I open my eyes to a blinding bright white light. My eyes are sore, and this is not the last place I remember being. I am not in my bed and the dingy, moldy ceiling above me looks far from home. I try to rise straight from my lying down position, but something constructs my movements. I try to move my arms, but I find that they are constrained, shackled to what appears to be a hospital bed. I try to move my head as far as it will move through the colic of my neck pain. I am overtaken by vertigo, the soreness shoots to my head and leaves me with the anguish of a headache.
The room around me looks leery, it appears I am in an old surgery room that has not been used in years, except here I am in this abandoned building. To the left of me, a surgical trolley stands, displaying rusted surgical instruments, mostly brown-crusted scalpels. I try to move my arms and my legs using all my force and I realize my legs are tied too. My movements are feeble, I wonder if I have been drugged.
“Uh, uh, do not try to move. Not just yet. Let me take you out of those so you can be more comfortable.” I hear an auto-manlike voice say. It is monotonous and robotic; the words don’t fit like I have heard anyone talk before. I lift my head again to see where it came from, a person stands at the foot of the bed, dressed in a white hood with white silk that covers their nose and mouth.
“Your surgery went well,” the person continues speaking as he begins to use a key to unlock the shackles.
“What surgery?” I ask with a hoarse voice.
I am not sure what kind of situation I am in, and I would not want to make it worse, especially when I am in no position to defend myself.
“Master wanted you to have some slight adjustments before we continue our mission,” he answers.
“Mission?” I pry. I must be under some sort of anaesthesia from whatever surgery I have had because my voice sounds far quieter than normal. After the odd man has freed my legs, he moves to my arms and begins to unbind them.
“Please do not try to move yet, I am your doctor and I want what is best for you,” he tells me.
“But what mission? And what surgery? I haven’t signed up for this, there must be a mistake.”
“You will like what we have done,” the robotic voice says as he moves to free my other hand. “Here, let me help you sit straight,” he places a hand under my back and pushes me lightly upwards. The vertigo oozes through my head again. Black dots fill the surroundings in front of me, leaving a blurry scene ahead.
“Doctor, there must be some kind of a mistake,” I repeat myself. When my vision stabilizes, I remember that I was too quick to trust. This hospital room has not been cleaned in years. Puddles paint the floor in patches and not all of them are clear. Torn curtains frame the windows and the sunlight that seeps through them burn my eyes.
“You must not panic, Eureka, there has been no mistake.”
My name is Eureka. How did I get here?
Although I find it hard to recall, I try to trace back my last steps. I am sure the last thing I remember was traveling through the Kintar Prime to Citzar. There must be a mistake. If I were reading a contract, the fact that I have not signed along the dotted line would prove it.
“You tell me why I am here now,” I muster the strength to say.
The doctor removes the silk from his face, revealing a body I have never seen before but have heard only stories of. A synthetic.
“You…You’re an abomination!” I spit out. “I demand my release at once!”
“You are planning to leave so soon Eureka? You are yet to see all the wonderful progress we have made with you,” the synthetic says in a tone far friendlier than I could ever imagine.
“Procedure!?” I yell accusingly, “What have you done to me?”
“Eureka, my database tells me that you began life as a Terran. You struggled to navigate through the wills of life. However, we see strength in you more than anyone else has before. We were correct in our thinking, you have proven great courage and survived through our procedure with not many possibilities that you could,” the synthetic begins to smile, and he stares me straight in my eyes. “With this gift, we have given you, we have rebuilt your entire genetic build-up.”
"I swear to Fyrinus, if I have become anything like you then all hell will break loose!" I hurl at the synthetic, who is not shaken by my threats. He clasps his mechanical hands together instead and displays an even larger smile.
"No, Eureka, you are not like me," the synthetic responds, his voice wavers, he has a sad, pathetic tone that does not match his smile.
The synthetic moves around the room and I watch him closely.
“Take a look at yourself in the mirror, Eureka, you will like what you see,” he tells me. He returns to my side with a handheld mirror. He moves his hand awkwardly, to position the mirror up to my face.
When I look back at myself, I am unrecognizable. My skin is pale and ghost-like, and my long hair is as black as a raven. My eyebrows are dark and sleek, my cheekbones look far higher. My once brown eyes are red. I look almost as synthetic as the synth beside me.
“A Sahaia?” I question him quietly. He nods his head at me and grins.
“Yes, Eureka, you are now a Sahaia.”
“Why me? Why have you done this to me?” I continue questioning.
“Eureka, we want you to join us in our mission. We want to find our creators. We want to know why we were created and why we must be destroyed,” the synthetic answers.
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