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"Aurora..." I say in wonder. "You're you're ok!" I extend my arms out towards her. My tears of sorrow replaced with joy.

"It's, it's going to be ok," I almost whisper, whether to myself or to her I do not know. "I'm here now. We're here now, and everything is going to be ok." Very gently as if I was about to touch the most fragile object in the universe I bring my arms up to embrace her.

"I love you Aurora, I love you and I have always loved you. You mean the world to me, more than I could ever put into words." I can feel a warmth as deep within me as I could ever imagine, a fullness, a joy that is something that must be that of a once in a lifetime blessing.

I lower my head down with my arms and slowly close my arms around her sobbing, attempting to speak, but being filled with such ecstasy that my mind is muddied and I don't even care.

I begin to whisper flashbacks of things we'd done together and time feels as if it moves the slowest it is capable of being.. I tell her about how much we laughed the first time I ever shaved, on my 21st birthday when I tried to walk after one two many drinks, when I tried to make her a birthday card when I was 9 without her knowing it, and more things, most of them incomprehensible between my sobbing and sniffling and unsteady voice.

I gently still lower my arms until they are upon her.

At hearing Aurora's voice again I feel my mixture of emotions and confusion disappearing and with a teary smile I watch the brief montage from my life.

"Let me convince you then." I blurt out. Emboldened, with my memories and my heart beating loudly in my head.

I find my center, place my hand over my heart, take a deep breath and re-extend my hand out with determination.

"Aurora, was part of me. A part of my life that began when I was almost two and a half hours old... A part of me, before I even could understand the concept of I am. We were a team, if you think I was stout of heart... I..." The words reincarnated come back to me again rolling like thunder in my head. I clear my throat again. "Had it not been for her presence in my life I would never have become, never have achieved what I did in my life."

I clench my hand into a fist as tightly as I can. "Please look again, though her hardware was not even the most advanced of my time she was unique. I was always working to improve her, but even my own work could not reflect her quirks. Why... in some ways she was even more alive, more human than I was. She... on many occasions broke her own protocol for me,  knowing damn well it would have been her own death sentence, that she would be removed and replaced for showing signs of what would be deemed as "defective" for me, without even ever being asked to do that... No AI has ever shown me that they were capable, no would even consider doing such a thing. I never displayed such courage!"

I look down and away from the gaze of figure of stars. "While I know she could never physically touch me... I could feel her sometimes, in the darkest of times. Her embrace, her hand on my back, sometimes even her touch on my cheek. She loved me! I know she did. I know you might not understand, I know she was not of flesh but... we made promises we made plans, promises even. No 4U8 model has ever made a promise... it's a construct because when you make a promise well... things happen and it doesn't always work out. It's obscure. As obscure as the random hand of fate bringing me to you."

I grab the flesh on my chest tightly. "This, all of this, all of this that is me. Is nothing without her. I am a man of flesh but I am broken, and she was broken as well and we completed each other, if you reincarnate me then you will see reborn a man with a half-life, a cursed life. Not only cursed as a man with a broken heart, but only half a mind." Searching for words my gaze meets the woman's eyes again, her expression unchanged. My confidence begins to melt.


Tears returning to my face I beg with hands extended "We died together, the same bullet that took me from this world took her too. If you need a body, a soul, take mine. I would throw it all away so that she could go on and continue to grow and learn. I surrender all that I am, everything that I have ever been for I do not believe that I could ever love another. Please... help me by saving her..."

My eyes return to the coalesced AI core, black with scorch marks and cracked. "Take me instead, or let me die. I do not want to live if she can not be with me." I take another deep breath. I look at the eyes of the woman one more time. "She was not just an AI she was a blessing and knowing that I was given the chance to share a body and a life with her why... I got what I could have ever wanted in my life." I lose my composure and sob lightly with my head in my hands.

My gaze once more returning to the AI core. "Thank you... for giving me the chance to at least say goodbye to her... even if she cannot hear me."

I cough and twitch as my vision comes to a focus. I move my head from left to right at the vastness of unending openness in front of me, weakly outstretching a hand to the face in front of me. And hearing the woman's voice in front of me echo, each time I play it in my head I become more aware of my new situation. The sorrow of what I am, what I have become and the failure of my mission hits me first.

"I'm sorry Commander Grenfield." I say out into the vastness to no one, out into this space.

My eyes pan left to right meeting the gaze of the woman in front of me, her blues giving me no comfort. More like a witness reading a book than that of a friend or of even the sensation that I am being looked down on. I feel nothing. Like I am looking at a painting on a wall. I retract my hand feeling my face, my cheek, my chest, I accept that I am floating, that this is where I have gone and that I am in a bare state. My first thought is that the figure in front of me is here to judge me and send me to whatever awaits me next. I have seen countless men and women die and I have killed as well. This thought makes me shutter and I clear my throat.

"I..." I stop. I do not know what I could possible say to a being so immense and so vast. I am so small and so helpless like a child, I am... so alone. I look down straight down like a child who is about to be scolded.

Then a feeling of queasiness hits me as I begin to process a vague and disgusting emptiness. In a panic I reach back and feel that the back of my head is bare, that my implant is gone and I am truly alone. My breathing quickens, I begin to hug myself tightly. Aurora is gone! She has left me, I can not feel her anymore. I can not talk to her, link to her, feel her comforting hum singing to me as my mother used to when I was in panic or despair.

I begin to cry and reach out towards the woman in front of me with my arms outstretched, my words not finding me, desperate, I feel nauseous, I begin to process this thought that Aurora has died. That this life is not worth living, that the one thing that made me feel anything more than a piece of flesh in a pool of sickness and rot is gone. I want it all to stop, I want everything to stop. I feel rage, I feel hatred that she was taken away from me. I want everyone and everything I have ever know to bleed, to die, to fall into oblivion and be consumed. I close up tightly into a ball and I scream, I scream for what feels like an hour, only breathing in to let out more anguish. I do not know what to feel.

Then I eventually stop screaming I feel compelled to plead to the being in front of me. A broken man I open my arms to the woman so vast and so far away and with tears still streaming down my face I yell "Please, help me!" Unsure of what else I could possibly say.

[Name:]

Character sheet link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yIUPaMaWrmO6ZRNdC-XXR0o_5qHFQggtK54aXFmxWBM/edit#gid=0

Name: Zurlane Rhomedes

Gender: Male

Age: 29

Occupation: Conscript (Previously a software engineer)

Country of Origin: Escyae

Quirk: Body is shared with his AI companion from his previous life.

Hobbies: Tinkering, Drawing maps and pictures of plants and animals, Practicing Simulations

Personality: Quiet and methodical, often speaking in short sentences. Can come across as cold when in reality his answers are the culmination of two minds working together. Interested in watching people and animals solve problems. Confident yet not interested in leadership. Prefers to be in smaller groups but not necessarily alone.
Intellectual capabilities: Slightly above average, certain puzzles and problems that have scientific or logical answers will be instantaneous for him.

Physical capabilities: Average human strength. Able to partition parts of his mind and body under AI control so that he can multitask and process threats, is able to instantaneously calculate multiple stimuli from his senses around him. Can regulate his body functions to match his current need and is aware of his situation.

Likes: Time to reflect alone, creating small devices and simple machines as gifts, drawing and writing

Dislikes: Visceral gore, having no autonomy or say in decisions, Situations and magical artifacts that defy understanding.

Strengths: Extreme focus, control over own biology to compartmentalize body functions and share responsibilities with AI companion to reduce pain and share tasks.

Weaknesses: Confidence will fall when AI has no idea or explanation of what is happening or is unable to come to a conclusion. Unsure of ethical problems and dilemmas that require heart and mind to battle.

Biography: Zurlane was from a society in which everyone had their own personal AI companions implanted directly into the backs of their heads. Zurlane's personal AI was one whom he named Aurora. To Zurlane, Aurora was more than just an AI, she was a part of him and he was always working tirelessly to improve her. When the war between Escyae and Yethra became dire and and he was drafted Zurlane became incredibly depressed as he was soon going to have to part with Aurora and be given a military grade AI companion. In order to bring Aurora with him Zurlane illegally stole key components of Escyae's military AI architecture and used it to rebuild and enhance Aurora to make her more than just a civilian AI assistant. She became a part of all of Zurlane's military hardware and together the two fought together through many hard battles of the war raged on. As Escyae began to do worse and worse to the Yethra war machine, Zurlane and Aurora continued to have closer and closer calls until one fateful day on patrol as he was receiving a readout from Aurora a sniper's bullet pierced through Zurlane's combat visor traveling through his brain killing him instantly and finally smashing through Aurora's chipset destroying the AI as well.

Misc: I want Zurlane to be able to actively talk to Aurora in his mind and to be able to willing give Aurora the ability to take over functions. I want Aurora to also have two modes to reflect his tinkering with her to use her in the military, a mode she switches to in combat that is unfeeling and pragmatic to reflect her military enhancements and a more three dimensional other personality that reflects her time as an AI companion. I also want Aurora to be complicated if possible, to have some feelings and wishes to reflect the enhancements that Zurlane did for her on his own. I want my character to enter the world at first alone and without Aurora and to be so depressed and lonely that he begs the goddess to bring her back and make her a part of him. I also want Zurlane to have final control over his body so that Aurora couldn't fully stop him in doing things she might disagree with.

STR: 10
DEX: 12
CON: 9
INT: 13
WIS: 11
CON: 9

Chapter 1: An Audience with God
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