NieR:Remnant

XX - Solace in Suffering

The calm tide streamed forward onto the disturbed sands, then flowed back, trickling through his hands and against his shell as he crawled further onto the beach. Pascal gave a glimpse back towards the makeshift flotation device that was drifting away out to sea, before yanking the damned expired bzzt bomb off his torso and letting it fall to the water with an absent mind. He pulled himself twenty or so meters before collapsing where slight vegetation was peering through the sands, and rolled onto his back, arms splayed out as he stared up at the sky. There wasn't a single cloud. The unblemished blue was gorgeous, and he'd almost forgotten what the sun looked like, but in spite of it all, his spirit was drowning, collapsing into an event horizon that had formed in his chest, where his heart would be if he were of flesh.

Pascal's journey had taken its toll; not just the sea itself, but everything. Between his faltering spirit and the pain in his joints, he couldn't move. There was nothing more to do. They'd either succeeded or failed, and he'd know sooner rather than later regarding the latter, for Remnant's voice would soon be in his head once again.

That darkness within seemed to expand as the reality of the losses overtook Pascal. He felt his vision darkening, his consciousness fading. That gorgeous sky weakened in pitch, and the sun became snuffed out as that abyss of suffering took him. The feeling of the sand and water against his shell faded as lucidity left him.

"Why... Why..."

Pascal awakened to a small voice, slamming down into the watered sand with each exclamation. It, he, was another machine, a small Stubby missing a leg, battered and hurt, holding himself up as if in the apex of a push-up, ruined arms shaking as the tide came and went. He was punching down weakly with his left hand, splashing, splashing...

"Hurt... Taken... Abducted..."

"Uh-"

The machine gasped and fell as the tide rolled back in, causing a larger splash while rolling onto his back and sitting up, still using his hands for support as he gazed at Pascal with flickering eyes. "Th-the empty shards... So cold." He was pointing at his head.

Pascal sat up himself and gave his ragged cloak a slight shake. "What do you-"

"That thing, that thing!" He fell back and began to shake harder. "Can you feel it? It's gone now, but the spaces, the shards!" He was hitting his head, hard. "Nothing is left where It sunk Its teeth, just vacant space... Vacant, FREEZING spikes that have gone with It."

"Stop. Stop!" Pascal had gotten to his feet and was trying to restrain the mad machine. "You're barely holding together! You're making it-"

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" He shouted right in Pascal's face before falling into silence, shaking, calming.

"Um." Pascal was caught off-guard. "You're safe now. It's over." The little machine's speech suggested Remnant's influence had gone, but Pascal remained wary. It was a long shot, and if the plan didn't work, then...

Linus...

"Are you crazy?" questioned the machine, tapping his metal fingers along his dented crown. "Don't you feel it? It took so much, ripped the psyche in Its wake, and now there's nothing to fill those gaps." A few fresh trickles of fluid came oozing from the poor machine's eyes. "And my friends, It... They didn't bend to the Violet Eye, so It made me-"

Pascal brought the weeping machine in and wrapped his arms tight around the small frame, embracing the little machine with a hug. The machine was silent, hopefully out of surprise. "I'm so sorry."

"M-me too," replied the Stubby. Pascal released the embrace and walked them both further up the beach out of the water. He plopped the machine down and moved to sit on his side, and they shifted to focus on the view, basking in the sound of the tide, the gulls cawing above and the wind through the trees on their backs.

"What are you doing?" Pascal looked over to see that the Stubby had initiated cataloging; his eyes were projecting a hologram consisting of a board of letters and numbers, and bringing his hands forward, he input "H-3-L-1-0-5."

"What needs to be done," replied the Stubby. Green lights came forth from the hologram that represented other machine responders, a system that Pascal had become familiar with in his time connected to the network. Those responders voted a unanimous "yes" to allow the small Stubby to edit the machine network's timeline. He scrolled down to the days following September the nineteenth, where the events of Remnant were recorded.

"Oh." Pascal nodded. "I see."

The Stubby highlighted all of the notable events regarding Remnant and was prompted with a pop-up box asking "Are you sure?" He touched "Yes," and they both watched as all of the text began to fade away, the events they described purged from the machine timeline.

"Some things in this world are better left forgotten."

Pascal scooted closer to the little machine. "Indeed." He agreed with the Stubby more than most would ever know, but in spite of that, he wouldn't be able to bring himself to request such a thing for himself again. His first mate had given his life for his captain, and sad, ruined as he was, Pascal couldn't let Linus' sacrifice be in vain.

This was his life, and it was damned time for him to start living with it.