Memories 
By Elf Princess

His footsteps could be heard echoing throughout the halls.  The steady sound was almost frightening.  No sound had been heard in these walls since the Great War.  No sound except their screaming...
He shook his head violently.  He couldn't think like that.  He needed a clear mind.  He almost wished he had died with them.  At least then he wouldn't be alone.
He had been alone almost his entire life.  He had gone from being a hyper active young child to a warrior in seconds.  Half of him wished he could still be that child.  But the child was dead, like everyone else he ever knew or loved.
He came to the door.  Command.com was written on it.  The black letters were peeling off the pale gray door.  Sighing, he moved his hand over the scanner.  He wasn't even sure if it would work.
The scanner beeped in recognition.  The old door slid open with a gentle whoosh!  He didn't want to go in, he didn't want the memories.  He didn't want to see her dying again.  He didn't want to see their hopeful eyes and hear their terrified screams.
Her eyes, that's what he really didn't want to see.  Her beautiful, aquamarine eyes.  Eyes that were telling him to 'kick her ass Lover.'  
Their pleas for help rang fresh in his mind.  Even though the war had been over for two cycles, they wouldn't let him forget.  Steeling himself, he walked into Command.com.
Voices!  Voices hit him like an electric shock.  It was their voices!  They knew why he had come back!  He let a shriek and the voices hit him one at a time.
You left us when we needed you the most!  Silver hair turned black, blue skin, and pained eyes.  Bob guardian protocol 452, his friend and teacher.
"No!"  He yelled.  "I tried to help!"  It seemed as if the world around him was spinning.  It seemed like it would never stop.
We trusted you!  We trusted you with our lives!  Her face appeared in front of him, although there was no trace of a Southern accent, he knew it was Mouse.
"I wanted to save you!  I wanted to save you all!"
You were selfish!  You ran away when you heard us crying!  Enzo Matrix accused.  
"I did not!"
I thought you loved us!  You ran!  Like the fool you are, you ran! Dot, his beloved sister and second mother.  She had taken care of him after the Twin City had been destroyed.
You call yourself a guardian!  You never went to the academy!  You are a rebel!  You are a renegade!  Turbo, the prime guardian, he had been the first to die.
"How can you say that!  I didn't want this to happen!  She just showed up!  I couldn't save all you and the rest of the super computer at the same time!"
So you chose the super computer?  Rays voice was accusing and sour.
"If I didn't save the super computer, none of the survivors could have lived!  If you had all survived, we couldn't have lived!  We would have died anyway!"  He plunged through the voices and the faces until he reached the main controls.
"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."  He muttered.  As his hand hovered above the 'delete all' switch, he remembered.  He remembered everything.
He could see Megabyte's face when he had stepped in Frisket's crap while looking for that old command, he could see his first birthday, the big party, everyone working so hard to please him.  He saw when Dot almost got deleted; he saw all of the games that he had been in as a young sprite.  Then he saw AndrAIa.  He could feel the surprise that he had felt when she had come out of the game.  He felt the pride he had felt when Bob had made him a guardian.  He saw Zaytan, and he felt the awful pain of losing that eye, and the pain of seeing AndrAIa and Frisket behind glass while he changed his icon.  He saw them grow up and slowly, he watched as they became lovers.
He felt the joy he had felt when they had found Bob, and the satisfaction of knowing that Megabyte was trapped in the web thanks to Mouse.  He saw the horror of when Daemon showed up.  He felt the heart-wrenching pain of watching his closest friends die in front of him.  Blood, there was a lot of blood.  He had seen enough blood during the war to last him at least five lifetimes.  He saw himself come back to Command.com to finish everything, to complete the cycle of love, life and death.  It was over now.  Nothing could stop him.
He pressed the button.  He could hear as the super computer and all the systems attached to it started to shut down, never to be brought back.  He knew he had done the ultimate sin.  He had played God, or the user, depending on how you wanted to look at it.
This is not all that bad, he thought.  He watched as a strange portal surrounded him. He was standing in a room that had a checkered floor.  The tiles were floating in the air.  A large door would come from nowhere and open before it hit the open room he was standing in.  The clicking sounded odd in such a quiet place.
If this is hell, it's not so bad.  He could feel himself leaving his body.  Then he saw her.  Her hips swayed in the way he remembered.  Her hair was blood streaked and she had fresh blood on her face.  She was almost a welcome relief to the strange lost souls around him.  As she drew nearer, he saw the crimson blood that covered her once beautiful lips. She smiled and more blood shot from her body.
AndrAIa walked forward and put her hands on his chest.  She smiled again.
"Why?"  She asked.  "Why did you live?"  She pressed her crimson lips against his.  He sighed, it was like the old days.  He never saw her pull the dagger from behind her back but he felt the cold metal against his throat.  She pulled away very slowly.
He felt her pull the dagger across his throat.  He felt blood run down his chest.  He looked at her and felt a tear run down his cheek.
And then... Matrix woke up.  
END