The Living condition

17

'Tessa' left the door wide open as she started walking straight toward Uzi. The little drone cycled backward, step after step, almost tripping over her own feet while she stammered at the 'human' "T-Tessa, I –I-I Didn't–" she waves her hands in defense as she glanced over her shoulder at the body of Doll, motionless along the floor.

Tessa reached behind herself, unsheathing her sword, dragging it purposefully against the ground as she walked towards Uzi, dragging bright sparks along with her as Uzi backed herself away from Tessa "Sh–She Just– wait!" As Uzi's back hit a Pillar, her wings branched out of herself without control, one embedding itself into the pillar as she shouted at the human "Something else did this to Doll!" the little drone panics as she looks back at the motionless corpse "You– You have to believe–"

You'd be stupid to call out to her,to try to get Cyn to stop. She wouldn't. There was something she was doing here–whether it was to just play with her food, or just to terrify Uzi without cause–you couldn't figure it out. You'd stopped watching when movement in the corner of your eye caught you. You'd turned your head, watching this little..flesh thing crawl and climb out beyond Doll's exposed ribcage. Crab claw-like little pinchers,clawing itself out. Perturbed, you watched for a moment, before glancing back at Tessa.

"No Worries. Makes my job easier." The 'human' drags out while she steps toward Uzi. Uzi held her solver up to defend herself, but had stopped dead. You wonder if it made her figure it out for herself. 'Tessa' kicks her leg out, knocking Uzi onto her back while Tessa steps on top of the drone's wings, dragging her sword, sparking the way across the fleshy wings. "Thought there'd be more of you silver freaks anyway."

The spray of oil and the grunting and yelling of pains made you turn your head away, looking back at the little..thing. Whatever it was, it was alive and moving. Organic and mechanical, red optic, crawling out from Doll's corpse with some amount of effort.

Uzi wasn't going to die. That's what you told yourself, as you stepped further into the church. Cyn wasn't going to kill her, because Cyn was Selfish. Only interested in that which would provide entertainment to something eldritch in origin. What was more entertaining than one of your hosts being terrified that you'd kill her for something you probably did yourself?

It's what you told yourself as you inched towards the corpse covered in inky black, and stared down at the little–whatever the hell it was.

Cyn wasn't going to kill her, because Cyn was Selfish.

—-

After the first time you'd played dolls with Cyn, you found every excuse in the book not to play pretend with her again. She made things weird and dark and honestly a little scary and a little too well-described for you to be comfortable with–but you would never say that to her face. The little drone was your friend, and you were more than smart enough to know that it was better to tell a white lie than to destroy the emotions of a being that just recently came into them.

That's a lie, sorta. You're not sure when the drones your father's company manufactured started feeling emotions or being anything close to the definition of humanity. He wouldn't tell you, and apparently, it was protected by far too many NDAs for you or Tessa to try to reach out to any employees of the company for answers.

But you'd assumed it was recent. Relatively recent, anyway.

Any excuse was one that was good enough. Headaches, bellyaches, not feeling good, being dizzy, distracting her with the prospect of psychology books in the library–you weren't sure what about them she liked so much, maybe the anatomical diagrams but you didn't find the appeal in it– anything other than playing pretend with her.