Silence fell.

  The sounds of clashing metal and sharp screeches stopped abruptly, replaced only by the heavy silence of the cavern. It was a silence heavier and more terrifying than the noise of the battle itself. Hong Min shrank into his dark corner, not daring to breathe. Who had won? Who had lost? He didn't know, but he knew that everything was over. Now, all that was left was to wait. To wait for the footsteps that would come to this door. Either the steps of the victorious machine, or the steps of 404.

  He didn't hold out much hope. He had accepted his fate. If the door opened and he saw that cold, crimson light, he wouldn't scream. He wouldn't run. He was tired of running.

  Then he heard it. Heavy, staggering footsteps, dragging themselves across the stone floor. They were getting closer. Hong Min stood on trembling legs and faced the door. He closed his eyes.

  The door opened slowly, with a faint creak. When Hong Min opened his eyes, he saw 404 standing at the threshold like a stone phantom. He was standing, but he was a portrait of devastation. His body was covered in deep scratches and metallic marks. But Hong Min's eyes were immediately drawn to one particularly horrifying wound: a set of deep gashes on his back, in the exact spot where he had stood to protect him from the last monster's attack.

  That wound was because of him.

  Guilt hit Hong Min like a physical blow, making him gasp. As he stared, he noticed something impossible. The thick, grey fluid that had been seeping from the wounds wasn't dripping. It was slowing, solidifying, and turning into a dark, wax-like substance, pulling the edges of the wound together to slowly seal it in a strange, inhuman process of self-repair.

  Seeing the extent of the sacrifice, and seeing this bizarre healing, was more than his mind could bear. His defenses completely crumbled. He fell to his knees before 404 and burst into a broken confession he didn't know he had inside him.

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  "I'm sorry..." he whispered, the words choked with tears. "I'm sorry... All of this... all of this is because of me. Because I'm weak... I should have died that day... I'm sorry I was ever born!"

  He was apologizing for the first time in his life, truly. He didn't expect pity or comfort. It was just the outpouring of a tormented soul.

  404 bent down slightly, not with compassion, but to examine this new phenomenon. His grey lenses studied Hong Min's tear-streaked face. Then he asked with his usual coolness, without any tone of interest or emotion:

  "Sorry...? What is that? I have not found a definition for this word in my data. Is it a feeling? Tell me. I must know."

  The broken Hong Min looked up at 404. At this being who had fought for him, "bled" for him, and now, all he wanted was to analyze his pain like a specimen in a lab.

  The silence that followed the question was barren.

  Then something strange happened. Hong Min's lips began to tremble, not in a new sob, but in the beginning of a choked laugh. The chuckle turned into a laugh, and the laugh into a hysterical, mad explosion. He laughed and laughed, tears still streaming down his face, pounding the floor with his fists. It wasn't a laugh of joy, but a laugh at the absurdity of the universe.

  404 tilted his head. "What are you doing? This is an unexpected reaction."

  Hong Min laughed even harder, then stopped as suddenly as he had begun. He wiped his face with the back of his dirty hand and stood up. He looked at 404 with a new expression, a look empty of hatred, and filled with a quiet sarcasm.

  "I'm thirsty. After fighting that bastard, I'm very thirsty," he said calmly. Then he gave a sideways smile. "Oh, that's right, the wretch 404 doesn't drink or eat. How in the hell do you live?"

  As he said this, Hong Min himself realized the source of his laughter. He had laughed because when he was at the lowest point in his life, screaming his pain into the darkness, for the first time, he wasn't completely alone. There was someone listening. Even if it was a machine that didn't understand. The mere presence of a witness to his suffering, a witness who passed no judgment, gave him a strange sense of comfort.

  He looked at the massive, wounded being before him.

  "Come on, you useless wretch," Hong Min said, and began to walk toward the exit. "Let's find you some 'feelings'... and me some water."