Tired Mechanical Heart

Read Fbawtft before writing

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The strange thuds on the side of her head were the first things Era woke up to. Carefully, she sat up, which was her first mistake. As careful as she was, the minute her body rose to an upright position, a wave of what could be called nausea washed over Era. Lurching forward, she vomited repeatedly to expel the disgusting seawater. Wiping her mouth, she cursed her human parts for being so fragile. Saltwater could last in a robot stomach, a fleshy one however, not so much. Grimacing, she eased herself slowly up, this time she could, all the water had been removed. Not that she felt any cleaner necessarily. So far her new life was terrible. She carefully sat and examined her body. The tsunami was bound to leave dents, not irreparable but annoying at most.  Checking her arms she found several scratches  and oddly enough a few bites, non seemed infected so she left them be. Wobbling slightly she pushed herself up and tried to stand, falling over immediately she looked around finding the source of the damage, the sight greeting her wasn't the prettiest. Her left leg was bent at an odd angle, sticking out nauseatingly. With a roll of her eyes she grunted and pushed the bone back in place. It sat with a sickening crack but proved to work fine after. She rolled her ankle and stepped carefully until she was satisfied with the "health care".  She finally stood up and assessed her surroundings. The prior chaos was evident as the buildings that had one stood tall were in pieces lying across vast wasteland. Anything could be everything at this point. Was she still in her neighbourhood? Matting the ground she stood on carefully she looked around for any sign that would tell her where she was. A few footsteps and half a building later she found out she was miles away from her "cozy" apartment, stranded in the "dangerous" part of Knaura. Considering she was probably the only living, talking thing left, the danger was practically nonexistent. Peacefully she skipped through the post-apocalyptic environment the town had. She hummed lightly as the silence surrounded her. People were really loud. She'd never realized just how loud until the sudden silence engulfed her. She continued skipping idly until she stopped a few feet away from a strange lump.

Graphic scene ahead. Discusses death of corpse.

Kicking it around she found it was a human head. Curiously, she dropped to her knees and scanned the head, if she could recognize anything it would help immensely.
Cause of death?
The tsunami would have been her first though but the neck wound had teeth marks and the head had minimal water damage.
Something definitely ate her....or him??
Carefully poking the teeth and eyes she determined it was male. Suddenly while poking at the bristled hair, a gasp was caught in her throat.
Steven?!
The man that raised Macy and treated her with a cold indifference.
She scowled slightly and a feeling of satisfaction guiltily flooded her.
Shaking her head she moved away from her ex-guardian and continued walking.

Era sighed. For a lifetime she'd been wishing to be let free, to do whatever she pleased but her first eight hours had been terribly anticlimactic. Era realized, that as somebody who'd supposedly been planning her escape for years, she'd never sat down and done any actually planning. Bored and disappointed, Era stumbled through the wasteland that was once the beautiful city of Knaura. Sighing resignedly she opted to scan. A stupid idea really, because what could survive that tsunami, apart from herself, naturally? Elbows on her knees, she scanned the stretch of land in front of her with false hope.
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Era felt a twinge in her gut. She didn't need the annoying message to confirm what her body had already told her. There was nothing alive here. Frowning, she threw her arms out and laid down. What she expected to find, she didn't know. It was painfully obvious all life had been washed away, quite literally.
Era sat back up and spun, her back facing the land she'd just scanned as if she was ignoring it, upset it was dead.

She supposed that being lonely was a price to pay for never needing air or water. Out of boredom and slight hope, she decided to scan again. Widening her range she opened her eyes and began to search.
Beep
Please
Beep
Pretty please
Beeeeeeeeeeep.
The radar in her head held the note as Era jumped up, perplexed.
Life source detected
What?!
Eyes flashing she jumped up. Could the tsunami have shaken her around so much her calibration was going Haywire. Maybe. Doing a quick hardware check, she found all her system in ideal conditions. As ideal as those conditions could be given the last few days. Quietly, she turned to face the area where her mysterious life source was and began to scan again. A few beeps later and the same ear piercing note was held, but Era didn't even notice. She wasn't the only survivor. Racking her mind she tried to think of who she knew that could make it out of the tsunami alive. A wild thought sent a frown to her face.
There's no way Agneas could have survived.
Despite being almost all machine, she'd rather rot to death than be the last person alive with the old hag she was forced to live with. Shuddering as if to erase the thoughts, she turned on her acute sensor and tried to get any information on the person. Silence flooded the deserted town.
Ping!
Yes! Details
Era sat and pulled up the screen in her eye. Having a cybernetic mind did prove useful. She hummed and lolled her head while she waited for the diagnostic on the mysterious life source she'd picked up. A million different combinations ran though her head. Who was this person? Was it even a person? What if it's an animal, like a fly? Nobody had confirmed it was a person after all. All her excitement suddenly drained.
She'd forgotten about the animals. They were more likely to survive to begin with, why had she been so sure this life source was human. Discouraged, she began to stop the diagnostic, the disappointment in her was too much already, she didn't need a screen to instill more. Before she could clear the last scan, a sharp ping alerted her that the analysis was complete. Curiosity gnawed at her thoughts. Nobody said it wasn't human too.
Maybe I should..

No.
She turned away. There was such a small chance of it being human life it almost wasn't worth checking. She didn't want to disappoint herself even more.

But...
Feeling the first inkling of doubt, the curious fire in her stomach roared. Wonder overtook her senses. She had to know. She had to be sure. Swiping the screen up, her eyes hungrily roved the letters.
Multiple life sources?!
Her eyes bugged. How did anything manage not to get torn apart by the tsunami that had just hit. Her mind searched and searched for viable ways any Knaurian could have lived through the disaster. Reading on, a wave of understanding hit Era. Her eyes had found the distance proximate. The life sources she'd picked up had been estimated to be situated miles and miles away. Rolling her eyes at her prior stupidity she swiped the screen away and lay down.
Good.
She thought.
Let them say miles away.
A frown made its way to her face as memories from her early life came rushing back. Flashes of lab coats and cold tiled rooms flickered into her mind. A cool voice spoke sending shivers down her spine.
You belong to the people. Project New Era will change the world
Era screwed her eyes shut. She tightly wrapped her arms around herself to stop her shaking. She was free. She no longer belonged to anyone. Not the 'people' nor the chilling voice she couldn't place.
That voice, the eerie echo in her head, was lost to the abyss of her memory. Being a robot certainly had its perks, she could recall every memory she'd made without fault. Up until her very earliest. A desolate forest. She was dumped in a forest and was left to die. But fate was cruel and as an Android she was more than fit to survive in a forest for a few days. A few days because that was how long it took to wander into society, and the rest is history.
But Era knows her life didn't begin that way. Who is born a ten year old in the middle of Keirsten Forest? She could walk and her mind was already insanely developed. It was just that odd voice she remembers whispers of, that haunts her thoughts. Where did that memory come from? Why didn't she forget?
Frustrated with the age old question she could never seem to answer, she rolled on her side and picked at the dirt below her.
Longing for solitude was easy. Being surrounded by silence was a lot harder. But she couldn't let herself go to the masses miles away. She couldn't let herself be treated like that again.