The cryo unit hisses open, and I remember my name: JB, pilot of the *Subi*. The med-techs call it “revitalisation.” My body hums with a new, raw power. Muscles knit with synthetic fibres, bones laced with carbon-filament. I feel incredible. Invincible.
But in the polished chrome of the med-bay wall, my reflection is a stranger. The eyes are mine, but they glow with a faint, amber diagnostic light. The scar from the asteroid scrape is gone, replaced by skin too perfect, too seamless.
They say they rebuilt me better. Stronger. To survive the long dark. But when I clench my fist, I hear a servo-whine they insist isn’t there. When I calculate a jump vector, the numbers resolve instantly in my mind, not on a screen. Is this their design? A monster of efficiency, crafted for a purpose I didn’t choose?
Or is the monster the part of me that wanted this? The part that, bleeding out in my crippled cockpit, whispered *yes* to any salvation? Did I consent to the erasure of my own softness?
I stare at the reflection. The amber eyes stare back. The line between their masterpiece and my desperation has frozen, shattered, and reformed into something I can no longer recognise. The real question isn’t what they made. It’s whether I’ll have the courage to face the thing I allowed myself to become.
The Digital Reflection
I raise my hand, but it isn't skin that greets me—it’s a dark, articulated gauntlet of fused carbon. It blocks the light, heavy with a power I didn't earn but desperately needed.
The world doesn't look like a place anymore; it looks like a schematic. Green targeting reticles burn over my vision, dissecting reality into distance, velocity, and threat levels before my heart even has time to beat. The red heat of the old panic is still there, smouldering across my face like a fever, but it’s trapped beneath the glitching layers of this new interface.
I stare into the data stream that has replaced my reflection, watching the code rewrite my soul in real-time. The real question isn’t what they made. It’s whether I’ll have the courage... to face the thing I ALLOWED myself to become.
This artwork is protected by U.S. and International copyright laws. Distribution and/or modification of the artwork without the written permission of the sponsor is prohibited.
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