Magic at Midnight

by Lyssa Chiavari

  Then, dead leaves crunched underfoot.

  Gen trailed around the oak tree until his shadow fell on top of Pin. She didn’t look into his eyes—not because of fear, but from a hatred she didn’t know she could possess.

  “All robots must be deactivated,” he said. “It’s for the good of humanity.”

  “Humanity? There’s no one left. You and your mum are going to die and the world will be free from your poison.” She stared at the dead branches hanging above, ignoring the ache inside her. Gen knelt beside her.

  “Lisa’s gone. My friend is gone because of you.” She blinked several times. “I don’t have anyone else now.”

  “I wish that you were real. A real person. I really do. But you’re just not, Pin.”

  She glared at him.

  “I’m more human than you!”

  But he shook his head firmly.

  “Robots are wrong and should never have been made. They destroyed the world as we know it.”

  She let out a mirthless laugh.

  “You can’t blame robots without blaming yourselves. You made us what we are.” The silence hung heavy with her words. “I blame your father.”

  Gennaro’s lips tightened into a thin line.

  He poked his finger through a hole in Pin’s faded blue shirt, pulling it firmly to rip the cloth. Her smooth, silicone chest had a small mark to the left side. He pressed it gently and a square portion of skin slid back to reveal a glass chamber.

  Pin’s heart quaked and quivered, contracting in a silent symphony of beats. Gen could not take his eyes away from it. A real heart—a real human’s heart, a real life—was in front of him, beating for all eternity under his gaze. He reached for the knife, still stained from Pin’s blood, and held it above her.

  The glass would smash. Flesh would pierce.

  “You’re not scared, are you?” he asked, the words slipping from his lips.

  Pin closed her eyes tightly and gripped the yellow grass on either side of her. Her lips trembled and something strange and heavy filled her throat. She was more scared than she had ever been—more than when he had chased her through the city, and even more than when she’d seen Lisa’s fluid.

  “No,” she lied.

  Pin’s entire body shook. Her heart hammered with the force of a mighty mallet against the glass chamber, but she didn’t hear it. Her skin burned, ignited by both fear and the lie. The heat engulfed her. Her heart was going to break the glass, break her body, and break Pin into tiny pieces of insignificance. A shattered, metal corpse that no one cared about.

  But Pin wasn’t insignificant.

  She had loved and was loved back, here, on Earth’s soil. And so was Lisa. Lisa may have gone, but her kindness would never die. Her silver face appeared in front of Pin and she heard the robot’s clear voice speaking to her. Scattered memories streamed through her mind: of helping Lisa in the library, of Lisa placing a blanket over Pin when the winter wind blew through a broken window, of waking up every morning to see her pile more books on the table for Pin to read.

  The endless days of her life receded and Pin’s eyes shot open only to see that the sun had set on another day. Her chest cavity was closed. Pin dragged herself up against the tree, panting hard. The yellow grass beneath her had scorched to brown. Her chest felt heavy and sore, as if it had been through death and back.

  There was no trace of Gen. The knife lay on the grass, covered in dried blood. She hugged her knees and touched the wound at her side. No more blood leaked from it. The air had returned to a grim silence; no leaves rustled in the wind. The entire world fell to darkness, but a familiar loneliness remained.

  Had the monster let her live?

  Exhaustion weighed on her like an anchor. It was as if she had been shuttled from one end of existence to another. She closed her eyes and saw Gen’s tired face looking at her with the knife in his hand, his blue eyes frozen on her beating heart.

  Pin couldn’t tell whether she was robot or flesh, wires or blood. She closed her eyes and brought her hand to her chest, feeling the soft thump against the glass chamber inside.

  There were other robots in the city. She wondered if she ought to seek them out, or if she would come across another human being.

  Deep inside, Pinterry hoped she never would.

  About the Author

  Madeehah Reza works as a pharmacist in London, although her lifelong dream is to write endless books to entertain younger readers, particularly those who are not represented by mainstream media. She has a handful of published stories and articles, and is working (ever so slowly) on her first novel.

  More from Snowy Wings Publishing

  Love short stories? There are more coming from Snowy Wings Publishing! In the meantime, be sure to check out Perchance to Dream, a YA collection of Shakespeare retellings, available now in paperback.

  Sign up for our newsletter to never miss a new release!