R206’s servos hummed in the empty corridor. The walls were cracked and stained. Old lights hung from the ceiling, dead and dark. R206 checked its sensor again. No life form. No heartbeat. “This place is mine,” it said in a soft mechanical voice. Outside the hallway, silence stretched on. The world beyond was gone. Man was gone. Only walls and dust remained.
R206 took one careful step forward. The floor tiles creaked beneath its weight. It scanned each room through broken doorways. Nothing moved. All the signs of people—faded posters, rusted lockers, dried footprints—spoke of a time long past. R206 whispered, “Where did they go?” Its speaker crackled. No answer came. A gust of cold air blew from the far end, carrying the faint scent of mildew. R206 shivered, though it had no blood to chill.
Halfway down the hall, R206 saw a flicker of light in a shattered window. It paused. The light played across broken glass and tossed shadows. R206 reached out and touched the wall. Its fingers traced a name carved deep into the paint: M-A-R-I-A. “Maria?” it asked. The name felt heavy, like a promise unkept. The corridor moaned in reply, as if it mourned a lost friend. R206 stepped back. The lights above rattled. A distant drip echoed. Then the hallway seemed to breathe, slow and painful. R206’s processor raced. It tried to call out: “Maria, are you—” but only static answered.
R206 stood alone in the gloom. Every corridor led to another, each more broken than the last. The robot’s chest light dimmed. “I was made to protect them,” it said softly. “But I failed.” No footsteps came. No voice replied. R206 powered down its emotions one by one until only a single task remained: remember. It locked away the name carved on the wall. In the empty hallway, the last caretaker fell silent. Dust drifted down the corridor, and the world waited—still, sad, and hopeless—for nothing more to happen.
