Rotors shuffle throughout the streets between glass.
Here the machine continues to watch.
To study what could be done.
However, it finds nothing.
For all the beings in golden robes.
Stare at each other.
No actions taken.
No words exchanged.
Blank glances at one another.
The machine decides.
The best way of helping this land.
Of its brutal ways, is first to question.
To learn from their words.
Yet every creature the machine questions.
All refuse to speak.
Nor to look at it.
Their eyes ladened with fear.
Upon looking at the machine.
Yet the machine did not give up so.
However, before it could look to ask another.
It hears a commotion.
In the center once more.
A creature argues against another.
Who has a hand puppet on one hand.
"how dare you show such indecency to us. Why must you leave such a thing exposed."
"It's a sock puppet how can it be indecent?"
"You never know, the eyes can hold desire. Hide that object before someone sees."
"I refuse, it's a sock puppet. There is nothing indecent about this!"
The random yell caused a small shake.
Everyone soon stared at the two.
Their eyes warped in anger.
Yet when they approached.
They did not near the accuser.
Their steps only growing.
To the one who yelled.
Their hands once again protruding from their robes.
Gripping on the creature's limbs.
Pulling them from all sides.
"Let me go you foul beasts! I have done nothing wrong! You all are the weird ones! Holding lust over a sock puppet. Clear your hearts of sin you freaky beings!"
Yet their screams were left deaf.
The creature was ripped apart.
Their hands enter any orifice possible.
Ripping the person from the inside.
Blood gushed.
Screams growing quiet.
As its blood floods its lungs.
Drowning them from within.
Soon organs drop from a mangled corpse.
Separation of flesh from bone.
Tearing, ripping, clawing.
A cacophony of pops, squeezes, and cracks.
Soon the bones were separated.
An execution once again.
Bones were tossed onto the river.
Again headed to the unknown.
So the machine returns to the outskirts of the city.
Once again traumatized by the events.
It stared upon the river of bones.
Wondering if its task will ever be passed.
Where do the bones possibly lead to?
Yet the more it wonders the more its CPU gets exhausted.
Once again it may have been running for too long.
And so the machine decides.
That it will be best to attempt another restart.
As those worked well in the past.
But before it can attempt a restart.
A familiar being once again appeared.
On the peripheries of the machine's camera.
A large cloaked figure stood.
"I wish you a good night's rest small mechanical one."
Soon the machine was shut off.
Yet time did not stop
as another machine simply began its journey.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
It moved along the white building.
Its clarity dulled by the black splotches.
That was til it met the tree.
The large tree of hands once again meets another machine.
Yet it did not speak.
Simply standing there waiting for something.
The white machine walked around it and up the stairs.
Looking back to the tree it wondered.
If anyone passed by here already.
Yet upon entering the forest.
It saw something unknown to its programming.
What it saw was something it could not believe.
So much training and programming.
The best of its siblings.
Yet nothing could prepare it for what it saw.
For it thought it would find trees of tears.
Pain and writhing.
A depressing atmosphere of white.
Instead, it finds a flourishing forest of whites, blues, greens, and pink.
Where it expected blood, it got peace instead.
A white being approaches the machine.
Yet what the machine expects does not occur.
Instead of an attack it only received a question.
"Another machine? You must've been given a task. May I ask what it can be?"
Instead of a direct answer, the machine instead gave another question.
"Did another version of me pass by?"
"Not like you, but a small machine did pass by."
"May I ask how it left this place?"
"Listen to a tree and you will have your answer."
The machine obliged the offer.
Kneeling next to a tree of white.
It placed its forehead on it.
Attempting to hear something.
Soon it heard it.
Their voices, cries, terror.
Humanities tears all in this single tree.
Their cries all enter the machine.
Saved safely in its file directory.
Once it's over it stands.
Looking at the tree it ultimately remembers its mission once again.
Handed the flower it accepts it.
Bowing to the tree.
"To leave just place the flower in the hole on the door."
"Understood."
The machine was ready to leave.
However, before it could it whispered to the being in white.
"Do not think that your help would change anything. I know of your crimes. Their blood will always be on your hands."
The white being is left there.
To remain with its thoughts as the machine of white.
Passes through the large door.
Soon the small machine wakes up.
It's restart finished.
All computations were successfully made.
All that's required is a plan.
Yet something remains off.
As the being in black remains.
Its existence is marked by a dark figure nearby.
"Mechanical one, may I ask why the change of course? You could've been out by now yet you remain."
"I wish to continue on my journey, yet something stops me from completely leaving. I remain stuck here even if I wish to leave. My mind always runs back to what I've seen."
The being sits next to the machine.
Placing its bony hands on its mechanical counterpart's head.
"Worry not small one, I understand what you mean. Many mortals face the same. Do you believe that you will be successful in this endeavor?"
"I hope so. Anyway, I have a plan. For it to work, I will need to find why all this death happens in the center of the city."
"Looks like you will have to go through another task, mechanical one. I wish you luck on this endeavor."
"Thank you."
soon the arbiter in black.
Leaves for the second time.
