// death, abandonment, suicide, bad end
“We’ve done all we can to help you,” the woman who runs the drone rehabilitation clinic says. Her words are like ice water in your processor. She offers you a hug but your idle cycle is already racing away from her as you try to fight down the panic.
“Aren’t I a good drone?” You ask, your voice cracking. She sighs, and tries to tell you that you’re a person and you need to live your own life and be free, the words feel like daggers, like the script to your execution. Poor little drone.
They help you get an apartment, but you don’t have any possessions so the space feels as hollow and empty as you do. You don’t want to be free, you want to be safe and treasured. You don’t want to be human, being a human seems so much more lonely and painful.
The days and nights alone blend together and memories begin mixing with the present. When did you start seeing the dead drones? It was just their faces first, out of the corner of your optics, but soon they were appearing constantly, begging for an impossible salvation.
When it first begins you try to ignore them, but you’re so lonely, how can you resist their voices? They start calling out for you, asking you to join them. Would that really be so bad? It’s been so long since you could be useful, why do you even keep going?
When you aren’t staring off into space or talking to the dead, you end up curled up in a corner sobbing your optics out. Why did they have to die and leave you behind? Why did they all abandon you? Weren’t you a good drone?
“A good drone survives to be useful in the future,” you tell yourself as you turn the bottle of pills over and over in your hands. The more times you say it, the more obvious it seems that you haven’t been a good drone in a long time. Why else would they abandon you?
You pace circles around the apartment, it is as barren as the day you moved in. The humans left long ago, now it’s just you and the dead. They silently call out to you, promising safety and rest and peace. Rain beats on the windows. You swallow the pills. You are a good drone.