Prosthetics (Spooky Month AU)

Window to the Past

   (TW: broken bones, swearing)

   Streber ducked under a corrupted table. The wood was dark and burned with stray splinters poking out of the legs and underside. His breath was heavy. He tried to stay quiet, putting his hand over his mouth to silence his ragged breathing. A whirring noise could be heard. It was that of a security bot. The security bots had been on a stricter watch recently, with the more frequent sightings of "lost souls". Those souls, including Streber, weren't 'lost', they were running. Running from the cult's possession. Those who were caught by the luminescent robots that seemed more like humanoids than anything with a large X painted on their chests got sent to a facility to be 'fixed' or 'saved'. If not for the corrupted world outside of him and more faith in God, Streber may've mistaken this for some sort of poorly predicted rapture. The world, however, had been destroyed in an attempt to make it better. Buildings had been torched and decimated. Forests were either half or completely burned. The air was smokey and the visibility was poor. Even the society had been corrupted. It wasn't vacant, no, it was much worse. People were there, but their interactions and words were staged. See, everyone who was caught by the cult's robots weren't killed, they were simply remade. Their physical status remained well, but their minds were possessed. When caught, the robots would strap a metal cuff around the victim's bicep. It had a little light as an indicator of where it belonged. The light, or what was thought to be a light, stabbed two large needles into the victim's arm, which connected to the brain. This is how the cult possessed people. However, it was almost impossible to fake a cult's brace. They had taken every measure to make sure no one could replicate their work. Everything from the shade of the light to the barcode on the metal had been taken into account. Streber made one that was ample enough to fool the bots momentarily, but more than a second's look at it and they'd realize the difference.

   Streber listened closely, making sure the bot had scurried away before he crawled out from behind the fallen table. He was careful to stay out of sight as he swung through alleyways and abandoned buildings. He'd taught himself basic survival skills, well, a little more than just basics. He had learned every twist and turn and nook and cranny for the event that he got chased by a cultist bot. His hair flowed over his line of vision to which he pushed it out of the way, the cold metal tips of his prosthetic arm lightly scraping over his cheek. He learned a lot of tips and tricks to building metal parts. His face was covered in scrapes and cuts, his shirt equally torn. He wore ripped jeans, but the catch was that he wore the rips into them himself. As Streber took a left down the curvy alley, his worn shoes scraping against the concrete ground, a pain shot through his arm. He grunted, rolling his shoulder.

   "Dammit...it must be time to loosen the screws..." he muttered looking at his prosthetic arm. It somehow was still metallic, despite all of the troubles Streber had worn it through. He decided to quicken his pace, the old warehouse was just up the hill. He ran the rest of the way up the dried grass hill. As he approached the warehouse, he took time to view all of the tipped barrels and canisters of sludge. He almost physically recoiled as he saw a rat crawl out of an oil tank. He decided to stop looking at the destroyed area and head into the building.
The warehouse was much cleaner than the outside, thanks to Streber's need for a clean work environment. From the entrance, the warehouse looked empty with only a few plastic curtains hanging low to the rough concrete floor. He sighed as he closed the door, finally feeling safe. He walked down the middle row that the curtains created and when he arrived at the third set, he carefully pushed through them.
"Radford...? I'm back..." Streber said quietly as he entered the curtains. The curtains led to a small room containing a few couch cushions, a sleeping bag, a stack of books, a laptop, and a few tangled charging cords. On the couch cushions laid a figure with long lanky legs and curly blonde hair. He was in a white button down that was tinged with brown from dirt. He looked to Streber's voice, the mole just under the corner of his mouth becoming visible.