#feedbackpls]

The Alpha swings at me with his remaining arm. I get my left up to block but it’s too damaged - it shatters under the blow. I hear pings from alerts that would normally have been displayed on my visor, and I think I can hear Matthias trying to talk to me over the comms, but all I hear is garbled static. I feel something click into place in my mind. Unbidden flashes of memories not mine, I remember. I’ve been here before. A bullet lodged in my left arm, I felt the numbness of a severed nerve, watched my blood spatter through the broken shell of the exo.

Blood. I had a human arm.

I’ve been staring dumbly at the shattered stump of my arm. The only thing coming from it now is coolant and metal shrapnel. The Alpha takes advantage of my momentary disorientation. A swift uppercut sends me flying.

When I lost my left arm to the bullet, I lost my grip on the door of the evac helicopter. I fell back to the ground, too stunned to land on my feet.

Slamming into the rock face jars me back to reality. I shake my head to clear it and see the Alpha leaping up after me. I dig my talons into the stone and swing out of the way. Before I even hear the Alpha impact, I’m making a limping scramble up the face. I’m not fast enough. I feel his grip around my ankle and I’m being dragged down.

They had cut my power in the moments I was shaken from my fall from the helicopter. I was trapped in my exo like a skintight cage. They were dragging me away. I heard the helicopter fading into the distance. The pilot couldn’t find me under all the tree cover. I was alone and helpless.

I take a staggering breath and try to dislodge the fear gripping my chest. My face is covered in sweat, something my cooling system should have prevented. I bury the memory of helplessness under this immediate fact, then hear the whine of power coursing through my body.

I grit my teeth and wrench my leg free. The Alpha’s deteriorated skin and one of his fingers shear off with the force of it.

Seeing the skin pull away sinks me back into another memory. They pulled me out of my exo. I gazed up at the twisted face of the Alpha. Their expression shifted moment to moment: anger, curiosity, desperation, anger again, despair. I froze like a startled deer, not knowing what to do, afraid that any action would be the wrong one.

I feel the Alpha close his hand around my leg. With immense effort I pull myself back to the present, but the echoes of the past rattle in my head. The Alpha had grabbed my leg then too, shattered it in its grip. I remember blinding pain. Pain - my leg had been human too.

An Alpha broke two parts of me that day that had been human.

I am filled with a terrifying fury. With a roar I fling myself at the Alpha, catching it off guard. Together we plummet back to the base. I land heavily on its chest, but it recovers instantly. It makes another lunge at my face with steel teeth, but I manage to hook the edge of its helmet.

I can see hate in its eyes.

I swing it around.

Its head hits the rock with a crack and it shouts, but it dazedly reaches for me, so I draw it back again.

Crack.

Again. Like a chant.

Crack.

Again. End, end, end.

Crack.

Again.

But it’s not moving anymore. When I let go, it falls limply to the ground. I see his face. His anger is gone. Above the steel jaw is an expression of terror. Tears streak pale lines through the dust on his cheeks.

My fury drains away in an instant, leaving me hollow. I can’t breathe.

I couldn’t have-

I can’t believe I-

I never would-

I kill monsters. Monsters don’t feel fear. Monsters don’t cry. No no no-

All my unfinished thoughts set my mind churning again, spiraling down, down. The sound of a helicopter interrupts my descent. For a moment I’m not sure if it’s real.

With a mask of calm I don’t really feel, suspending myself above an all-consuming panic, I retrieve my left arm and retreat into the treeline. From the shadows, I watch a pair rappel down from the helicopter and begin attaching a towline to the prone form of the Alpha. They don’t show any sign of caring where I am. I just turn and walk away, deeper into the forest.

I find myself sitting against an old tree near the Molerat, holding my left hand in place as my auto-repair gets to work. From the inside out, everything starts knitting back together. Currents of electricity pulse up and down the length of my wrist, selectively powering tiny electromagnets that coerce the pieces of me back into the right shape.

I feel numb and still, but I can feel the churning thoughts in the back of my mind. I am standing on thin ice over a racing black river. Any thought feels like shifting my weight and hearing the creak and snap under my feet.

I remember back then, pain and fear. I remember the reason I got through it. I heard Matthias over the comms, he told me I would be all right. The memories don’t feel quite right. Something wasn’t fitting. But I wasn’t alone.

There is only silence over the comms now.

I don’t move. I barely breathe. I feel the thrum in my forearm and count the number of pulses.

One.

Two.

I lost some pieces. The arm will need full replacement to be at full strength again.

Twenty-six.

Twenty-seven.

I know how many until it will be sturdy enough to keep repairing without me holding it in place.

Ninety-three.

Ninety-four.

I don’t know my own name.