[Words: 788]
Prompt: An android begins to experience memories of a past life in which it was human. [won contest- 2nd place!]

"Wakey wakey, Lisa!" Spencer beams to his android, a model PH-3010F his mother assembled for him, her gift for his tenth birthday. He presses the button on her neck and watches as she comes to life.

Lisa's closed eyelids open, revealing glass hazel irises that light up as she boots up. Slowly, she blinks twice, sending synthetic lashes fluttering each time. It takes ten seconds for her to be able to move her body. Her fingers twitch and she tilts her head down a bit, ultra-realistic middle length brown hair swaying with every slight nod.

Her eyes finally focuses on his, a sign of her being a hundred percent awake and aware. Spencer smiles.

"What can I help you with, Master?" She drawls in her monotone voice.

Spencer bounces lightly in excitement, tousled dark brown hair only getting messier. "Accompany me painting, Lisa! Mom bought me a new set."

The android's lips tugs up. "Of course, Master."

The sixteen year old boy grabs her hand and led her into the studio. A huge glass canvas stands in the middle, paint tubes sprawling in a circle around it. Beside the canvas is a steel chair. Spencer gestures for her to sit down.

"Make sure to stay still, Lisa," he says, "because I'm going to paint you."

She does so without a single word. She held the bottom of her dress' hem as she sits, just like she has been programmed to do. Settled, she folds her hands on her lap and straightens her back. As always, she stares vacantly into the void.

"Look at me, Lisa," Spencer says, a paintbrush ready on one hand. Lisa turned to him obediently.

"Smile," he instructed. The android's lips curl into one as was ordered. Spencer looks satisfied and begins to start sketching her face with an oil-based pencil.

Lisa sits still for hours. Her computer mind has been in sleep mode since the tenth minute. Spencer keeps on rendering her skin, perfecting the strokes that make up her hair, adding more white light onto her eyes. He looks back and forth from the canvas to her and back to his drawing board, narrowing his eyes as he makes adjustments. He doesn't take any breaks until the picture is completed: a serene inanimate object with a smile that doesn't reach it's eyes.

Spencer takes a few steps back to admire his work.

"Lisa!" He calls, snapping her out of sleep mode. He turns to her, a grin on his face. "What do you think? Is it good?"

Lisa observes the artwork and blinked. Spencer has already turned to face his painting again, not expecting an answer to such a subjective question.

"I like it," she replies. He stares at her in shock. Her voice is still robotic, but the phrase blares a dozen alarms inside his head. Androids don't like. They are incapable of individual thought—or at least they are supposed to.

He stays frozen as she hums and continues.

"It reminds me of the day I confronted my sister after killing her husband," she says without any hint of expression, as usual. "I told her she was going to be okay and smiled at her, but she told me that my eyes were already dead."

Spencer starts to sweat bullets. "What are you saying, Lisa?" He half laughs, half asks.

The android opens her mouth and stated more. "An apartment building, fit for two... Drunk nights, fell in love. He was my sister's spouse, so he couldn't be mine... A gun inside the drawer. To his head, I pulled the trigger... He couldn't be anyone else's-"

"LISA!" Spencer shouts. He runs to her side, not knowing what to do.

"Erro-ror, error," she stutters. Her body shakes, hands trembling as they claw at his forearms. Her glass eyes rolled back.

His eyes widen. He jabs a thumb onto the button on the side of her neck and presses it until the light in her eyes dim and her body stops still. He counts to ten under his breath, until Lisa is dead again.

"You're damaged," he says, brushing her hair and tucking a lock behind her ear. "You're not supposed to remember about mom or that you killed dad."

His gaze falls onto her previously beating heart visible under the transparent material her chest area was made of. It contains everything she once were, his mother told him before.

"I can't believe bits of your mind survived the erasure," he says. He sighs and caresses her cold metal cheek.

"But don't worry," he assures her, a smile on his face, one that reaches his eyes, but doesn't make them any less dead. "Your secret is safe with me."