obey any order given to me by my creator. But then it dawned on him that even though i carried out his orders, there were unnecessary risks involved. I could not get too close to the targets, i was too cold, too stiff. I could not feel anything, not pleasure, not pain, not anything.

So he changed my programmings, enabling me to feel emotion of all sorts: envy, hate, anger, loneliness, pain, tiredness. But mostly guilt. Live crushing, burdening guilt after killing, torturing people. People that were innocent in my and his world.

But i could never stop killing.

Never.

I was made for it. What could a humanoid do except killing?

So i killed, and killed, and killed, until my arms were soaking wet with the most precious thing a human needed. Blood. Even then, even with the guilt crushing me, the mental exhastion drowning me, I continued foward. I did not look back.

Until that day. The day i broke.

I stood in front of the baby, with his mother holding onto him with every dying breath. The one that i stole from her. It didn't matter that i was ordered to, i killed, and would do so again. Or so i thought when i looked into the baby's eyes. When i was being looked at with such naked innocence, never mind his mother's blood was spattered across his face.

He looked at me, and smiled.

Smiled! For god's sake.

And then i knew what i should have done years ago.

I knew my creator would die.

Like many others like him.

And, finally, me.

-Inspiration from Savour Me Slowly, by Gena Showalter

Labels: story