A Heart in the Machine (Serial Designation V x Reader)

Chapter 18: Machinations

"They're gone," you whisper to yourself, the words barely audible over the pounding of your pulse. You straighten, the flashlight jittering in your grip. "That's not possible. They couldn't just... vanish."

Your chest tightens suddenly, the dull ache from earlier flaring into sharp, unbearable pain. You stagger back, clutching at your ribs as if trying to hold your chest together. The flashlight clatters to the ground, spinning wildly and casting erratic shadows across the room.

The voice is back. Louder now. Deafening.

It echoes in your skull like overlapping whispers, the words slipping away as soon as they form. Incomprehensible yet overwhelming, each syllable is like a nail being driven into your mind. Your knees buckle, and you collapse to the ground, gasping for air.

"Stop—!" you manage to choke out, your voice weak and trembling. But the voice doesn't stop. It presses harder, as if demanding something from you, its presence filling every corner of your consciousness.

The pain in your chest radiates outward, your hands trembling as you press them to your head. Images flash behind your eyes—fractured, chaotic, and horrifying. Wires, claws, twisted metal fused like flesh. A mass of machinery, pulsating and alive. And through it all, a single unrelenting sensation: hunger.

Your breath comes in shallow, panicked gasps. You can't tell if the pain in your chest is physical or if it's the voice, the thing in your head, trying to tear you apart.

The world fades to black.

In the void, the images twist and distort, reshaping themselves into something more horrifying. The ground beneath you cracks and burns, the air thick with the scent of smoke and charred metal. Towering structures crumble into ash, their once-proud silhouettes now reduced to nothing but skeletons of their former selves. Fire licks at the sky, consuming everything in its path. The world is dying, slowly, agonizingly.

And then, through the flames, you see her.

The drone from your nightmare. Her form is twisted and warped, the metallic tentacles behind her writhing like the limbs of some grotesque beast. Her eyes—those piercing, unnatural lights—fixate on you, cold and unforgiving. The voice that follows is robotic, distorted, but chilling in its clarity.

"Your time has come," she intones, the words reverberating in your skull. "You will help me... for the betterment of everything."

The voice isn't just a command. It's a prophecy. A truth that feels as inevitable as the destruction around you. The drone steps closer, her tentacles twitching with unnerving anticipation. Each one seems to reach for you, eager to ensnare you, to pull you into the void with her.

Your heart races. The vision of the dying world swarms your senses, making it hard to breathe. The weight of it all presses down on you, suffocating. The voice echoes louder, closer, until it feels as though it's inside your very soul.

But before you can respond, before you can do anything at all, the world rips itself away.

You gasp as you wake, your body jerking upright. The familiar, sterile walls of the bunker greet you, although plagued with darkness, but the nightmare lingers. Your chest heaves, and your head pounds as if it's trying to split open. The voice, though faint, still buzzes at the edges of your consciousness, lingering just out of reach.

You press your hands to your face, trying to shake off the residual panic. But it's no use. The images, the words—they cling to you, like a shadow you can't escape.

The cold, dimly lit hallways blur as you rush through them, your breath ragged and shallow, heart pounding like it might burst from your chest. The voice still whispers in your mind, scratching at the edges of your sanity. The images of fire, destruction, and that damn drone with her haunting words—"Your time has come. You will help me..."—still cling to your every thought, suffocating you, making it impossible to breathe.