A New Way to Bleed

by KC Nicola

Copyright 2018 KC Nicola

Smashwords Edition

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The screen of the tablet glowed brightly in front of eighteen-year-old Nick, with colors more vivid than any natural rainbow, as he stared at it in a hushed daze. His fingers moved sluggishly, pressing themselves against specific areas of the glass, though such actions were rendered counterproductive without the energy and drive he’d had not even a week before. Every now and then, a word – loss, transfer, mortality, and other similar vocabulary – from the messages he’d been receiving would penetrate his mental barrier and permeate his mind, effectively distracting him from the last bit of solace he knew.

Is this real? was all he could manage to ask himself – and he asked himself that question repeatedly. However, he already knew the answer – he just didn’t know how to accept it. How would anyone? In what world would someone gratefully accept the fact that their best friend wasn’t human anymore, that the one person they could turn to in their darkest times was now an artificial shell of who they once were?

That, he didn’t know.

For a while, Nick did nothing but tap. He couldn’t muster the strength to get out of his bed, to move his hands away from his device, to do anything that would be for his long-term benefit. Silence filled the air around him, but his inner voices screamed louder than any person ever could. They cried out without end, torturing him in ways that tore him apart from the inside out yet would have seemed to be mere inanities to anyone else. He wanted them to end but had no idea how to make them stop.