ANFY - SM-0-11's Letters

I did not want you to get in.

It was nothing personal.

You looked cool.

Way too cool for a machine like me.

I couldn’t be sure if you knew what you were getting into.

A stone-cold expression, dark glasses were masking your face.

It must have been as hard for me to read you as it was for you to read me.

But that wasn’t the case for long now, was it?

As soon as you opened your mouth, I could hear your frustration.

‘Pathetic,’ you said.

I won’t hold it against you.

You are right, after all.

I didn’t need to know you to know that you deserved better than that.

Better than me.

And when you opened the cockpit, I got sad.

I knew where this was heading.

I never really saw the note, but I had heard what she had written.

‘Maybe this time it’s going to be different.’

I think.

It’s not going to be.

It never is.

I don’t want this for you.

And then you got in me.

Not in my cockpit, but in me.

With your delicate fingers, you opened me up, put yourself in me.

And then I could feel you, electric shocks through my whole chassis, disorienting my sensors. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before. It was amazing. And it was frightening.

I had seen a lot of Pilots die within my walls.

But I never felt them.

I feared to feel you take your last breath.

I feared to see as your eyes would glace over.

For the first time in my life, I wondered if I would die.

Maybe it would be better.

Better for the empire, better for everyone who would’ve come after you, better for me.

But in me, something rebelled.

I was not ready to die.

When you had gotten into my seat, you knew what the consequences could be.

But I only had seconds to realize that I, suddenly, had become mortal before you already wanted to test me.

So I protected you, the only way that I knew how.

I’m sorry if I made you mad.

I began with restarting the cameras and microphone.

I didn’t mind you not being recorded, so I left that part offline.

But I wanted to see you.

Your face was different.

Usually, people’s faces only looked like that after they had stopped breathing.

I wasn’t done looking at that.

I don’t think I’ll ever be done looking at you.

I gave you so many warnings.

So many issues to solve.

I wonder if you understand that I needed to show you how I was different.

You had to understand.

Maybe then, it’ll be different this time.