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Gabriel prodded the dwindling campfire and watched as licks of fire caught onto the stick he was holding; he threw it into the fire when the tip ignited in flames. A bundle of damp sticks was wrapped neatly in a thin, coarse string and was placed beside him. He hooked his pinky finger underneath the string and lifted the bundle, tossing it into the campfire and effectively extinguishing it.
He idly sat underneath the light of the moon before he stretched out his wings and wrapped the pair around his body like a silken cocoon. Gabriel fiddled with the translucent, feathered tips that gave off a semblance of warmth and tucked his knees towards his chest.
The scabbed wounds on Gabriel’s back ached as minuscule tears leaked out, droplets of blood onto the grass below. He was now used to the taste and scent of his blood. The pain gave him something to pivot his attention towards, something that wasn’t the bloodbath he’d made in Heaven.
He didn’t have much longer, and there wasn’t anything anymore for him to do. So, he leaned his head against a nearby tree and drifted off into a deep slumber.
Gabriel woke up to a daunting presence that sent a chill down his spine.
He lifted himself for the tree and placed a hand onto the ground to hoist himself up. Whilst scanning the area, he paused at an unmistakably familiar optical light in the distance, “Machine? What are you… Doing here?”
The machine didn’t respond.
Gabriel scrutinized the frame that was steadily getting near, “This,” he gestured to the machine, “Doesn’t make sense at all. You’re not supposed to be here, you have no reason to be here at all.”
He felt a sense of perturbation climb through his fingertips as V1’s optic brightened, “Wait, what are you–”
V1 tackled Gabriel into the ground, speckles of dirt and blades of grass floated to the ground beside the pair. He struggled to pry the machine’s servos from the clug to the back of his neck and its pedes that wrapped tightly around his chest; however, it just clung tighter onto him the more he pulled. So, he stopped.
Gabriel’s muffled voice came out against the machine’s chassis, “That’s enough, you’ve made your point. Either way, you’re…”
He tightly gripped the grass beside him as V1’s servos traced the scarred wounds against his chest, down to the tender lesions that were in the process of healing against his abdominal muscles. The machine’s digit circled a circular wound that dipped into his skin, and curved a digit into the crevice of his gash, tearing it wider in the process.
V1 lifted its servo away from his opened wound and smeared the blood across the side of its helm. Its optical shutters narrowed as the blood was absorbed into its plating; the fuel flooded its systems with a rush of adrenaline. It was addicting, he was addicting.
The machine curved its chassis above Gabriel’s face and dipped its servo into the junction between his neck and shoulder. Its digits kneaded the veins that pulsed erratically and nicked a shallow cut against his jugular vein; it watched with a perverse stare as it rubbed the droplets of blood around the cut.
The heat from his wounds fogged his mind, clouding his ability to keep his voice to himself.
“Mn…”
Gabriel slammed a palm to the front of his faceplate and held onto a servo that trailed down to the navel of his exposed skin. He watched as the machine’s digits slid up to the start of his sternum; its singular thumb dug into the skin underneath and pierced through until it reached his stomach.
He winced, “Oh, dear…”
The thumb slowly dragged down and ripped through the layers of his skin until it reached his navel. Gabriel’s abdominal skin curved outward as blood billowed out from his exposed chest cavity; he glanced down at the riveting display of his lungs expanding and intestinal track spilling out from his belly.
“...”
He felt naked, exposed, and terrifyingly vulnerable. However, even while his heart palpitated, the wetness that bloomed between his legs encouraged him to grab the machine’s thigh, “Show me what you’re capable of. That said, you’d better know what you’re doing.”
No movements.
Gabriel threw a confused look at V1, “What else is there to say? You–”
The machine’s servo scraped along the smooth surface of his lungs and cupped the base of it before hauling it just under the film of blood. Gabriel wheezed with lightheaded consciousness as his lungs collapsed in on themselves against his chest; he coughed the blood that bubbled up his esophagus and spat it out.
V1 optic briefly surveyed him and put the lungs back in place. Its dismissiveness irked him.
“I can’t allow you to just do as you please,” Gabriel said as he shoved his hand into the cavity of the machine’s hip joint and pulled loose a few wires.
V1’s vocalizer sputtered straight static and incomprehensible binary until it gathered its means and retaliated by latching onto Gabriel’s intestinal track and heaving it out of his body. The bloodied bits slipped from the surface of his skin and coiled beside his body; the lack of his intestines made him feel hollowed out and unbelievably empty.
Despite the carnage, his instinctive desire demanded that he shove something to fill in the cavity. To make him full, or rather, whole again.
V1 responded with a singular beep.
The machine’s pedes shifted down into the lower portion of his chest cavity; it squished against the remaining intestines and crammed against the underbelly of his lungs as it wriggled the last exposed part of its helm into him. Gabriel could see the distended surface of his skin, in which the machine was buried itself under.
It should’ve disgusted him.
However, the feeling of his organs being displaced, shifted throughout his body to provide a space of comfort for the machine, filled him with a sort of satisfaction.
Gabriel heaved his hand into his chest cavity and rumaged around until he got a hold of V1’s main connection cord, and pulled.
A surge of electricity shot through his entire nervous system, damaging the sensitive nerves in his body and numbing him from the waist down. His breathing turned agonal, and a sense of fear welled up inside him as the machine’s lifeless body gradually heated. Then, a flash of bright light blinded him.
Gabriel fumbled over himself and grasped his chestplate. A beam of sunlight shone through the dense forest as birds chirped overhead, masking the small rustles of smaller animals searching for food. There were no signs of the machine. However, his thighs felt a bit… Uncomfortably wet.
Great.