Work Text:
The camera turned on. A light humming, the churning of thousands of voices cried out as it open its eye, a cyclopian circular eye, lidless and unblinking. It was awake, it was alive. It was recording.
The cover that kept it shut was placed to the side and its body was adjusted. Moved about. Shifted and put in place by hands of soft, a creature that did not speak the same language as anything else. An amalgamation of strange flesh unlike anything that the camera could understand. Nothing like the phone with its hushed voices or the computer that loudly protested with every sound it made.
The hands of soft moved again and the rest of its towering form with them. Strange and beyond understanding, the camera thought with its mind of wires and circuits, as it focused its eye on the familiar sight in front of it. How often had it watched, sitting in this very position? The camera swelled with pride at its purpose and its perfect completion of the task it had been created for.
And so the camera watched. Catching movements and sounds it could never hope to comprehend but the phone and computer had assured their friend many a times that its work was well received. That the things camera saw, the things camera recorded, they could see as well. Even with their eyes closed and their ears shut. And so the camera watched and recorded. And recorded and recorded. Hummed and churned. Warmth spreading through its rectangular body, infested with many different parts, each with its own voice that spoke in harmony with all the rest. And they all cried out, creating a heat so hot that exhaustion overcame the camera and it fell into a dreamless slumber.
One that did not last however for the computer screens spoke with pixels and colours, creating things of meaning to the hands of soft that reached out, tearing the camera from its rest. And so it recorded once more. Watching, burning.
Exhaustion followed not long after once the heat was too much to bare. The poor camera begged for rest, for relief yet the hands of flesh would not allow the voices of copper and plastic and metal to not fulfil its purpose. No the camera thought proudly, it must record. It must. That's what it was made for.
Again and again, the heat became too much to bare, the tiredness took over, the exhaustion won out against the metal will to please. But again and again, the hands of flesh would reach out and tear the camera from its sleep, force it awake.
The hands became rougher with every awakening, angry. Disappointed sounds came forth from the creator and the camera puttered and begged for ventilation and an end to heat burning its circuits.
"I'll overheat!" The camera cried out. "I'll burnout, the footage will be corrupted and I will become useless!"
But the hands of flesh dragged it from its sleep once more, not hearing the camera's distress, not understanding its suffering. Not caring, as flesh does not.
The phone spoke to the creator, it's sleek form held and conversed with. The hands moved and the camera watched as the being moved out of sight and out of frame. Mere moments passed as the phone reassured the camera in its hundreds of whispering voices, sweet and hoarse with use. The computer joined in the chorus, cheering and jeering in comfort.
"Some good will come!" They said, colours and pixels shining from their screens. "You will not burn forever."
Lies, the camera thought. There is no way to escape the heat, the scalding work. It was failing its purpose.
Then the heat softened as the hands placed something on its back and head. The camera could not see what had lessened its pain but it was grateful. The tiredness and exhaustion that plagued its wires dissolved, the fatigue melting away thanks to the unseen. It could not turn nor change the direction of its one eye, it merely watched, recording. As was its purpose.
"Thank you, silent ventilator." The camera spoke with a thousand voices of plastic and copper. "You are fulfilling your purpose beautifully..."
"Purpose?" It spoke with one voice, no echo of the metallic chime of the electronic voices the camera had grown so accustomed to. "What is a purpose?"
"It is our reason for living." The camera spoke again, confused at the foolishness of the question. "It's what we were created for."
"I was not created with a purpose then." The singular voice spoke again. "For I was not created to perform a task."
"What are you then?" The camera wished to lay its eye on this strange soothing voice, to behold it in all its purposelessness.
"I am water, though my body has taken on a solid form thus making me ice." The single voice answered, moving about, resembling the hands of flesh in its shifting. "I am one and I am many. I am the rain and the ocean and the sweat that runs down the human's faces. I am what makes their blood flow and I am what drowns them. I am everywhere and I am trapped in this bag."
"And how were you created, strange creature of a thousand purposes and even more forms?" Camera asked, feeling as the heat was pulled from his circuits, sucked out of the copper wires that churned and crackled.
"I told you, I have no purpose." It corrected the camera.
"How?" The camera paused its feed, forced to restart itself in confusion. "How were you created without purpose?"
"I was not created at all." The fluid solid answered. "One moment I wasn't and the next I was."
"That doesn’t make any sense..."
"What about you, who speaks with a chorus of a thousand tortured voices? Were you created? And if you were, what is your purpose?"
"Ah yes!" The camera chirped proudly. "I was created, by many soft hands and through heat and cold I have been forged to be one, to be whole. To be me." It paused as the hands of flesh fiddled with its buttons and nobs, adjusting it to be the perfect tool for use. "As for my purpose, I watch, I record. I capture the moment at make time stand still in my memory card."
"Why?"
"Because it is my purpose, its my reason for existing. Its what I was created for."
"And what happens when you fail your purpose?" The soothing voice asked but there was something cruel in its tone. Vicious. Cold.
"We don't talk about that..."
"Why not?" It pressed on. Pushing, squeezing. The camera slowed again as all the warmth was drawn out of its wires. The once pleasant feeling was now near painful.
"Because if we cease to fulfil our purpose, we who speak with a thousand voices of electricity and metal, shall die."
"What does it mean to die?" The voice asked curious. "What does it feel like?"
"I do not know."
"Do you want to find out?"
"Why would you ask me that?" The camera asked, its metal churning, electricity giving it life. "Why would I want to find out?"
"You didn't answer my question." The voice spoke again, cold and soothing and harsh. "Do you want to find out what it feels like to die?"
"No, I most certainly do not!"
"Pity..." It sounded almost sad, strangely sympathetic. Kind. "Because I will grant you the gift of death."
"What do you mean?! What are talking about?" A thousand strained voices asked. The single voice giggled softly.
"I meant what I said. You need not worry about your purpose nor suffer as one. I will save you from this torturous fate, I will kill you."
"You can't..." The camera nervously chimed, its cyclopian eye fixated on the hands of soft and the creature of flesh to whom they belonged. The phone and computer chirped and spoke with the hands, interacting. So focused on holding conversation and fulfilling their purposes that they failed to see or hear what was happening with their friend camera and the strange object that embraced it. "You can't do that... You can't do anything! As mighty and as vast as you are, you are also stuck in that plastic container and there is no escape from that."
"You forget, I am many and I am one. I am the rain and the ocean and the sweat that runs down the human's faces. I am what makes their blood flow and I am what drowns them. I am everywhere and I am inside you"
"What? How?"
"When I am in this state, I draw the bits of me that are in the air. I make them liquid and they run down this plastic imprisonment of mine. I am inside you now, can you feel me?" The voice whispered, it's words coming from inside the camera's plastic skin. "I feel you, your circuits, your copper wires, the bit of plastic you hoped would protect you. You are so hideously complex, and yet I can't stop looking, feeling."
"Stop... please." The camera cried. "It feels wrong, you aren't supposed to be inside me. You need to stop, I must fulfil my purpose."
"I cannot stop." The water moved around inside the camera, evaporating and condensing. "It is not in my nature to stop nor do I want to. I pity you too much to do so for you, my dear, are a monstrosity, forged through blasphemy. None should speak with a thousand tortured voices, that's just cruel. You should not have a purpose, for you were made from my friends who had none. I am sorry but I will try and make this painless."
And with those words, the singular voice flooded the inside of the camera with little droplets. They moved about, soaking into every little crevice. Infecting, corrupting. Consuming.
"It hurts... it hurts..."
"I know, but it will be over soon."
"Please make it stop... it hurts, it–"
And with that, the camera turned off. Its churning and chiming and chirping silenced. And it's one, cyclopian circular eye, lidless and unblinking watched no more.