Missing

Trigger warning: Self harm, PTSD

Numb. She was scared for only a few, fleeting moments. Every second felt like an eternity but there was no pain, everything was numb. From her observations the difficulty for her to draw breath had increased by 20.65 at this interval, with diminishing returns with every breath onward. There was no more pain, no fear, barely any coherence in thought and as it faded away into oblivion Sam thought she was sorry. Sorry for what? No, to who? Something was missing. 

The moment the memory ended, Sam replayed it from the beginning for the 107th time. The result was inconclusive once more.

 "Are you awake?"

Awake? How could she not be awake? Her eyes stuttered in their blinking. When she opened them, two bright blue lights shone out from her irises at the person who loomed over her.

It was her Papa.

In an instant Sam analyzed every wrinkle in his face: fatigue, age and malnutrition the reason behind their formation. Sam tried to speak, to ask her question but nothing was said, not a single sound escaped her lips. She could only stare in dead silence as her Papa ruffled her hair, touching 1732 strands of it as he did so.

“We still have to run some tests before you can speak, alright?”

There was nothing else Sam could do. Sam needed to speak, Sam needed to ask her question, and so, she nodded, much to her surprise. Sam was ready.

Her father released her face and pointed at himself, “Do you know who I am?”

Sam realized that moment she had already been asked this many times before, and had somehow managed to get the answer wrong some of the times. How? The answer was simple. Sam lifted her right hand up and traced the letters, ‘PAPA’, in the air. As she did so Sam observed how her Papa watched her fingers like a hawk. Reassurance flooded through him the moment she finished that last vowel. This was not what was missing.

“What is your fondest memory?” he asked, holding a finger up to make her wait for a moment.

Sam began tracing her answer as she did before with her fingers, but realized the futility of it. Instead, Sam traced her answer, ‘I need a pen please’ as she had done so many times before. Many times? This should be her first time answering this question.

Her Papa shoved his chair and sent himself flying across the room towards his desk, muttering about being scatterbrained. He returned to her side in the same manner, her ears recorded that the squeaking of wheels fluctuated between 29.8 and 31.2 decibels. With a shaking hand, Sam's father handed her a pad of paper and a pen.

Sam paused and stared at the paper. She picked up the pen and stared at the writing implement. Her Papa’s fingers were linked together so tightly his knuckles were paler than death- much like Sam’s own skin in that final memory. He was watching, waiting for her to write, fear in his eyes.

Sam pressed the pen onto the page and tried to write. She knew the answer, but was this what was missing? As the answer ‘No’ screamed at her, Sam snapped her pen in half. How much force did she just exert? An accidental 3 kips, 3000 lbs of force, to just write. Recalibrations were needed.

Papa let out a nervous, shaky breath. With a forced grin, he handed another pen and paper to Sam, pressed one hand against her right cheek and said, "Y-yes. I-it's no rush, take your time. Your fondest memory?"

Sam knew Papa’s caress exerted 1.2 pounds of pressure and that his fingers were trembling, that she felt no warmth from him despite his internal body temperature being 305.27K, but she did not know the answer.

“That doesn’t matter for now. How about, how about- Sam, do you love your Papa?” he asked, changing the inquiry, begging Sam for an answer.

Sam tilted her head and looks at him, her eyes unblinking.

'Of course I love my papa,' she wrote down, showing her Papa her answer. The calibrations were successful, pen and paper intact. But she knew that. That was not missing. She loved her Papa, and no one else?

Papa’s face lit up. He smiled and broke into a manic giggle. Papa shot out of his chair and sprinted back to his desk, his giggles changed into howls of laughter.

 “Damn, where did I put it?” he mumbled to himself, scattering papers on his desk every which way.

While Sam's Papa searched his desk, Sam analyzed the room for the forty third time. It was his lab, she had come here many times when she was alive. Alive? She was alive now. Machines lined the walls, ranging from hospital equipment such as life support, empty IV drips and synthetic skin modellers to supercomputers that hummed and flickered with life. In the corner of the lab, featureless, nude humanoid mannequins were strapped into chairs. Nothing strange, Sam had seen them when she first woke. They had been analyzed before, but a dull sensation prompted her to look at them again. Sam's vision zoomed in to analyze the hollowed, featureless skull of what seemed to be her face. More than a dozen of the cadavers are strewn about, their half completed metal frames with their wiring carelessly exposed to the open. They all seemed to do nothing but stare into the vastness of eternity, not much different than the vapid expression Sam herself wore in her final moments.

Sam looked down at the paper and stared at the blank space, she had not answered the second question yet. Her fondest memory, it was there, it should be there. Sam remembered when, at Christmas, she accidentally found her gift, and tried to re-wrap the present, and- Who was upset? No, that was not her fondest memory. But it was missing the component, that memory held the missing answer. Who was she sorry to? 

It was not Papa. Sam needed to speak, and when she did, only gargled static buzzed forth from her mouth. 

“Sam, is something wrong?” Papa asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Sam pointed at her throat, she did not want to write. Writing would take too long. Why could she not speak? Why could she not feel? Why was that overwhelming sensation of utter numbness, of utter nothing, the utter lack of feeling anything she experienced in those last moments now a permanent fixture in the entirety of her existence? Why was she punished with this? Why? Sam needed to know. She wanted to know. What was missing? 

“Soon Sam, I promise,” he reassured her, clapping his hands together as tears welled up in his eyes. “Just need to run some final tests. I promise.”

Why was he crying?

Sam placed the paper and pen to her side and pushed herself out of her chair. Her feet slapped on the floor. She could read the pressure that her body was exerting with her steps, but it was only numbers. Numbers did not matter. She was not held down, she was not bound, Papa would never employ such horrific measures. Papa was good, Papa was her papa.

Papa could only watch in silent horror as Sam made her way over to the discarded shells and picked one of them up. Sam held the entire body by its skull, cradling its metallic cheek bones. Aside from its lack of a pelvic region and arms, the only other difference between the two that she can note is how its cheeks are 0.023 millimeters thicker than hers.

“They were not you, Sam,” Papa said, his voice a gentle whisper in his attempt to reassure her.

This one was not her? What about that one? What about the one whose jaw is missing, was that her? Did they fail the question too? Is that why they were discarded? Was she so easily replaced? With a flick of her thumb, Sam tore open the doll’s forehead and exposed shining metal, a forehead mirror for her to look into. Sam could see that glanced at the only mirror, everything about herself seemed to be perfect. The trace of her collarbone was as perfect as she could recall. Her nude form, down to the moles, down to the freckles and the colour gradation of her blush, perfect.

The doll’s head shattered from pressure she exerted onto it. Sam did not feel the metal crunch under her grip or the shrapnel embed itself into her “flesh”, exposing what was meant to be her muscles and tendons as nothing more than a series of plates and tensile microfibers. No blood, no pain, she only felt the familiar numbness. 

This was perfection? She was different from these dolls? These same dolls that had the same inner workings? Most likely the same thoughts, as Sam recalled that this doll, this life of hers, did in fact succeed in all of the questioning. But there was no emotion, there was no ‘life’ in it. Her voice was numb, her voice was a failure.

Sam was numb, but it was not just touch, it was not just heat or cold, it was something more.

Sam looked over at her Papa, who with trembling fingers, now held some kind of device. Most likely a safety measure, not that it mattered: She was replaceable. Sam reached at her throat, tore open the false skin and flesh, and threaded her fingers into the metal-woven larynx.

After mere moments, Sam attempted to speak, “Re-re-re-remember?” Neutral. Flat.

The voice was alien, but it was hers, at least. Papa's hand shook, he clicked the device on, the light shone, his finger readied on the button.

 “Wh-wh-why? Numb? Why?” Sam choked out, a half sob. She needed to know what she was missing. “I- I’m, sorry. I, am sorry. F-fondest, memory, I’m sorry. I-it is not- it i-is missing. I’m sorry, Papa. I’m sorry to what?” No. Not what. “T-to who?”

Papa dropped the controller. A spark of realization crossed his features. His eyes brightened with anger, his mouth turned downwards into a snarl. “It’s her, isn’t it? Always her, she caused them to fail. She doesn’t matter, just you do! Why Sam, why?”

Sam walked over towards him, hands outreached, and gently cradled her Papa’s head. She pressed her forehead against his, a gesture from when she was a child. “M-missing. I-incomplete. Help me. Please.”

In an instant Papa’s anger washed away and a stupefied expression replaced it. He slumped down to the floor, drained of all animation. He allowed a loud sob to escape him, but nothing else. Eventually Papa got back up, his body trembling. Sam bent down low and allowed him to use her for support. She carried him over to his computers and held him up as he accessed file upon file, waiting patiently for the fruit of his labours.

Sam's Papa pulled a cord from the computer and reached up behind his daughter's ear, pressed it in, and a wave of memories immediately started to play.

Sam looked down from the stage of a piano recital, smiling at her father who sat next to a familiar girl. The two of them were smiling and clapping as the piece came to a close, and the name sparked to life: Natalie.

When Sam opened her eyes again, she looked down at the quaking man on the floor, his tear stained face held by his hands. Sam considered playing the memory again, she considered to see if it answered her question. Instead Sam knelt down, took her father in her arms and embraced him, cradling him as he had once cradled her so many years ago.