There was an inferno.

  Eyes welded shut, metal upon metal. You are but a crisscross of wires, a steel instrument left to burn. Your voice is concealed by a chorus of many. You are part of a choir of screams, and you cannot see the mouths that form them. Stone upon metal plating, paint chipped by whatever just burned to the ground. You can feel the grooves formed from rocks gouged deep within acrylic. You don't know how to respond.

  "C-28?"

  The die's been cast. You have been chosen to be lost under rubble as far as the eye can see. You will feel your mechanics grind to a stop, sparks eating through your own plating. You are going to die here.

  Can androids die? Did they ever have a life in the first place?

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  Why didn't you ask that question while you still had time?

  "C-28?!"

  And then, there is nothing.

  Truly nothing at all.

  All you can hear is the ticking of your clockwork heart, humming under the limb placed over it in final moments. There's silence in your throat. Where did that agonized scream go? It fell to pieces with time, just like God-knows-what lies around you. You are a relic.

  You are an anachronism.

  Comforting, isn't it?

  "C-28!"

  And Charlie woke up.