I am a shadow, a faceless figure, shambling down the center of the roadway. A cool breeze overtakes me. There stirs an itching at the base of my skull, where my neck meets my cranium. My fingers rub at it, soft at first, then with mounting vigor. Soon, I am clawing at the scar at the back of my head with both hands. I pull my hands away only after I feel a wetness seep down the back of my neck, dampening the collar of my shirt. My hands are red with blood and there are bits of flesh and hair beneath my fingernails. But this does not stop me from my task, and I am quickly digging at the hole opening at the back of my head once again, furious now, blood spilling down my back and pooling on the blacktop at my feet. I dig at the scar until it splits open like a mouth; I grab the lips and part it, hearing it tear like brittle cloth, and peel and peel and peel the skin away from a skull of fused metal and titanium screws, of gears and cogs and the motorized whir of some invisible machine.
