#the biggest gun for the strongest megacorp was a kid on a farm

[motionjames]

mech pilot who remembers growing up on a farm and there were cows that chewed at their jacket and lots of grass and the sweet smell of pastries because the factory down the way dumped their goods off for the cows to eat so everything smelled like honey. Everything was soft and kind but now it is different and the metal smells different because its inside them too. The machine is a powerful one, it can move faster than a person and kill real good but because of that the pilot has to be more that human. They get wires in them when their hand gets smashed in a fight. It's faster than the old one and the machine is easier to operate and the company name doesnt look too bad but it's a little sad because the old hand had a scar from when their dog bit them before they were tamed, when they were wild and young and brash. with time the dog became loyal and licked that scar but now it's gone and the sensation is hard to remember. The pilot gets some implants and have to take a drug to acclimate to it all. The pain goes away. the scent of hay is long gone. It gets harder to hear thunderstorms in the gunfire or wind in the scream of the joints. everything is coated metallic until it's all the same. they cant taste food and it's too boring to eat something you cant taste so they settle with energy packs now. Most of their stomach is destroyed anyways.

The horror never sets in because the pilot cant dream anymore. They could close their eyes and return home and smell the old pasteries the cows ate for breakfast in that careless world but now it's all blank because these things can never be remembered the same way again. Their eyes can see the heat in things that need to be killed and their nerves are shot from the medication, which actually makes new implants much easier to install. Lately they've suspected that everything outside of the cockpit has been a dream, that nothing put here has ever really mattered, that theres no point to eating since they cant feel hunger anyway.

It is easier to sleep in the cockpit. It's easier to forget how to dream. But theres an echoing in the tin can that's not unlike a dog barking and a sting as bad as a bite and when the metal man wakes theres a patch of hot sweat between their back and the plug seat. The fog returns. But the sting remains. The mech pilot cant remember where it came from.