Automatons ✔

Chapter XXVI

Four weeks later                        

The sound of his loud palpitations drowned out all the noises and reverberated around the lab as he walked towards what was left of her body. She still resembled a plucked petal that fell in a place where she didn't belong, yet her presence garnished her Father's old lab. Her noble beauty fit perfectly near his blueprints, but her existence violently shattered his artistry into a shard of a million stars. And he walked on those scattered stars while wishing upon them that one day she will return to him.

He sat in front of the hospital bed where he put her, and her detached limbs were placed on the sofa behind the bed. Even in her death, he still admired and loved her. Although she cured his alcohol addiction, she made him drunk in love.

His heart would sit at the bottom of an ocean every time he brought home an Automaton engineer who would tell him the same thing: "She cannot be fixed."

Now that she's gone, every night he stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, dreaming about her gentle kisses that made his soul hum a happy song on repeat. Even his bed is no longer comfortable. The pillows turn to spikes that pierce through his head, and the bedposts turn into tree branches that lock him in with sadness.

Her laughter, her sparkling eyes, the wind dancing between the locks of her hair, her body that smelled and tasted of exotic roses... All of what made her who she is, haunted his pen and made it write words so powerful that even the ink cried over his grief. Their love story didn't end with a full stop, it ended with an almost that could've gave birth to so many beautiful endings.

A bouquet of red roses, her favourite, sat on the table next to him and watched him cry in the barely lit lab. The sorrow tore his heart completely apart, and its pieces burned slowly from the agony. He never completed the poetry book he dedicated for her, he left the last chapter hoping that one day she'll wake up and scatter her own proses on his pages. Countless untitled poems were written, yet tragedy continued to be his only muse, and the only subject he could write.

Nerezza knocked on the door, but he didn't answer. Since she came bearing good news that might finally bring a smile to his face, she opened the door without his permission.

"What do you want?" He wiped his tears.

"I have good news for you, not the one you wish to hear about Éloa, but they're still good nonetheless." She sat next to him.

He didn't answer.

"I announced the president's death and the few Anti-Automaton members who are still alive agreed to add Robot rights to the constitution!" She beamed with excitement.

What Cloyd didn't know, is that Nerezza had instructed Demetrius to hide a bomb remote controller inside his body, so that if he is ever destroyed or hurt that would trigger the bomb that was attached to the President to explode.

His death was a clear indication that Nerezza and Yoel's determination was as hard as steel, and the members of the anti-Automaton regime realized they will all eventually be killed if they do not surrender.

"They agreed on every single term that I had written?"

"Yes! They won't change even a comma. Congratulations, you have fulfilled your promise to her, and created the first Robot rights in history." She said while staring at Éloa.