This story is a sequel to another one (https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/mechanical-a-short-story/), you don’t really need to read the first one I suppose because you don’t really need any information from the first one to understand this one, but it gives a tiny bit of context.

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A singular craft, empty and lifeless, speed through the void, its light bent around again and again, its image echoed in every direction for eternity. Deep within this ship, a glass lid slid open, allowing the machine inside to exit. Mechanical footsteps once again echoed throughout the empty halls, as the machine walked a path it had walked so many times now that the number could only be expressed in equations. The machine soon arrived at its destination, connecting an ancient cable to itself, and the consciousness inside the robotic shell added yet another zero to the end of a timer before disconnecting. Not long after completing this, the body stood again in front of the capsule, it shuddered, emitting strange sounds, as the consciousness trapped inside attempted to cry, the shudders only worsening as it remembered it could not, and after an unmeasured amount of time, just as likely to be seconds as centuries, the body walked into the capsule, sealing itself inside until the timer ended, when it would be forced to awaken to add another zero to the timer, and eventually another, and another, again and again for the rest of eternity, waiting for a destination that it now knew it would never reach.