Chapter Text
CC-2224 had had a name once.
Sometimes he still caught the echo of its sound in his dreams. He would wake up at night and there it would be —the faintest whisper of a melody, lingering at the edges of his consciousness.
There were images, too. Of golden paint, the clear blue of early dawn, of rays of sunlight bursting through a blanket of clouds…
He never managed to hold onto more than those fleeting impressions, though. No matter how hard he tried to remember, no matter how sure he was that these images had held meaning to him once, it would always slip right through his fingers.
No, CC-2224’s nights might be filled with dreams of gold and blue and yellow sunlight, but CC-2224’s days were nothing but black and grey and red. Filled with dark colours, harsh lights and an ever present voice reverberating in his head, drowning out whatever it was that his sleeping mind was trying to tell him.
Good soldiers follow orders.
As soon as he opened his eyes it was there —harsh and inescapable— and every time it had repeated its steady mantra over the last years, it had chipped away at the name. Vowel by vowel, consonant by consonant.
Until everything that was left was the voice.
Good soldiers follow orders.
Until everything that was left was a number.
CC-2224
Until everything that was left was inky blackness.
In CC-2224's mind the sun had set a long time ago. The days had become shorter and shorter, the nights had stretched further and further, until, one day, it had set and simply not come up again.
And it had taken his name with it.