The night darkened. Grass and trees gave way to dense forest, spanning miles out from the coils of highway that led into the city. She slowed when she realized how lonely it all was. The stars couldn’t reach her through the canopy overhead, muffled into a polite glow as they peeked through the leaves. There was no set path ahead, only dense underbrush that was effortlessly trampled as she passed. 

Tyler would be afraid in her situation. He would be miles from home, lost in unfamiliar wilderness. But GE-04 had no home, and everywhere was unfamiliar. All she could do was wander on and hope she found...something. She didn’t know what she was looking for, or if she was searching at all. The only emotions she’d ever known were anger and confusion, and all she knew at the moment was that those feelings were bad. Was there an opposite end of the emotional spectrum, a hidden goodness, tucked away somewhere in the forest? If she found it, would she recognize it?

She came across a cabin, after a while. It was an unrecognizable mass in the shadows when she first approached, squat and mossy as she grew closer. It didn’t look overly run-down, and when she smashed through the door, her feet met plush, vacuumed carpet. A deer head above the fireplace fixed her with a judicial gaze.

“What the hell was that?” A female voice came from one of the closed doors down the hall. “Oh my god, Jason, it’s not a bear is it? No, don’t--” A man appeared in the hall, his eyes snapping to GE-04’s form instantly. 

The light from the open door illuminated the panic in his eyes. “Oh, god. Oh, god, please.” His eyes darted down, to GE-04’s cuffed wrists, then back up to her visored face. For her part, she froze, save for drawing her hands up close to her chest, anxious he’ll pull a gun out of nowhere and shoot her like the others.

The woman came out of the room, exuding a steady stream of fear. “Jason, what--oh jesus christ!” She grabbed her husband’s arm and tugged him into the room before slamming the door. GE-04 wandered deeper into the cabin, broke down the door the couple had escaped behind, and was met with an empty room and an open window. Driven by some odd curiosity, she stepped to the window and peered out. A truck came screeching into view, driving away from the cabin and down the dirt road behind it. They were gone.

GE-04 slept on the carpet by the fireplace.

[sub][i][b]White hands. Pale white hands. White hands that touched and pulled. Pulled arms and legs. Stretched out, stretching, pressing, prodding. White room. White hands, white faces, red hands, red table, shining red, new white hands, new red, new red, new red. Clean. White legs. White table. Clean now. Clean. White hands. Brown skin.[/b][/i][/sub]

It was still dark outside when she awoke. She sat up slowly, drinking in the quiet around her, and took a moment to examine her cuffs. She lifted her hands and craned her neck, regarding them from different angles. The one on her right wrist was dented, and the thick, short piece of metal that connected the cuffs seemed just slightly twisted. Gingerly, she rotated her forearms to twist it further. Jittery shocks of pain crawled up her arms until it reached her eyes, forcing her to stop and fall back to the floor, gritting her teeth until the excruciating spasms faded away.

Her face scrunched up and she drew her knees to her chest. Now that she was alone, tears fell freely down her face. It was like choking without dying, sucking in desperate breaths she knew she didn’t need. Her quiet sobs ruined the silence, and she stifled them by biting down on her hand with enough force to cut steel cables.

The gurgling of her stomach drew her out of her fetal position. It was worse than before. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for a well-placed bag of Cheetos, maybe a sprinkler on the ceiling. No such luck. She wandered around the den for a while, lifting the furniture and investigating the floor beneath it, sniffing around the hallway and in the adjacent rooms, before she finally stopped in the kitchen, scouring Tyler’s memories for where she could get food in a cabin like this.

She ripped the doors off every cabinet, most empty, before finding a colorful box of cereal. It wasn’t Cheetos, but she didn’t have very discerning tastes anyway. She ate on the roof, where she could see the stars better, and left the empty box on the porch. After a few more minutes of searching, she scavenged a pack of ‘hot dogs’ from the fridge. They were cold and slimy. She decided she didn’t like hot dogs, though ate the whole pack just to be sure.

The hunger was gone now, leaving her to focus on the bad feelings. She stared at her cuffs, willing them to explode into useless pieces. Tyler knew much more than she did. He had to know how to free her, but kept his knowledge hidden because he wanted her to suffer. She would have to free herself, somehow. She couldn’t trust anyone else--they were too weak.