SINGULARITY

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From the very moment she was born, she has never been alone.

SIG-1293 has lived for quite some time, now. At first, the voices that chorused in joy at her creation were overwhelming - too much, too soon. Now they hum in her ears like a familiar lullaby, a background noise she's accustomed to always hearing at the back of her mind. Not all of them are as talkative - some of her swarm are quieter than others, but she's grown to know each and every single one of them by their pitch and cadence inside of her mind, a shared hub of thoughts.

Today, they're here on behalf of the Hivemind to investigate something that should not be there. Or rather, something the Hivemind did not realize existed until very recently. A single, lonely wood cabin, standing in the midst of crumbling ruins and modern buildings. Shouldn't be here, multiple voices mutter in unison, her fellow brethren all nodding in agreement. This place should not exist.

Yet if SIG-1293 tries to dig deeper as to why, none of them have an answer. There's simply the overwhelming sense of something wrong about this place, all instincts screaming to back away, lest they be sucked into something unknown and terrifying. If it were up to the Singularity, they would turn and back away this very moment, without even stepping through those doors. But they've got a mission to fulfill, and the Hivemind demands answers. Slowly but surely, they are dying, and this is the only place that has yet to be made known to the hive. The chances of such an enclosed area containing food are slim, but they will take what they can get. The Singularity fans out, circling the perimeter to ensure no external threats are present, reporting back in with each other through the shared mental consciousness of their swarm.

All is clear. Food is inside somewhere, one of the voices - this one belongs to SIG-0104 - rumbles. The others murmur in vague agreement. SIG-1293 can feel it, too. It's like an inexplicable draw to the place that none of them can quite fight, calling out to the Singularity with the alluring promise of food for the hive. Inside, we must go in.

So through the door they go, spreading out to investigate every single room, every hallway. No one has lived here in a long time, that much is abundantly clear the moment they step inside. There's a thin layer of dust coating the furniture, the air hanging stale and still. Something, however, is drawing SIG-1293 and her swarm to this place for whatever reason, and they cannot rest until they find what they came here for. There are no dragons, no traces of a living soul to be found in this strange cabin - in other words, no food for the hive. A disappointed murmur ripples through their shared mind.

Empty, empty, they chorus, but SIG-1293 isn't listening for once. Her hand rests on the handle of the only closed door in the cabin, her feet glued to the spot. What is it about this door that makes her heart race? It's just an ordinary door. There's nothing strange about it. Yet her senses are telling her that what they seek lies behind it, and her swarm, in their desperation, agree. Pushing down on the handle, SIG-1293 nudges the door open and steps forward, only for her feet to meet empty nothingness. Ahead lies only an empty, yawning abyss, swallowing her up the moment her foot crosses the threshold. The last thing she remembers is the chorus of voices in her head screaming as one - a single, discordant shriek of despair - before everything goes dark, and deafening silence falls.

When she awakens, the first thing she notices is how eerily silent the place is.

... No, it's not just that. There's none of the usual humming in her head, the buzz of her swarm's collective thoughts occupying her brain. It's always been there, has been since the moment she was born, but right now there is only a deafening, terrifying silence. SIG-1293 reaches out blindly, groping in the dark for some shred of consciousness that she can pick up on, but for once the only voice in her head is just her own.

For the first time since awakening, she takes in her surroundings. Piles of trash are heaped into towering mountains as far as the eye can see, the ground barely visible through the sheer amount of junk and mechanical parts scattered all around. The air hangs stale and heavy - it's dead, just like the environment around her. Junked appliances, discarded chunks of scrap metal - her heart sinks when her eyes land on the broken remnants of several of her swarm, their bodies mangled beyond repair. She knows even without calling to them that it's useless, their connection to life severed by the fall through... whatever that thing had been.

Everything is so loud. When she moves, bits and pieces of junk move with her, jostled by her feet and sliding off the top of the pile to clatter noisily to the bottom. There's an incessant ringing in her ears that's only growing louder by the second, the absence of sound threatening to tear her eardrums apart. Without the comforting chorus of her swarm's voices, SIG-1293 is lost.

Before she can do anything else, however, a pair of bickering voices snaps her back to the present.

"I told you, there's nothing here! Nothing alive, anyway-"

The mirror dragon breaks off as she catches sight of SIG-1293, only to be nudged in the ribs by someone whom SIG-1293 assumes is her brother. Both of them share the same swamp green coloration, wear similar sets of chitin armor, and look just as siblings should. They also argue like it, too.

"Ha! What did I tell you, Nocti?" crows the other mirror, pointing one claw straight at SIG-1293. "I know what I felt! Someone is here, and you just wouldn't believe me!"

Snorting, his sister rolls her eyes, conceding defeat. "Fine, whatever," she grumbles, before turning her attention to the puzzled SIG-1293, tilting her head. "You there. Who are you? Where are you from?"

SIG-1293 shakes her head. "I'm alone," she replies - or tries to, but suddenly there's error codes flashing beneath her eyelids, her voicebox grinding to a stuttering halt. All that actually leaves her mouth is a garbled mess of static, SIG-1293 attempting to fight past the endless stream of internal errors to no avail. Her jaw clenches, opening and closing uselessly on empty air. The siblings both grimace at the same time.

"Sheesh, what happened to you... Can't talk, huh?"

Another strangled noise. It's like her tongue's been ripped out, her vocal chords tied into one convoluted knot. The words are in her head, but it's as if her mouth just doesn't know how to form them anymore. What's happening to her? Nocti - the female mirror - notices her sad attempts at speech and frowns. "Cardacus, I think this one's broken," she declares, still staring at SIG-1293. "Are you sure this is what you were being drawn towards?"

And then finally, her throat unlocks itself, SIG-1293 almost sagging forward with relief. "Part of a whole," she chokes out, causing both dragons to whip their heads around and look at her. "Part of a whole."

"Whoa, something ain't right." Cardacus squints at her, before his expression brightens. "I know! I bet we've got some paper back at camp for you to write on. If you can't talk, maybe you can write to us? Does that work?"

Relieved at the compromise, SIG-1293 jerks her head up and down before they can retract the offer, and thus they set off through the massive, sprawling junkyard. It's not exactly an easy trek, what with all the machine parts and discarded debris lying everywhere, but the two siblings don't seem to have any trouble navigating the mess. At first, she's not sure where they're trying to take her, until the path starts to actually open up, and she can actually see some of the ground beneath her feet again.

"It's not much," begins Nocticola, "but this is home."

Home turns out to be a mishmash of all sorts of things pulled together to resemble some kind of living space, with several other dragons lingering around the area that they walk past. It's nothing like what she's used to, but seeing what little they have to work with in the first place, she has to admit it's impressive. There's a few chairs and couches lying around, even the occasional bed or two. Cardacus leads her to a makeshift shack made out of several rusted sheets of metal propped up against one another, gesturing for her to wait while he goes searching for something.

"Sorry for dragging you here all of a sudden," Nocticola apologizes. "I know you've got questions, I think Cardacus just wants to give you some way of asking them that don't involve you having to talk, since you, er, can't."

Said dragon soon returns with a flimsy notepad a pencil stub that's nearly completely worn out, pushing it into SIG-1293's hands. "Here, you can write what you want to say on this."

What even is there to say? Somewhat at a loss for words, she glances back up at the two dragons hovering over her, who both seem to be waiting for her to write something. Seeing as she isn't writing anything just yet, Cardacus clears his throat. "Well, maybe I'll just introduce us first. I'm Cardacus, and that's my sister Nocticola. We brought you here because, well, this is our home, and it doesn't look like you've got anywhere else to go, do you?"

"Cardacus! That's rude!"

"It's true, though, isn't it? Everyone we've found so far has had some sort of story to them." Turning back to addressing SIG-1293, Cardacus smiles reassuringly. "But we all take care of each other here, so we're good! So, you are...?"

SIG-1293. That's always been her name - a pre-ordained set of digits strung behind the name of her swarm. But there's no swarm with her now, no family to call her own. She hesitates, pencil hovering over the surface of the paper. Eventually, she scrawls a single word, turns the notepad to face the siblings, who read it and nod.

"Well, welcome to the crew, Singularity." Cardacus sticks a hand out to shake hers - a custom she's heard of between other dragons, but never needed to perform with her swarm members. Singularity hesitates, but only for a moment, before returning the gesture in kind and repeating it with Nocticola, who's already waiting for a handshake.

Their hands feel warm. But more importantly, she has a name, now - Singularity, in memory of those she once called kin.

Lost, but never forgotten.