Aurore

12- Floor 0

    When I awoke, it was completely dark.
"Hello?" I called out shakily.  I scolded myself; my voice sounded so frightened. I cleared my throat and called out again.
"Hello?"
"Agent Boneck." I heard a voice, and it sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it.
"Who's there?"
I tried to sit up, but found I was strapped on down on my back. Then it dawned on me: I was on Floor 0.
"You don't recognize me?"
A man stepped out of the shadows. He had vibrant, longish brown hair and brown eyes. And I knew him all too well.
Andrew.
"I... I thought you were dead." I stammered.
"Then you're an idiot." He answered quickly.
I had stumbled upon some papers a while back. They spoke of recycling agent's bodies (after they died) to use as bodies for robots. Humanoid.
I turned it over in my mind.
"So... you're a robot?" I asked. If he was, he had no memories of our friendship, his hatred for the Agensie KLA, or his past life. If he wasn't a robot, I had no idea how the Agensie turned him against me.
"Yes." He replied. He twitched robotically, like he was glitching.
"I mean, no." He corrected.
"Are you sure?" I asked the robot again.
"Stop asking questions. There's other things to do."
"What?" I asked. My heart beat out of my chest, and my head throbbed with
Andrew's reincarnation. I knew what happened on Floor 0, and I didn't know if I could handle my former best friend conducting that pain.
He grinned evilly and grabbed a knife from a nearby table.
I was desperate, but I did all I could to remain calm.
"Andrew. Andrew!" I said his name louder. "You have to remember me!"
He moved towards me, but I couldn't move away, his knife aimed towards my skin.
I let out a shout as the tip of the knife touched my skin. I felt the cold blade cut into my flesh. I looked at the robot Andrew and pleaded with my eyes. Not that he could sense emotion.
"Please." I whispered.
He gripped the knife and drug it down my arm, leaving about a 10 inch cut on my arm, deep enough I saw my bone in one spot.
I gagged as I saw the bone and my vision began to blur from the pain as I focused on the blood dripping down my arm.
"Andrew..." I tried to breath but couldn't.
He set the knife down and grabbed a gauze. I'd been tortured that way before. They wet the gauze and stuffed it in your mouth, nearly suffocating you.
I stared at him.
"Remember the first time we met and we didn't like each other, but then we became friends?"
He looked at me blankly.
"What are you talking about?" He grabbed my arm and began to wrap it with the gauze. It stung, but I remained silent. Why was he wrapping my arm?
"Is that all you got? Are you done with the torture? Ha!" I egged him on.
"No. That was just the beginning. Your favorite part is yet to come. "
My heart fell. I had PTSD, and it was easy to make someone want to commit suicide just from sheer memories. My "favorite" part was mental torture.
Suddenly, I enjoyed the pain in my arm, knowing the pain I would soon experience would be much worse.
I watched as Andrew moved around the dark room robotically. It was enough to want to cry.
I choked down my tears and tried to take my mind off of him. It didn't work. I thought of Shasta. I'd lost her. Sabrina, she was a traitor. Kyle? We weren't that close anyway.

This time, I lay in a pitch black room. I waited for a sound, anything, but nothing came. Then I heard it.
A sniffling. Like someone crying.
"Who is it?"
"Jason?" It was Shasta.
"Shasta, where are you?"
"Jason?" she was louder this time.
"Shasta! Shawn!" I exclaimed.
I ran into something in the darkness and was knocked down.
Then I felt hands, first on my chest, working their way up to my face. The moment I felt the hands on my face, I knew they were Shasta's. I found her face and held my forehead to hers.
"Shasta. I'm so sorry for what I did. I... I love you."
"I love you too, Jason."
I wrapped my arms around her.
She moved her arm to wrap around my back.
"How'd you get down here?" I asked.
"They thought I knew something about you leaving. I couldn't tell them anything so they took me down here."
"I'm sorry, Shasta, this is all my fault."
"I don't care. I still love you." I longed to see her face, her beautiful eyes, soft hair, and everything about her, but it was too dark to see anything. I kept blinking, hoping to bring light, but to no avail.
She moved her hand from her back.
I had no shirt on, Andrew's robot had taken it off of me before sending me in the Dark Room, and I missed the feeling of her hand on my back.
"Shasta, forgive me."
"Of course, Jason. I love you." She put her hand on my face and I felt her forearm on my back. Then I felt something cold.
In a split second, I grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her back.
She let out a cry in pain.
The blade that she tried to plunge into my back clattered to the ground. With my free hand, I found it in my hand.
"What was that?" I asked through clench teeth.
"Jason, no! I love you!"
"Quit with the crap." I twisted her arm even more.
"Jas-" I twisted her arm even further, this time hearing the crack of the bone.
She let out another cry. I blinked hard as I felt tears fall down my cheeks.
I released her, and within a few seconds, I felt her hands around my neck. Squeezing. I flipped her to the ground again, this time finding the knife I had placed in my back pocket. She lay on her stomach, both arms twisted behind her back. I straddled her, kneeling over her, one hand holding her hands behind her back, the other maneuvering the knife in my hand.
"Jason, I love you!" She screamed. I hadn't heard her scream since she was about 7. My heart wrenched.
"No you don't." I said. And with that, I plunged the knife into her back. She let out a bloodcurdling scream, but tried to squirm from my grip. My grief caused me to let her go, but I felt her shaking. I knew that where I had stabbed her she wouldn't die instantly. I slowly, sadly grabbed the knife, now sticky with blood, and stabbed her again. Her body stopped moving. I sat there, feeling her body become cold, her blood warm and sticky. Tears ran down my face and I could barely breathe.
I don't know how long I sat there, but finally, the lights came on. I closed my eyes; the light burnt.
        "Look at that." Andrew's robot said teasingly, "I thought you loved her, you coward! And you just killed her! Killed, you hear me? You are responsible for her death! You failure. You call yourself a human being?"
I was still overwhelmed, but I knew this was a time for acting. I shrugged. "It wasn't actually Shasta."
"What?" The robot asked me.
"It was a robot. Like you. It just looked like you."
"You said that I have Andrew's body. And Andrew is dead. So... Shasta's body?"
I looked at the slumped over body, the light skin now stained with blood. The blond hair looked like Shasta's, and the body structure did too. I hated to look at the body, but I forced myself. I kneeled down and opened the eyes. They were the same shade as Shasta's.
Then, I was desperate. "Shasta... she-she had a-a b-birthmark on her th-thigh. Right b-by her kn-knee." I pulled up the pant leg.
No birthmark. I let out a sigh of relief.
"It's not even Shasta's body." I spit out, "Just some look alike."
"If that's what you want to believe." Andrew's robot shrugged and walked away. The room went dark again and I feared what would come next.