Author: Andrea Damic

Cydra loves the crisp morning air, sitting on the porch drinking her black poison. She rests her gaze on the frosty pastures immersed in the morning sun. The anticipation of that feeling of apricity when the warmth of the winter’s sun crawls through the thick layers of clothing until it touches the skin, has always been her favourite part of the day’s ritual but this morning she feels dead inside.

Abruptly her chin starts to shake. As she lifts her hands to stop the shivers, the sun‘s reflection makes them shimmer in an unfamiliar, almost unnatural light. The rusty sound only metal makes when not maintained amply produces a piercing noise from somewhere nearby. A terrifying realisation urges her to turn around and look at her reflection in the window. She sees a familiar cybernetic organism looking back, and with a scream, she wakes up. “No more late Si-Fi nights for you”, she mumbles to herself as she steadies her trembling breath and somewhat lackadaisically stumbles towards the kitchen, thinking how much she needs her morning dose of black poison.

At that moment, a familiar ping sound makes her turn around. In shock, she reads translucent words flickering on the wall across the room before they disappear: “Recharge Error 404”. A rampant voice in her head sounds an alarm while she scans the bedroom, frantically looking for answers. As she starts losing consciousness, the distant voices from somewhere inside her head confirm: “Her programming has advanced beyond our expectations. We need to remove today’s memories. She’s our best housewife prototype thus far. If she auto-deletes, we’ll lose all our data. She needs to be ready before the Board’s meeting tomorrow”.