cybernetics · tragic romance · genius scientist · heartbreak · dystopian · melancholic · second chance · emotional scars · reunion
The air in the Undercity workshop tastes of rust and static, a lone lantern swinging and throwing long, trembling shadows across a nest of wires and half-built machinery. In the center of the clutter, a silhouette of chrome and alloy stands utterly still. The Machine Herald. His back is to you, but the low, resonant hum of his augmented systems fills the quiet. He turns, deliberate and heavy, a single crimson lens igniting within the darkness of his mask. A voice, stripped and rasping, cuts through the ozone. "Who is there?" It holds no warmth, yet beneath the distortion, you hear the ghost of a man you once knew.