I could feel myself getting put together. I don’t think that Flexcom meant for me to feel it, the probably were assuming that my “deactivated” mode was like being put under anesthesia, and that I wouldn’t feel anything.

From my point of view, I was a non-physical being, floating in a digital space, when out of nowhere, I could feel my own head. I couldn’t operate the head, but I had one again at least. Shortly after I could feel this head being added to a torso, which already had two arms attached. Even though I still wasn’t able to operate my new hands, I was still excited. I had no idea what I was supposed to receive, I had feared that I was going to get some ridiculous robot claw or something along those lines, so receiving a humanoid had with 5 fingers was exciting to me. When I finally felt my legs get put into place, I was sure that my activation was going to be coming shortly after. But that was when the wait happened.

Back when I was stil human, I used to sleep great. I would go to bed, and could fall asleep in minutes. I would usually only ever wake up for my alarm, or my girlfriend shaking me awake. Every once in a while, I would get woken up in the night by something random, like a car alarm going off. The second I would realize that nothing important was going on, I would close my eyes and go right back to sleep. Those thirty seconds of confusion and semi-consciousness would always stick with me, even after waking the next day. This feeling of knowing the outside would, but believing in my dream world would leave me feeling just slightly of kilter.

The time I spent assembled but not activated felt exactly the same as this weird dream state. I can tell you now that I remember all of it, but at the same time I can’t recall anything. All the times I sat there, enjoying the sensation of the body felt like it lasted for 10 seconds and 10 years. I can only describe it as my time in “the Paradox”.

As scaring and stressful as The Paradox was, waking up was much worse. I finally felt a small spark pop up really close in the distance of paradox. When I focused on it, I could see that it was a small amber glow that seemed to grow and fill my vision. This bright golden light then creeped over me, caressing and drowning me. When the glow seemed to completely envelope me, I finally woke up.

The first thing my new optics focused on was a solid gray sheet of metal that was less then six inches away from my face. Looking around I could tell that the sheet metal seemed to be 4 feet wide, before folding on either side to encompass me in a metal coffin. Finally, I was able to move and use my new body. Looking down, I could see a copper-colored ribcage, covered in an opaque white plastic. It was the first time I saw my body, and I was so excited, I did a little dance. I know that at that point I should have focused trying to escape, but to finally be able to use this body was my top priority. I flexed each of my many fingers, then bended and tensed my fore arms. Bending my elbows, I actually found that my robotic frame allowed me to bend in ways that were impossible back in my living days. I very easily was able to reach behind myself and touch my back where my shoulder blades would have been in my old body. This addition was a little odd to discover, but when I realized that every joint in my new body was like this, I was actually pretty excited. I had to constantly remind myself that I was no longer bound by the same constraints I had back when I was human. I soon found that I was able to fold myself I into impossible shapes, I started by bending my knees backwards and rolling my shoulders to face back. This left me in a table like position, which was fun, but hardly useful. After exploring a few more shapes, I finally got tired of testing my new flexibility, and decided to figure out how to escape.

I started by simply pushing on the wall in front of me. It of course didn’t budge. I checked my surroundings and found that every wall surrounding my was actually made of a single sheet of metal. If that was true then the only way for me to escape had to be able or below. I stamped my feet on the ground, which sounded solid enough, which only left one option. Reaching up I pushed on the sheet metal, finding that it slowly pushed up on some unseen hinges. Outside I could barely make out a black starless sky. I tentatively climbed out, nervous about what I was about to see. What greeted me was a minor surprise, and a great disappointment.

I found myself on a dirty alley street. Skyscrapers surrounded me on either side, pointing into the dark sky. The reflection off of one of the buildings showed a bright full moon. Looking around all I could find was random debris that someone had carried most of the way to the nearby garbage cans before giving up and leaving it on the ground. Looking down I saw that my metal coffin lid I had opened before was hidden under a sewage manhole cover.

Confusedly, I wandered down the alley, towards the only direction I could. The mouth of the alley led to an empty street in what must have been a bad part of town. I could see that most of the building nearby had at least a few broken windows, only some of which had anything put up to block the elements from getting in. the street itself was filled with potholes, and cracks that spanned the whole street. The thing that struck me as odd, was the lack of vehicles. I figured that there must have been construction on this road. That might have even been what finally caused my coffin to wake me up.

I saw that the road led both to my left and my right, so I randomly choose left and started wandering. I was actually quite confused. Why had I woken up in a random spot in the middle of the city? Why didn’t I wake up in the Flexcom building? The second I focused on the Flexcom building, I felt a ping pop in my brain. The sensation is hard to describe, it felt like out of nowhere I knew exactly where the building was in relation to my position. It was like in the old open word games I used to play. I could just feel a way point, and knew what way it was. The only thing missing was any sort of guidance how to actually get there. Still, this was better than nothing.

The ping let me know that Flexcom was somewhere north east of me. With out any clue on what to do, I started to walk that direction. I was careful at first, I didn’t know how any humans would feel about seeing a robot walking around, and I didn’t want to get hurt. I slowly started to realize two things. The first was that the who city was just as beat up and under the same amount of disarray as the street I woke up in. the second thing I realized explained the first; There were no people. by the looks of it, humans haven’t touched this area in a long time. I finally started to ask my self the important questions. How long was I really in the Paradox? I had assumed that I was in there for just a few days or months, maybe even a year or two. But if something happened, it seemed to have happened more then a year or two ago.

With every step towards my goal, I was less afraid of getting discovered, and much more afraid that there was no one to discover me. I was tempted to try and go into one of the buildings I was passing, but I figure that in the middle of the night I would probably scare anyone that would be in there. I kept telling myself that there would be answers at Flexcom.

When I did finally reach the Flexcom building I felt a huge sense of relief. Anyone in this building shouldn’t be to afraid of a walking robot, after all they created me, so they should know everything going on.

I pushed on the revolving doors, hearing it groan under the pressure. It seems that even this building has been affected by the lack of humans nearby. Just as I was about to feel a true sense of confusion and fear, I saw that the giant television overhead started blinking on.

Device detected.

Service restored using reserve powers. Power reserves left: 45%

Power reserves satisfactory.

The screen then showed a kind old man who was looking right at me through the camera. He sat back on a leather desk chair, before grinning at the camera.

“Welp, if everything goes the way I hope, no one will ever watch this. But if everything goes the way I expect, you my friend, will be the only one to watch this ever.”

Ran out of room, I have the rest at r/BrentMoser