chapter seven
332 Words
I quickly got ellara situated with a couple of thick towels wrapped around her to hopefully stop the bleeding while I'm gone. Then I told her to stay quiet and don't answer the door for anyone until I get back.
I locked the door on my way out and went to work, returning several hours later to find to my relief that Ellara had listened. Ellara was sitting in a wooden chair at my table, not bleeding anymore which was good.
“Why did you come here?”
Ellara shook her robotic head before attempting an answer. “I-I was the first one. I was made for- for the real princess.”
“But you chose to escape.”
“Because- she was awful! She'd tear me open, break me, make me so I wouldn't work, all so she can have the twisted pleasure of using my organs like a leash and then later fix me up just to do it all over again!”
Ellara was violently shaking as she re-lived the trauma she'd experienced. No one, not even a machine, should ever experience such torture. “I don't know what I can do for you. They'll keep looking for you. The people down here will use you for scrap metal, and the people in the sky kingdom will just return you to her.”
“Please, fix me- make me unrecognizable- I'm begging you! I don't want to go back there!” Ellara grabbed the front of my shirt. “Please!”
I sighed. “Look, as someone who's lived their whole life as a simple factory worker, I don't really know anyone. And we are gonna need people to make us fake identities.”
“But you can at least fix me for now. Right?”
“I can try.” I released a breath. I didn't know much about these machines with living organs. Ironically the one who’d be able to help me is my annoying coworker S131.
- Writer
