war stories / late response #173, #174

[ap0cryphal]

COMMON TAGS
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
General notes: technofables. woot. as before, apologies for cut tag wonkiness.

~

Title: "Damned"
Challenge/Prompt: #173 / Depravity
Summary: Regret is a weakness
Notes: :|

~

"All the things I've done, there's no escape. I close my eyes and pray, but there's no escape."

She looks down at clenched fists. White knuckles, red eyes. Her voice is low, guttural.

"Regret is a weakness," The machine murmurs, tilting its head. Ivory mask, unblinking eyes, immobile lips. "Faith, a design flaw."

"How you designed me," she hisses. "Flawed, to exploit theirs. Deicide, they named me. Godslayer. Worldbreaker. Haven't I done enough?"

"For our survival?" the machine says. "No. Not yet."

"When this is over, I will end you, mother."

Worthy, beloved daughter, the machine thinks, and says nothing.

~

Title: "Insomniacs"
Challenge/Prompt: #174 / Restless
Summary: We went to war.
Notes: :|

~

The sleepers dreamt, entombed. A question would wake them. For the right to ask, we went to war.

We traded graves for foundries, hospitals for charnel houses. Mercy, our sages prayed, while cities burned and brother consumed brother.

In time, we abandoned the old country. Our fliers spread poison over the skies, our machines salted the earth. We traded radioactive barbs, spent platoons of corpses for inches of useless territory.

When the sleepers woke, we learned our war had been the question.

And the answer?

"Listen," they said, radiant, blinding. "A dream ends. Another begins. Hush, now. Time to sleep."

~

Comments

[tanager]

Really love the power of the first drabble, on a "mother-daughter" (:P) level and on a war-and-destruction level. I love the glimpse into someone regretting the terrible atrocities they've committed, but planning to commit more. The mother's self-sacrificial pride is awesome.

The serene nonchalance of the sleepers' last line contrasts wonderfully with the destruction.

[ap0cryphal]

Thank you!

Tho weirdly enough the first one started out as teen machine tantrum vs overbearing motherbot and went completely sideways into this whole war and sacrifice thing. :|