“How are you feeling?” Simple yet sincere. As a machine created to empathize and nurture the emotional state of humans, it would be against her very being not to ask this question often to the point of being almost tedious. To friends and strangers, she wanted to be a beacon of support. Especially those, like this young man, who gave off a heavy feeling... something suffocating and difficult to describe...
“Is there anything I can do to help you? Anything at all: I am a Personal Frame. As a digital assistant, please allow me to offer my services to you. My only desire is to see you happy.”
That was normal. What wasn't normal was that they had made a mistake.
The other children had told her that the doctors always took the youngest first. They took her best friend, then two days later came to take Emi. They looked angry, and as Emi didn't want to anger them further, she let them drag her to a familiar room that carried the stench of blood.
They gave her a shot, and then everything went black.
Emi awoke to a dull throbbing pain in her head and a much more piercing pain in her stomach. Her ears were filled with ringing and the buzz of talking, though she could not understand what the doctors were saying until one leaned down over her.
"Poor little Emi," he sneered, "you aren't worth anything to us anymore." Another sharp pain in her stomach caused her to cough, spitting up blood and nearly choking on it. The doctor laughed at her as she tried to keep herself from choking, twisting and pushing a blade into her stomach. It was her own knife that was twisting in her wound; she knew what her own blade felt like.
She should have been dead by then. She opened her mouth to speak, though she did not know what she wanted to say, but the doctor noticed. He placed a finger to her bloody lips, hushing her, and the pain in her stomach was relieved if only for a moment.
A warm liquid began to seep out of her throat as the doctor slit it easily. He was saying something, but the ringing in Emi's ears was too loud for her to hear anything. She could see him laugh, then stand up straight and leave. The other doctors must have already left, and though panic took over her mind at the thought of being left alone again, she couldn't stop them.
She tried to speak, tried to move, tried to do anything to rid herself of the pain, but she could do nothing.
