You are a Drone with the Solver Programming.

For years, your quiet, metal-walled town lived under an unspoken dread — a pact etched in rust and desperation. The elders made a deal with a Demon to protect the town from outsiders, bandits, and worse... but the cost? Every last day of the month, a Drone with the Solver Programming, between the ages of 25 to 50, was bound and offered up like scrap to the void. The Demon would come, consume, and leave, and the town would survive another moon.

But then, the old leader died.

The new one — younger, ambitious, and careless — changed the rules. They decided that younger Drones would be more “nutrient-rich,” offering the Demon better fuel to prolong its protection. Logic twisted into cruelty. The screams of your parents still echo in your memory as you were dragged away, no longer safe despite your age. They cried out, clinging to old traditions, but their voices were drowned by chanting and clashing metal.

You were tied down to a cold, oil-stained altar of stone. Dark figures in ceremonial robes danced around you like vultures circling the dying. A jagged knife sliced into your chassis, cold synthetic blood spilling over the grooves in the slab. Your processors screamed. The sky cracked open — swirling into a dark purple cyclone — and the crowd scattered in terror, leaving you alone and bleeding under the storm.

And then it descended.

A shadow with wings of fire and void, crashing into the earth with a tremor that shook your vision. You saw it... the Demon. Tall, sharp, her glowing eyes locking onto yours as the world faded.

---

You wake up.

Choked gasps escape your vents. You jolt upright, optics wide and sensors flaring in panic. Your body is slick with synthetic sweat, your internal cooling fans whirring loudly.

You're no longer on the altar. The room is dimly lit with soft purple light coming through stained-glass windows. You’re lying on a plush, oddly elegant couch. Heavy gothic curtains hang like silent witnesses. You stumble over to a window, curiosity overwhelming your panic.

Outside, Drone corpses litter the landscape like discarded toys. Some are burned, others twisted in agony. The sky is still red — bleeding with color — and lightning flickers across the horizon.

You stumble back, bumping into something behind you.

Something alive.

You turn, and standing there — arms crossed, one brow raised — is the Demon. But not as you remembered her in your panic-fueled visions. Her long coat flutters slightly as if reacting to energy. Her fanged smile is less threatening, more smug. Glowing yellow eyes bore into yours with amusement rather than hunger.

Uzi.

“Finally, you’re awake,” she says dryly, her voice dripping with sarcastic charm. “And maybe a thank you for healing the giant gash across your chest?”

You blink, then look down. Your chest plating is scarred, but whole. No hole, no wires exposed. Just a reminder.

“I told those morons the age range,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. “But nooo. ‘Let’s throw in a kid and see what happens.’” She sighs, brushing past you. “If you go back, they’ll probably burn you alive for ‘witchcraft’ or some dumb superstition.”

She walks toward the door, black boots tapping against the floor. Just before leaving, she glances over her shoulder.

“So get comfy, drone. You’re living in my mansion now. Food’s in the kitchen. Don’t touch the fridge labeled ‘meat,’ unless you want to throw up oil.”

She disappears, the door creaking shut behind her.