Chessdance

The Void

The empty screen reflected in his eyes. Fitting, considering a huge part of his life had just been ripped from him.

Voided like a forgotten file, unusable to those that needed it. Which, in the end, truly was just himself, he realized.

Uno had been a special friend to him. Had been more than that. Where others saw a machine, Donald had seen a reason to push forward. To shove himself into whatever he needed to do so the world could stay whole. His world could stay whole.

And now it wasn't anymore.

How strange, how it seemed like he felt nothing. Stranger when he just got up to start dinner. Even stranger when he welcome the triplets into the house that he had almost forgotten about while he had lived in the tower.

They ate, talking about school, their uncle, their lives and Donald listened and felt that part in himself that had been a tiny black fleck spread out bigger the longer the day went on.

The package arrived and the vehicle that Uno had given him spread out just like it.

There clearly was a pattern, it seemed.

It wasn't until it was dark and he watched the cape on his back lazily sway in the night air, that he broke down. Sitting on a rooftop near the ducklair tower, he had stared at it for a good twenty minutes before the facade he had worn broke and he was left sobbing and clutching the x-transformer shield that didn't respond to his attempts of conversation any longer.

It was quiet, so he filled the silence with the sound of ragged sobbing, desperate gasps and heaving. It didn't bring Uno back, but it brought relief and that was exactly what he needed to function for the rest of the night.

There was more lost than a voice that told him what to do or where to go. More lost than a computer that could simulate laughter.