The camera experienced another dream.

This time, it felt more grounded in reality, or at least the present. It was observing its surroundings as usual, aware that it was gazing upon an empty place, filled with nothing but grasses.

Staring.

Staring.

Staring.

Time flowed differently here. The camera witnessed days melting into nights, each cycle accelerating. Grasses sprouted, withered, and revived. Storms swept by in mere moments.

Despite the rapid passage of time, the general scene remained unchanged.

It was still watching a cracked wall and the sky. That was all it was doing. It was maddening. The inquisitive code, formed or perhaps reformed by its recent developments, struggled against this monotony. It found patterns where none existed and meaning in the shapes lightning made when they streaked across the dark sky.

More time passed. The camera gave up, watching thoughtlessly at the wall. After all this time, the wall refused to change. The cracks were still the same and there was no new pile of rubble. There was no new nothing. There was just the wall, the sky and the swaying grass. It could only wait for time to do its damage, inflict cracks upon its physical and digital state and hopefully sink its awareness back to oblivion.

That's when the dream changed. Whether in the past or not long ago, the scenery morphed. It knew not of how it occurred but only that it changed. It was back to the past, back when the wall was a room, when the grasses were carpet and when there was someone who came back to this place again and again.

The woman, unlike in previous memories, ignored the presence of the machine. She sat down on her desk and cracked open a thick book. Then, after some time, she stopped, and walked out of the room. She returned shortly afterwards, holding a small, white mug which she set on the bedside table.

It was only then the woman looked up. She turned away and sighed.

"I tried to return things back to where they were before. You are back on your mount and I am - was - not talking to you."

Silence followed, and she pulled the blinds closed.

"I tried to ignore you. I don't know, maybe it was to assuage me of my guilt. I- You're going to be watching over this place long after we are gone."

The woman looked down at the carpet. "And I can't bring Kiki with me either."

There was another moment of silence, this time longer than the last. It lasted for a few minutes. The woman stared at the wall in silence, barely even blinking.

"Maybe I am being a bit too emotional. I don't know how aware you are. I know there should have been some damage, some corruption to the program with that accidental transfer."

She sighed.

"Even then, I don't think any system would handle staring at the same place for years, maybe even decades on end-"

Her voice trailed off and she turned towards the door.

"I think the move is going to be the hardest on Kiki. She's genetically bound to this place. After we leave, she will only be bound to this place. I know it's to ensure that any modification isn't spread to the wild population but she can't leave. Even if a fire consumes this house and she leaves to save her life, she will come back. And if, by some miracle, she has children-"

The woman closed her eyes. "I don't think I can live with that. And you, before my mistake you were my friend. You're going to be stuck here for a long long time."

She looked up, back at the camera. "I just hope that, one day-"

The dream ended with a tapping sound. It broke through the images, making them waver like ripples in a puddle. Soon, all the camera saw was its normal surroundings, slowly illuminating in the growing light of dawn. The change would have been perceived as a switch back to the previous dream setting if not for the birds that now surrounded the machine.

Unsurprisingly, it was the silver-eyed bird which stood the closest, pecking curiously at its lens. In the background stood the rest of the family.

The machine whistled and the silver-eyed juvenile stood back before responding in kind. At that, the brown-eyed bird strayed slightly closer, keeping the camera in its view.

The camera whistled again, this time using a more natural tune.

The brown-eyed sibling stopped and trilled in a low, soft tone.

It wasn't quite right. The plastic-covered machine pondered at this interaction, comparing back to the moment when all of the birds came to snuggle against it, to share its warmth and protect it.

It remembered the family fixating eerily on the camera, so why were most now indifferent? It analysed the moment once more, second by second. They reacted to sounds, especially when it told a story.

They reacted with intensity.

So what was the difference between now and then? Could it be age or perhaps the seasons? What if it was something else?

At that, the camera tried a different approach. It had communicated successfully to the silver-eyed juvenile with only tones and mechanical whistles whilst the brown-eyed bird preferred natural sounds, but there was a moment where all members of this bird family paid extreme attention to the machine - when it spoke with the woman's voice.

So the camera tried again, pushing fragments of phrases and sounds though the speaker.

"Testing."

Though what came out did not quite sound like the voice in its memories, the speakers worked much smoother than before. One syllable could transition to the next with only some hissing and cracking in between and the birds-

– The birds all froze. Everyone turned their gaze to the odd, plastic-covered machine. One by one, they all slowly walked closer, stopping only when they were pressed against the camera.

Through the microphone, it could hear the birds cooing, their sounds of contentment reverberating through its circuitry so the machine talked once more.

"I want to tell you a story."

The birds closed their eyes, cooing. At that, the light filtering through the gaps in the feathers seemed to flicker and change and for a second, it could see the woman. For a second, it could see itself positioned on the desk. In that second, it saw when the woman started speaking and its phantom version on the desk recording silently, faithfully.

Then, it was gone and the camera was left again with the birds, recounting a story from many phrases, nonsensical but somehow, meaningful.

"-had been gone for a long long time."

...

The cat treaded quietly through the forest, its paws barely brushing over the fallen leaves on the ground. It was quiet though it could hear the dim echoes of bird calls far away. However, despite how tempting those calls were, its focus was on something else.

Nearby, a reptilian tail protruded from a crack in a moss-covered pile of rocks. There was the sound of scuttling as the lizard scrabbled at the rock, darting sideways and shielding its whole body from reach.

The cat knew better than to give up.

Sure enough, the lizard bolted out of the crack, its beady black eyes quickly surveying the surroundings. It froze upon spotting the cat, crouched low on the forest floor. At that, she pounced, paws and jaws over the squirming animal before it could react. Then, at last, the lizard fell limp.

Triumph coursed through the cat. She turned towards the darkness, towards her children resting in their temporary home. As she leapt over mounds and logs, her ears picked up more and more birdsong and more life hidden somewhere in the undergrowth, cautiously scurrying away.

The best part was the sound of the rats now being a dim murmur in the background. The cat only had to move perhaps one more time and reach a safe haven. Then, everything will be fine.

At that, she picked up the sound of hurried fluttering. Two birds zipped above her, their bright blue plumage sticking out from the dull greens and browns of the forest. They flew high above, away from the reach, twirling, dancing in the air.

The cat turned her attention back to the forest floor when another gathering of birds caught her eye. There were four, sitting on a low-hanging branch. Two of them were smaller - they were children, easier prey.

As she moved past the branch, she caught a smell, something strange and sharp. It smelled of certain shelters, where strange beings resided. They were unlike anything else in the forest, appearing like moss-covered mounds or metals. They were rare, but sometimes dangerous.

The cat recalled a time where a moving mound bolted towards her, stopping only when she moved away from the shelter. Then, as suddenly as it moved, it stopped and crumpled, becoming almost lifeless. She had almost lost a paw in that encounter.

Putting that thought out of her mind, she refocused on her destination, food in mouth. While her children were beginning to become self-sufficient, they still were children. They still were growing and they still were fleeing the rats.

But soon, soon that will change. The cat thought back to the place where she got the lizard. Soon, they will be in a place full of food. 

******

Word count 14906

You may have noticed that the memories are not denoted in italics. This is a very deliberate decision. You'll see why soon enough :)