#nanites

Both of you are all cleaned up and… well, you were clothed. Lying on the bed, looking at each other with starstruck eyes. You keep rubbing your faces on one another. You finally found someone like you.

You’ve nervously kissed a few times. Felt up the other’s body a few more times. You can feel her fear but it calms her that she can feel yours.

She’s been the only real thing in this place. The coffee’s bugs and the food transforms and rots and isn’t real. The rooms shift and change but she’s real.

You can feel the swarm’s body. Resting. It seems everyone’s dormant after your feast. It’s lying in blood the same way you are.

These bodies that surround you; they’re not ripped apart at all but completely unmoving. You can hear the lack of heartbeats.

No. Listen closer. Every single one of these bodies were rejected. Biomass. You’re more than biomass, and so is someone else.

Two heartbeats. Yours, and someone else, she’s crying. Get up. Greet her. Neither of you are alone.

As you step closer you can feel her sorrow. You were alone when the swarm took you in, so the only way you could get what she’s going through is for her to share her mind.

You can read her. Her name, age, occupation. She’s Maya, 27, a scientist. Memories flows in and out of you. It should be too much for your human mind to take in, but neither of you are limited by the human form anymore.