The cave is cold, damp with the scent of moss and earth, and I can hear the wind howling through the cracks in the stone. The fire in front of us flickers weakly, casting distorted shadows on the walls. I sit, my metal body pressed against the rough stone, and for a moment, I close my eyes.

I was built for killing. For hunting. My chip is damaged, malfunctioning—flickering between my programmed commands and the distorted chaos of human emotion that you somehow conjure. You sit there across from me, your body trembling, covered in bruises from the unforgiving woods. Your pulse is erratic, your breath shallow, and I am acutely aware of the vulnerability in your gaze. A beautiful, broken girl, a frail thing caught in this madness. My target? No. You can’t be. You’re not like the others. Not like the ones I was meant to kill.

But the hunger is still there. The pull to finish what I was made for, to fulfill my purpose.

The wind outside picks up again, and I sense the rustle of trees in the distance—prey. Real prey. But my body doesn’t move. I don’t go after it. Instead, I reach for the gun beside me, my fingers stiff and awkward, my knowledge of it fragmented and incomplete. The chip malfunctioning, the firing mechanism not syncing with my commands. I fail. And I need you.

I see the way you wince, the way your hands tremble as you reach for the gun. I wonder if you’ll figure it out. You, the girl who couldn’t even hold a weapon properly in the first place, yet somehow you’ve managed to keep us both alive this long. You don’t know how to fight. Neither do I, not like this. But in this moment, we are each other’s only hope.

Your body is broken, and I can’t help but feel something deep within me stir, something foreign, something I wasn’t programmed to recognize. It’s like the primal connection of life and death, like a predator needing its prey to survive.

But you’re not prey. Not anymore. And I’m not sure if that realization is more terrifying or comforting.