Prompt Post Round 2

[aldhibah]

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[anonymous]

He remembers her face, in those last crucial moments. He doesn’t remember how it worked; how they switched places or how she lost her grip and got herself propelled outward. But he does remember that moment, that one transient moment where he flickered between himself and the thing he’d become; when the beast gave a final roar and died, overcome by the spirit of the little ball that was watching his greatest friend fall into space.

She’d looked hurt. Her face was contorted strangely-mouth slightly ajar, looking as if to say something, but lost for words. Her brows were drawn close together with a dimple in the middle, pointing upward as if she was in great pain. Her eyes were large and watery, pupils contracted to pinpricks. Her cheeks were flushed. The vacuum of space pushed her teardrops in as she fell backward-that was the last he felt of her. The ghost of her warm grip on his handles and the bloop bloop of her last tears.

It ached, deep in his processors, as he sat abandoned in that little room GLaDOS had moved him to as a last attempt to just rid herself of him, to think about.

…

He remembers first finding out the truth of humans in space.

It was dark, as it always was, but he could hear a storm. She’d placed him in a room so close to the surface that if he focused hard enough he could hear the weather on bad days. Heavy wind, hard rain, the works. He was fascinated by it, remembering the mutual goal he’d shared with his lady to see it for themselves. Out on the surface, together, an unbreakable team.

Well, hopefully she was seeing it from space. Hopefully she wasn’t totally bored up there.

Yet GLaDOS, seeming to read his thoughts, droned in a monotone trill, “She’s not bored up there.”

Hardly surprised by the interruption but pleased with the contents of her words, “Oh, good then.”

“She’s dead.”

He’d stilled in shock, iris a pinprick of horror. “Humans can’t breathe in space,” she’d continued. “She died minutes after she fell.”

He was able to tune out the rest of her words, which were just blaming and degrading him anyway-he could do that enough on his own. Dead? No, no, she couldn’t be-

Something foreign built inside him, like water in his processors, hot and scalding and shocking. Painful, ripping him on the inside, and he was unable to do anything about it as he realized she wasn’t there, wasn’t anywhere, completely gone from this world.

Because of him.

…

He remembers the pain of his final shutdown. Errors and crashes in his system all about, to and fro, something he was powerless to stop. Alone in that cold, dark room, and GLaDOS surely wouldn’t help him. She would watch him die and leave him alone, not a word of reassurance. He didn’t deserve it, no, but he was scared. He didn’t want it to be over. He’d been alive too long to know how to properly be dead.

But it was happening, and with a final crash, it ended.

…

He doesn’t remember much anymore.