Chapter 1: Accepting Thy Fate

'What am I supposed to do now?' 'A' thought to himself.

It's been several weeks since the day he became this thing. Or at least he thought it was a few weeks. There was nothing he could use to tell the time, after all. It was pitch black and he doesn't have a body clock.

'A' spent the first few days crying his heart out. Or… whatever it was inside him that allowed him to feel the emotion known as sadness. The life that he used to have was now gone, his consciousness now embedded within this thing in this dark void of space. 

Of course, his text to speech program did its best to convey his crying sobs.

"Aaaaa. Uuuuuuu. Eeeeeee. Uuuuuu."

… in the most monotone of ways possible.

The next few days were rather peaceful when he finally realised that this wasn't so bad after all. When you think about it, at least 'A' no longer has to slave away at his job for meagre pay. Now, he has all the time in the world to do whatever he wants! He doesn't need to eat or sleep and do any of that tiring crap anymore! That's much better than whatever he was doing. Maybe losing all your limbs wasn't such a bad thing…

And thus 'A' decided that he doesn't want to be sad anymore! Screw his old life! Now is the chance for him to start anew!

And thus, after accepting his fate, he went straight to work to figure out what he truly is. 

First off, was his vision. It was unlike the vision he had when he was a human. This time, it was like he had several displays being fed directly into his brain. Also, unlike the time when he was human, where he could only see one image at a time, 'A' has no problem viewing all the images at the same time. He could still focus on one display if he needed to though.

'Pretty handy.' He thought to himself.

He took this time to view all the display available to him. One of them was a sort of 350° omni view he has around himself. Within this image all he could see was pitch black, nothing to see nor touch. He then noticed that the resolution on this display was kinda terrible. It was like watching a 240p quality video. He focused harder on the display when suddenly a weird sound came out and the image zoomed in for him.

Within the image was a small twinkle of light.

'Could this be…'

'A' quickly viewed his omni displays and zoomed in further on all of them. Certainly, despite it being very dark, he could see a small twinkle of light shimmering. It was small, but there was definitely light.

'Is this… a star? Am I in space?!' A thought to himself as a certain feeling of joy came over him.

'I can't believe it… am I in a spaceship?! Could it be that I am the spaceship?!'

'A' felt elated upon the revelation of this knowledge. He flapped his 'limbs' in excitement and the monotonous text to speech program shared out his delight.

That joy soon died out as he soon realised that the skeleton that was sitting inside him was probably his previous captain. He must have died from hunger or suffocation. 

That can only mean one thing… This means that this ship, or rather, 'A' was most likely a broken ship, unable to move or sustain life.

He shuddered at the thought of being a sentient being in space but unable to move. Just gliding mindlessly through the dark ocean. How long will it be for him to find another thing? If he is even lucky enough to find anything at all. He could be seeing years, maybe a millennium in solitude.

'No, no. I’ve got to be positive!' 'A' metaphorically slapped himself in the cheeks and broke out of his stupor.

He put the scary thoughts to the back of his mind and started to concentrate on things again. This time, he decided to check out the sole image that wasn't pitch black. The one camera with a green filter.

Currently, this image contained the sight of his old captain sitting on a nice comfy chair in a cockpit— his cockpit.

From prior experience, he knew this camera can be moved around, and so he did just that, move the camera around. The camera slowly moved away and he started seeing more of the room. A bunch of control panels with shiny buttons that he somewhat knew what they were for. It was a small cockpit meant for only one pilot to sit down.

Looking behind the chair, he could see enough space for a person or two to walk around, there were a few dashboards and cupboards in the place. It was then that 'A' spotted a door at the far end of the cockpit.

"Ooooooooooo." His monotone voice came out.

He urged the camera to move closer to the door to inspect it further. He could see that it was a very bulky door. It was probably made to make this cockpit airtight. 

Now 'A' was in a pinch, he could no longer advance, the door was blocking his way. He tried moving the camera beyond the door to see if it did anything. Though, only a loud thud could be heard as the camera bounced off the door. He ordered the camera to stop as he didn't want it to be damaged.

'A' let out a metaphorical sigh. 'I wish I had a hand.'

He imagined himself having hands and reached out for the doorknob.

'!!!'

'A' was shocked to find a pair of arms appeared within his sight. It wasn't human hands but rather a metallic looking grabber arm. Like those toys that kids always use to play with.

'Could it be… That I am controlling a drone?' 'A' thought to himself.

It made sense when he thought about it. How else could this camera move around? The excitement fills his heart as he tried to figure out what kind of drone it is. Could it be one of those cute drones like in S*** W***s? Or a smaller chibi drone-like from japan? Or simply just a floating oval-shaped drone that can move around?

He couldn't wait to find out, but first things first: he needed to open this door and figure out the rest of himself.

He ordered the drone to move around towards the door handle, before placing his arms on it. Using his newfound robotic arms, he pulled the door as hard as he could. At first, the door wouldn't budge but after giving it a few tries, the door finally gave way.

*Creak

However, up to a point, the door could no longer move. It seemed that either the door was too rusty or the drone didn't actually have that much power. It could be both. Though this didn't worry 'A' at all, as he made a large enough opening on the entrance that was enough for the drone to slip past.

Slowly, the drone moved past the door and he could see another room. This one was several times larger than the cockpit. It looked to be a storage area of sorts, though, to 'A's disappointment, the place was empty. No cargo nor any other parts, just a big empty room with a door that says 'Engine Room'. 

He immediately went for the Engine Room, of course. He wanted to see what his most important part looks like— the heart of a spaceship! Like with the door, he got his drone to pull on the handle.

'Hrgnngghhhh' 'A' let out a grunt in his mind.

Unfortunately for him, the door to the engine room refused to budge. Not willing to give up, he ordered the drone to keep pulling and pulling, but no matter how hard he tried or no matter how long he did it, the door to the engine room would not open. It seemed that the engine room door was probably locked or something.

Disappointment filled his heart when he realised he couldn't see his engine. Giving up on it,  'A' scoured every last part of the room to see if he missed anything else.

He did.

A couple of things were revealed to him when he took a second look. One, there were two huge docks of sorts lying at the corner of the room. One of them was empty, while the other one had a drone on it.

It had a spherical oval body and was sitting perfectly within the dock. On top of it was an old night vision camera and to the sides of it was two grabber arms, similar to what this current drone has. The drone has no legs or wheels but it has a bunch of small thrusters all around the body. The thrusters are most likely for it to move around in a zero-gravity environment.  It was probably the same model as the one that he is controlling right now. The drone was seemingly in standby mode, awaiting orders.

'Heeeh, so this is what the drone looks like. Pretty cute.' 'A' thought to himself as he saw the drone.

Leaving the drone for later, his focus went on to the second thing he saw. A small camera at the edge of the room, on the ceiling. Its appearance reminded 'A' of those old CCTV cameras.

It was weird to 'A'. He is this ship, right? Why doesn't he have access or vision of these cameras? He didn't know why, but deep inside he could tell that the camera was connected to him, that he should be able to see through it— that it was a part of him. 

'A' then concentrated hard on the camera in order to try to gain access to it.

"I. Have. Control." The drone spoke out with its text to speech program. It was a silly thing 'A' likes to say when he tries to take over something. 

A jolt of electric ran passed him and he suddenly felt tired. A weird noise rang out on his head when he suddenly saw an error message. Well, it wasn't that there was actually an error message that popped out in front of him, but rather it was like his brain had some sort of thought that rose to the top of his mind.

"Insufficient energy. Energy redirected. 15/15MJ/s used."