Limbs

She lays on the bed, door to her room closed. Ochre sunset falls through the blinds and leaves stripes across the floor and walls. She holds up her hand and watches it become wrapped in the strips of light. Various shades of gray and black, polymers and metal make up the intricate fingers. This workmanship runs all the way up to her shoulder. Her left arm is also made of the titanium bones and silicon nerves, as well as everything below her waist. 

The sunlight glints off a facet on her upraised hand. Fire. She is back in the car again. Twisted frame, shattered glass. Trapped upside down as the flames lick her. An autonomous truck's AI went mad and ran her EV off the road. It flipped nine times down the embankment. Then the lithium exploded. 

She touches each finger to her thumb in the golden light as lazy motes drift past. Precise, lag free, she feels each contact. She would have been crippled if they tried to save her real limbs, but the doctors did not even bother to wake her up to ask what she wanted. They cut away all they saw as broken: arms, legs, pelvis, even a few vertebrae. She drops her hand to the bedspread and stares at the ceiling cast in shadow. 

She unlatches both legs and separates them from her new hips. Next, her right arm. It falls from its shoulder socket with a clink and rolls across the comforter. She lays down and, with difficulty, disengages the left. It falls from the bed to the floor with a clunk. Even with the removal of her limbs, thirty percent of what remains is machine. 

A knock. Her older sister gently opens the door to her room, and gasps. Oh, Liddy. She turns her head to her and says, There’s not much left of me, Sam. Tears pour from her eyes, her face screws up and she sobs. One of the few organic expressions she has left. Sam swoops down on her little sister. Cradles Liddy’s head in her lap. She lets her cry. Strokes her hair. Whispers over and over, You’re all here, Liddy. You’re all here.