Till Death Do Us Part

Steam blasted out of rusted pipes that curled along the cold walls. Heat rose up from below, the metal floor becoming hotter with every second that passed. From outside of the small room, cogs turned, and machines moved. Limbs of steel slammed into each other in perfectly timed harmony that sounded like screeching chaos crawling through the cracks in the walls. Bronze and brass lined the walls and covered the floor. Only a metre was left between the hot floor and the rusted ceiling.

Machines, androids, automatons, and robots sat in dismembered agony and misery. Their parts were old, and they could barely move. Rust spread throughout their bodies like a disease. The sound of metal clacking and quiet chattering and clicking filled the short space. Some of the sentient machines would crawl along, scraping their heads against the ceiling in a desperate attempt to escape, although most had given up already. All of them knew it was futile. No matter what model or make they were, no matter how intelligent or sentient they were, no matter if they felt or not, all of them were going to burn for the crime of aging. Rusted, old and battered, they were no longer of any use to mankind, so they were to be put to death or at least as close to death as one can put a machine.

Almost all of them sat in confusion, fear, and hopelessness, staring at the walls lined with the same material as their very bodies. One machine was more determined than most of the rest though. It clamoured and clawed its way along. It sent sparks flying through the glorified death pit as its old steel scraped the walls and ceiling. Only one of its eyes glowed anymore but the one that did shone with a red and fiery determination. If it was going to die, it was going to do it right. Below it’s black, dead eye was engraved what it considered its name. C1YD3.

It searched through the crowds of miserable metal, all sitting in half-conscious fear. It searched for something quite particular. Something most humans search for all their lives. C1YD3 kept crawling like a rat, desperately searching, becoming more and more frantic and fearful as it kept looking. The other machines took little notice of the distressed automaton for they could only focus on their own agony.

Finally, just when the battered mechanoid had made it to the very end of the mechanical graveyard and could see the metallic wall in front of it out of its one good eye, they found it. C1YD3 clawed its way closer to it, moving as quickly as it possibly could in the cramped space. It dragged itself forward without any regard for itself, there was no point now anyway. Its weak body slammed against the rusty wall, and it cocked its frail neck to the side. It looked upon what it was searching for. What it wanted to die with.

A machine sat looking back at C1YD3, its two glowing blue eyes still in working order. It no longer had its legs, and its body was as old and rusty as the room itself. Below the automaton's eye was what both it and C1YD3 considered its name. B0NN13.

B0NN13 observed C1YD3 with a non-visible sorrow within its soul, deep in between its jammed cogs and broken wiring. It felt fear, sorrow, and torment but it found a slither of happiness within itself at the sight of the other damaged mechanoid. C1YD3 moved its mutilated body closer to B0NN13, its red eye shining into the machine’s blue light. It opened the hatch to what would be considered its mouth and it tapped its puppet-like mouth against the cracked cheek of B0NN13. The two machines kissed each other, or at least as close to a kiss as two damaged robots could get.

The claustrophobic room hummed and shook as flames poured through it like waves of death. One by one each lonely machine melted away slowly, watching as their entire world faded away. The two machines continued to get closer to each other in a last-ditch effort to show their affection. Each one knew that the other was trying though. They were trying the very best they could, despite it all being in vain. The hell flames spewed out at them and stripped them of all they had left. The machines melted into each other. Finally, they were as one.