When he awoke that morn, he was greeted by the very things that greeted him the morning before and the morning before that: sunshine and the pleasant hum of the idle world beyond his bedroom window. His room, boyishly decorated as it was, hadn't changed since last he saw it. It was still delightfully cubic; blue walls adorned with posters of this and that, the mighty oak chest that once belonged to his grandmother still stood mightily in the corner and was still as messily packed as it was yesterday. And when he crawled from his bed,
eyes still heavy with lingering sleep,
not once did he think to himself that
today, of all days would be any
different than all the others before it. Well, no child was familiar with the dangers of assumption -- of placing a tentative label on things that could easily turn face the moment they saw fit. At least, this child did not. And so, it was with no further thought on that hypothetical subject that he left his boyishly cubic room for what would come to be, sooner than he expected, the last time. He went about his morning in a childishly charming way, doing things boys his age often did, all whilst paying no mind to the steadily growing tension in the fabric of his own destiny. What awaited him was still unknown but for only another hour or so. Oblivious as he was, the lad found himself at the end of the hour standing quite peacefully on his own doorstep. outside. What better place for a child to spend their hours but outdoors ? Such that they may romp and frolic to their heart's content. And that is what his own, childishly playful heart so desired. So, down he went unto the front lawn and down further into the green, green grass below his feet. Arms spread wide, lips spread in a smile of similar fashion. What care had he but that he may be covered in grass stains by the day's end ? N O T H I N G Save for the fact that the gentleman behind the wheel of the oncoming car had lost focus for one second too long, and now both the wheel of his vehical and the wheel of fate had since locked. When the tires rode the banking, up onto the lawn, the boy lost his childish pin. Now, there was blood. And soon, there would be police. Soon after that, there would be an ambulance. Not long after that, there would be news -- one tastelessly cliche retelling of an equally cliche accident that happened only because fate commanded it. And too soon after that, the entirety of it all would go c o l d ... But,
out of the cold would come something new. Something far less cliche than the events that came before it. A strange something that perhaps even fate did not see. Something of a broken child being reassembled -- reborn with an ultron core, and set back in the world that had thought him long gone... At the end of it all
when the sun set
in his chest beat the heart
of a m a c h i n e .