I could still feel my fingers.
They twitched, curled, gripped at empty air. My missing hand ached like a phantom caught in the wires of my nervous system, a scream with nowhere to go. It hurt worse than anything real. Worse than the gunshot wound that put me under, worse than the cauterized stump.
Because it wasn't just my hand I'd lost.
It was me.
The music playing in the basement was warped, glitching out like the inside of my skull. A looping synth line, crackling under a corrupted bass. It should've been a steady pulse, something to ground me, but instead, it just reminded me of all the things that didn't work anymore.
Like my body.
Like my life.
Like the goddamn cyberarm lying useless in front of me.
I clenched my good hand into a fist and slammed it against the workbench. Tools rattled. A servo joint rolled off the table and clattered against the floor. I swallowed back the scream rising in my throat, but my chest was heaving, breath coming sharp through clenched teeth.
