A Story Of Shadow

A Story Of Shadow / Memories

Am I human? Well, it is not a simple question to answer. I was born in the year 2286, on a fifteenth of December. I was meant to be the perfect living being, genetically programmed to be invincible. The deadliest of creatures to ever walk the surface of the earth. Always dispensable though. Just a prototype among so many others. Along with the gift of life, came to me the consciousness and memories of a human being. Which is why it is hard to establish if I am human or not. Or maybe more if I ever have been.

As far as I know, every other prototype has the memories of a different past. A different life. I wear the memories of a human male named Menelik. And so, following the rules of logic, my creators made me male. Menelik was a good person. He had his flaws like everyone, but he did his best to make sure everyone around him was happy. Even though I have no way of knowing if he is still alive, I wish the best for him, for he has gifted me his past, teaching to me like a father to his newborn child. So, can I say I am human because I remember having lived as one? Well the answer depends on your beliefs. Personally, I think I once was. What is left of that life is not what people see in me.

When you remember having had something important in the past, and you know it is now missing, you eventually feel pain from it. Which raises the question, why would my creators give me memories of happiness and freedom if they know that it won't be of any use? Did they want me to suffer from them?

As for my current life, since I do not have the ability to speak like humans, it's pretty hard to see the positive side of any situation in here. I'm locked in a containment chamber mostly made out of a type of metal I have no knowledge of. The rest of it are four titanium cables piercing through the roof at the four corners of my cubic jail cell. On my first day in this facility, I was told by my assigned droid worker, that these four titanium cables were the only thing holding my containment chamber at this level of the ground, preventing it from a twenty miles deep fall into the ground. It was their way of forcing me to "behave".

I only know very little about my neighbours. They only know very little about me too. We only get the chance to actually see each other about once every three weeks. When we do, they take us in the flight dome. A place mostly used for flight training, but also as a playground for us. After all, we could become quite dangerous if they didn't keep our mental health at acceptable levels. They let us go and take a look at the outside world sometimes. They make us wear tracking collars to make sure we stay in the twenty-five miles radius limit. They had clearly mentioned that whoever would get in or out of that limit would be terminated. Although they had not mentioned how, I feel no desire of such a thing as testing their limits.

All of this is the price to pay for being a potential threat to humanity. I'm pretty sure none of them would be cheerful after seeing such a beast as I am. Razor sharp teeth, massive wings, scales as solid as steal, and so on. No one in a right state of mind would not fear such a giant, flying, reptilian monster. We will all be feared for the entirety of our lives, but we must live with it. And so, that's what I do.

Some things cheer me up some times. Things like seeing my front neighbour's beautiful smile when she looks at me. This is the kind of thing I need to go on in these conditions. I have heard her prototype name was "KPX-62 349". My assigned droid worker had explained to me that the letters were a small code made to identify the modifications in the genetic code since the last generation of our elemental class. The numbers were only there to mention the order in which every single one were born. My prototype name is "VRB-11 523". I have no idea what name she identifies as her own, but I have chosen "Droviax". The name is useless for now though, since none of us has found a way to communicate with each other. Or at least not as far as I know.

The door of my containment chamber opened, forcing me out of my thoughts. My assigned droid came in the room and told me to lay down, holding out a tracking collar. I did as he asked and he attached the collar to the top of my neck. He held his robotic arm on my neck as a sign that I still had to stand down for a while. He pressed a button on my necklace. Close to that button, was a small hole, in which he plugged something looking similar to a USB key. The object had "Type D" written on it.