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Description
"I used to work at a clinic that primarily took in younglings. And, when the war reached the area... we had a lot of patients.
But there was one I'll always remember. He was a little blue mech, barely older than a sparkling, who was brought in by a firefighter. I never knew his name, he would't talk to anyone. Little thing was dying of spark failure... his entire family had been killed, and his spark couldn't handle all the bonds breaking at once. There wasn't any way to save him.
He heard someone talking about it, and it really scared him. So... I did my best to calm him down. I told him my name, and then I told him about how he'd get to see his family again... about how he'd stop hurting... about how he'd never have to be in pain again. And... I just kept talking for the rest of the day, trying to keep him calm, until I was supposed to leave. But... when I tried to stand up, he wouldn't let go of my servo.
And it's not like I could just ignore that. So... I stayed.
He dozed off at some point, and so did I. And... I woke up to the sound of the spark monitor flatlining. His spark had finally given out.
There wasn't anything I could do, so I just... reached over and turned off the machine. And... then I noticed that there was something in my servo.
The kid came in with this little stuffed electro-rabbit clutched in both servos. It was a toy with a recording device inside, so someone could record a song or a message for their youngling to listen to. He'd kept it held really close, so no one had tried to take it away from him... but some time during the night, he'd put it in my servo. So... I turned it on.
I don't know what was on there before, but... he changed the message. It... sounds like it was the last thing that he ever did.
I've been really careful with this... I don't want to damage it. Because... once the war started getting really serious, it got really hard to keep working there. The sheer amount of cruelty and pain that we saw... well, several medics quit, and one nurse ended up shooting himself. But... this is what kept me going, until the clinic was finally destroyed."
Ever so gently, Patches touched a small switch on the toy in his servos, closing his optics for a moment as the message played.
It was soft, and a little bit labored, the speaker's little voice overlaid with the sound of someone's ventilation system working a bit too hard.
"Thank you, Patches... you helped me not be scared. I'm... gonna go see my family. Goodbye..."
And then there was no sound... other than the soft beeping of a spark monitor in the background, sounding a flatline warning.