SilentMask one shot collection

Family Reunion

Doll stirred, her systems sluggish as if rebooting after a hard reset. She blinked rapidly, her optics adjusting to the unnervingly soft glow that surrounded her. The air was... still. Too still. There was no hum of machinery, no electric buzz of the life she'd always known. Just silence.

Her hands brushed the smooth floor beneath her, polished and cold. She sat up slowly, her joints protesting as if they hadn't moved in years. That was impossible, though, wasn't it? She didn't feel damaged—no exposed wiring, no sparks. But as her gaze traveled around the strange space, she realized she wasn't anywhere familiar.

"Where the hell am I?" she muttered, her voice cutting through the eerie quiet.

The space was vast, stretching endlessly in every direction. The walls shimmered faintly, reflecting vague shapes that morphed and shifted before she could make sense of them. It wasn't the labs. It wasn't Copper-9. And she was very sure this wasn't her room.

She stood, wobbling slightly. Her legs worked fine, but something in her core felt... off. Heavy. Like the weight of a truth she wasn't ready to face. Doll pressed forward, her footsteps echoing in the emptiness. The faint shimmer of the walls caught her attention again, and she turned to inspect them more closely.

The moment her fingertips grazed the surface, the wall flickered to life.

A memory played.

It was her mother, Yeva, holding her for the first time. Doll's optics voided as she watched herself—a much smaller, rounder version of herself—cradled in Yeva's arms. Her mother's expression was a rare mix of stern concentration and overwhelming affection. She looked down at Doll with a tenderness that the older Doll had almost forgotten.

"Oh, Yeva, she's perfect!"

The voice made Doll's head snap toward the other figure in the memory. A drone—her father. His movements were frantic, trying to get the perfect angle for a picture. The camera slipped from his hands, clattering to the floor, and he scrambled to pick it up, muttering apologies.

Yeva sighed, shaking her head, but there was the faintest hint of a smile on her face. "Mitchell, if you drop that one more time, I swear I'll—"

"I got it, I got it!" her father interrupted, clutching the camera like it was a newborn itself. He grinned sheepishly at Yeva, who rolled her eyes but didn't scold him further.

Doll watched as the memory faded, her hands hovering in midair where her mother and father had just been. She turned away, but the wall flickered again, unbidden, showing another memory.

This time, she was older—maybe five. She was sitting on the counter in their small home, watching as her father tried (and failed) to bake something. The kitchen was chaos, ingredients scattered everywhere, and smoke poured from the oven.

"Doll, sweetheart, don't tell your mother," Mitchell said, waving a towel at the smoke.

"She's gonna know," Doll said matter-of-factly, her small frame kicking her legs idly. "She always knows."

As if summoned, Yeva appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. Her piercing gaze swept over the disaster zone that was her kitchen.

"Mitchell."

Mitchell froze, his towel still mid-wave. "Honey! You're home early."

Yeva's optics narrowed. "You're lucky I don't have a window to throw you out of."

Doll snickered, and her father turned to her with mock betrayal. "Traitor," he whispered, making her laugh harder.

The memory shifted again, this time showing her parents sitting together on their worn couch. Doll wasn't in this one; she was watching from the sidelines of her own life.