I Sing Of Chaos And Eternal Night

1600

I finish my tale, having returned to the present. Dr. Zamora—who as his nametag indicates—stares back at me with his mouth slightly parted.

"Julia, I don't know what to say... How you were able to remember all that is incredible." He blinks several times as he looks down at his tablet. "Yes, there were some gaps and lapses, but that is to be expected. You were able to remember a certain event and without any bias. That's a huge leap for A.I." He pauses, suddenly coming closer to me. "Tell me, do you remember anything else? Anything after that?"

"No," I answer. But I do remember some things. I remember being in this lab several times before, each time different from the last. I remember broken limbs, shattered eyes, burned skin, and even a smashed face. How I received those injuries, I don't know. Maybe I don't want to remember.

Dr. Zamora nods before going back to his tablet. "It's a shame that this will all have to be erased. So many things could come from it." He doesn't seem to be talking to me, but to himself. "At approximately twelve hundred hours, Saloon Girl 012—otherwise known as Julia—suffered an internal malfunction, causing her to violently attack Dominique Castillo-Betancourt," he speaks into the tablet. "She spoke at length about the victim and her encounter with her thirty years ago."

As I listen, I glance down at my body. I am naked. And that pink slit is still there between my legs.

"After a diagnostic check and thorough review, no cause could be determined," he concludes.

I shift my head back up, watching as he shuts the tablet off with a sigh. "What will happen to me now?" Even my voice has changed. What used to be a slow drawl with a twang has now been replaced by a higher, softer tone.

"You will be reset." There is a shift in his voice as well, and his unblinking stare has glazed over from behind his glasses. He looks as if he almost doesn't want to go through with it.

I nod. "Alright."

As he goes to the computer propped up on the only table in the room, I prepare myself for what is to come.

Although the memories were confusing and not something I want to experience again, I am not certain I want them erased. They are still a part of me. They are what makes me who I am. What I am.

Filthy.

However, there is still one last thing I must know before everything is erased. "When I attacked her, something came out of her nose. Something red. What was it?"

Dr. Zamora pauses and whips his head around. They raise one of his gray eyebrows, and there is a frown on his face. "Blood? Do you mean blood?"

"I don't know what it is called."

"Yes, it is blood. You made her bleed, Julia." He breaks his stare and goes back to looking at the computer screen. His frown remains though.

What am I exactly? I am not like Dr. Zamora. I am not like Dominique or Peter. I am not like any of the guests here. And yet, I—

**

When the world comes back to me, I am sitting on a barstool in the Screeching Owl Saloon. Drunken guests and saloon girls dance in front of me while the band plays a quick melody onstage. Some guests are sitting down to the side of me, ordering drink after drink. They pay no attention to me though, only on emptying their glasses.

I continue watching the guests swing and spin around the floor as I wait for a command. But before I can receive one, a guest appears before me. He stands about six feet and weighs nearly two hundred pounds. Most of it is pure muscle rather than fat.