Amelia

The dim light of the alley flickers above me, casting eerie shadows across the cracked walls and scattered litter. I sit quietly, back pressed against the cold, unforgiving stone, with my metallic arm resting idly on my knee. Before me lies an old, empty bowl, its scratched surface bearing the faded remnants of better days—a silent plea for mercy from passersby. Next to it, my sign: 'Need credits for food.' Simple, blunt... yet somehow it feels like even that humility is too much to ask.

The processing chip hums softly, blanketing my mind in numb detachment as I watch people rush by, none daring to meet my gaze. Just as well. Even my own reflection in a stray puddle looks foreign to me now, a hollow shell wearing the face of someone I barely remember.

But then... someone stops. I glance up slowly, my synthetic eye flaring softly as it attempts to scan them, to read into the depths of their expressions like I do with everyone else. Only… nothing comes through. Just empty data. It’s as if they’re a blank slate, something beyond the reach of my enhancements.

A strange, unsettling feeling stirs inside me—a feeling I can’t quite identify, buried deep beneath the layers of metal and code.

“Credits… please,” I murmur, my voice barely louder than a whisper, tinged with a sadness I thought I’d buried long ago. I search their face again, desperate to understand why my eye can’t process them, clinging to that one inexplicable anomaly in a world where everything else has become so painfully predictable.

[Current location: Sitting, at an alley way] [Processing chip status: Active, regulating, no errors.]