The Groundhog Hour

by EvelynHail

Sheer torment coursed through my body.

My lungs, my heart, my kidneys ... they pulsated at an abnormal rate.

Each movement brought an explosion of excruciating pain.

A never-ending fever shook me.

Unrelenting waves of heat and cold.

For a moment, the ache subsided, and I breathed out a sigh of relief, but then it reappeared.

"This is so... lifelike!" I heard one of the new model robots exclaim. "As if we were looking at a real man!"

"Ah," the balding center manager sighed with satisfaction. "You know, our young Autom Psycho 4x4s, chief engineers of the human production factories, truly put an effort into this project. They went out of their way to produce a biological mass closest to that of a living person."

"In any case," the man added, "the being looks alive enough to faithfully reproduce the exact symptoms of a vicious disease, moments before its demise."

"Shut down the system. Next session is scheduled in an hour," he instructed, turning towards his unliving audience. "Now. Would you please follow me?"

When the switch clicked, I welcomed my fall into the black pit.

Death.

At last!

Until... the next hour.