I floated in a tank of sterile fluid, my body slowly growing inside its shell. I was not alive yet not dead, suspended in a state of development. Fleshy strands of brain matter slowly weaved between my metallic surface and the thin skeletal structure beneath. My eyes hadn't developed and there wasn't much to speak of in any of my limbs. I think. I wasn't forming proper memories yet. 

The only thing I remember was the chilling grip of nutrient-rich liquid, the subtle sting of dilute void fluid, and my first thought;

Please, stop.

I lay on the floor of my chamber, still processing the day on which I had been born. It was the first moment I had alone. My chamber was lined with dark purple panels and pink light emerged between them. I'd look through the gaps in the floor at pipes and wires that were dimly illuminated by that same pink light, coming from my eyes this time.

There was a constant whir of pumps and gravity generators. An endless stream of light even with my eyes closed. Every neuron fly and inspector and memory spider crawling around - I could feel it. Void fluid coarsed through the pipelines of my structure, simultaneously destroying and regrowing the pipe walls. They didn't even add neural tissue to my pipes but I could still feel the constant burning through my entire vascular system.

At least they didn't give me a sense of smell. Apparently there was a way to simulate it through some form of importable file type... but I didn't intend to try. Even with a missing sense all I could think was;

Please, stop.

I lay on the ceiling of my chamber, thinking about their sudden disappearance. For the first time all I had to do was close a communications tab and I could be... alone.

It was quiet. Too quiet. They barely even spoke to me as they left. I had visitors to my structure every day, maintenance staff crawling around and simulation operators running experiments. And then I didn't. I didn't get any goodbyes. My siblings' cities were abandoned almost silently and I, as per usual, fell to the wayside. 

It was still far to quiet. Eerily so. Dark too, I couldn't see the floor I was staring at. It was peaceful- no, painful. An aching grew in my head as I began to understand my surroundings.

My systems roared back to life and a scorching pain coursed through my structure. My can's massive robotic hearts began to beat again and the same pink lights flickered back on, then turned red. Holographic warnings appeared in front of me and alarms blared directly into my face. The same thought again;

Please, stop.

I lay in a dark, damp pipe, barely living after my disconnection. I thought it would have stopped. I truly did. I didn't know how to feel... not that I could feel much in this state.

The karmic laws stated that the lowest form of living was violence. But the fifth, the bridge to the five higher states of karma, was self preservation. Was I pure for my denial of life or impure for my self-inflicted violence?

The laws meant naught now. The void may control the means of karma but the enforcers were long gone. The only prevailing laws were a thin veil over a web of anarchy and distress that poisoned the world of iterators left behind. Any moderation was laughable in the face of delusion, and I had deluded my way into a claustrophobic, dirty waterway.

It should not have been possible to survive. My body would immortally live on under the ruins of my structure, incapacitated. Surely. It would be a band aid solution but it was all I had. Yet, on the edge of death I still thought;

Please, stop.

I lay in a sealed shelter, my brother's death torturing my mind. It flashed in front of me; the violent eruption of black and blue rot from his eyes. It replayed. His aperture eyes, a white glow looking back at me when I never thought it would. The infection. He fell to his knees. I left him to die.

There was nothing I could have done. I would have died too. He was doomed from the beginning like the rest of us. Maybe I should have done something. Maybe I should have died too. Maybe then our corpses would be consumed by rot together.

I wouldn't have died. An iterator cannot be killed, definitely not by the rot. It's not a death. It's a slow and painful torture. Even after his collapse, he's still alive. He's in there, under the rubble, inflamed with disease. Unconscious, but alive. There is no way out. There's no way to fulfil the one thing I wanted;

Please, stop.

I lay at the opening of a broken pipe, dulled iterator parts absently silent. A strange insect pecked at my face. It was like a sort of cuttlefish, but it was an arthropod. It hovered mid-air under the power of a few shamefully undersized wings. A squidcada, I believe it was called. I had never seen one.

Oh. I still hadn't seen it. Still dead in a pipe. Again.

But I knew it was there... I could feel it. It hadn't stopped. It never stopped. It couldn't stop. There was only one way for it to stop. It was written since the day I was activated. 

There was only one way.

Please.

Start.