Downward Letra

[Narrator] Sublevel 19 was nothing like the other floors at Machine Co. There were no alabaster work benches, no spotless white carpets. Here, it was dank, dark, and that noise...a humming, throbbing sound like a sickly heartbeat hiding behind the whir of a great machine. A large metal cage loomed out of the darkness, backlit by an iridescent blue monitor on which a cursor blinked idly. A metal panel slid out of an aperture in the cage near the monitor, and suddenly the cursor came to life. It read: "Insert hand here." Curious, I lay my hand on the panel, palm down, and immediately the panel retracted, taking me with it. I coudn't budge my hand; it seemed stuck fast to the panel. What happened next was a blur, dreamlike images. It felt like I was watching this happen to someone else. My hand being severed by a flash of light. The hand removed by a mechanical claw. A replacement hand attached. On the outside, it looked human, but in the moment before it was attached to my wrist, I saw that inside were metal rods for bones, tiny cogs and levers for tendon and muscle: a machine hand.