Back in Willow's POV

A few days later, I was brought into an operarion.
Don't ask. I don't exactly remember.
Everything felt numb and black the second I awoke a few hours later. But then, I began to feel weight on my back, face, and leg.
I began shivering. This vault was cold. Where was the soft padding? The warm air conditioning?
I can't see a thing!
I spotted a flash of static before my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
I heard a small tune ring in my shredded ears. Words flickered into view.
"WELCOME."
I scrambled to my paws in panic, only to hit my head on glass. I yowled in surprise. I carefully lifted my eyes to the ceiling. I was in a vault with a glass lid. I cracked the lid.
What...? How? How did I...?
I shook my head off and began to rub between my ears with a paw.
I felt a hole in my pads. Looking at my paw, sure enough, there was a large hole, ringed with a silver metal.
I gasped.
What?! How is it not bleeding?!
Then a tiny flame burst through the strange puncture.
That got me to scream like an alarm.
I rammed myself into the walls of the glass vault. A shock went through my brain, but I tried again, managing to crack it. I flung into the glass once more until it shattered.
My breath was knocked out of my lungs as I landed hard on one side. A clanging noice sounded. Since it was on my mind, I noticed my back was stiff, and I felt cold on the inside. I tried to stretch, to ease the stiffness, but it didn't go away. I grunted as I hauled myself up on my paws. "What's happened to me?" I meowed.
I gasped. My voice sounded like a crappy audio recording.
"What's happened to me!?" I yowled.
I detected tiny footsteps outside the door. It sounded more like paws padding against a tile floor. She heard a grunt from outside, and the knob to the door twisted. The door opened, and I managed to catch a glimpse of light gray tabby fur land on the floor from the knob. The tabby was small and fluffy, and he had a fake hind leg. The cat lifted his head and whipped around to look at me. I recognized the glint in his eyes.
"Oak!" I cheered. He rushed towards me and buried his nose into my shoulder. I gently lapped at his ear. I had never been so happy to see him again. It felt like it had been forever since I last saw his face and listened to his wise words and cheery young voice...
Even after I wished him pain and grief, like what I had been through...
But how am I still alive? Was this a dream?
"I'm so sorry..." Oak suddenly mumbled, not lifting his gaze.
I blinked at him. He probably remembers, too. "I'm sorry, too. I didn't mean to disown you like that," I replied.
Oak shook his head, hunching his shoulders. He hesitated. "No... it isn't that. I-I already knew you didn't mean it..." Oak forced himself to look in my eyes. "Just.. look what's happened to you!" He leaped onto a table, and came back down to grab a small metal circle, reflecting the shine of his fur. He placed it on the floor and nudged it towards me. I leaned forward to look in it, and immediately flinched back.
Was that... my face?
Did I have two cameras with green lenses for eyes? Did I have metal encasing the right side of my face? Did I have wires stretching from them?!
I twisted my head to look at my back. If my spine was broken from the flood, how can I still be walking? I've heard once that broken backs can kill someone, or leave them forever crippled and sick and helpless if they survived. But not me. My back had two metal slides covering it... What for?
I checked my paws. I had a prosthetic hind leg, matching Oak's poor scar. I remember I had smashed my leg against a car. The impact had smashed my leg brace, which had snapped the bone in my leg clean in half.
"I-I..." I was speechless. More so than when I first woke up that one time. I dropped my gaze for a moment before glancing back at Oak.
"I'm so, so sorry!" He wailed again, "I tried to tell the operators that there had to be a better option, but they didn't listen to me!
"M...maybe they didnt realize I was your sister...?" I suggested.
"How would that explain how they tried to help you in my word? They saw me there, laying beside your broken and battered body. They knew they had to do something," Oak whimpered, trembling as he spoke, "even my vet didn't agree to their idea! She explained how just prosthetics and braces could be enough! B-but no..." he swayed on his paws till he crouched on the floor, "the engineers came in. They wanted to try some sort of experiment..."
"...and I was the specimen?" I guessed, the realisation making me cold.
Oak flopped onto one side. "They've ruined you... those... I-idiots thought they could just... T-they..." Oak gulped as if he were fighting back a sob. I had never seen my brother in so much despair.
"They ABUSED you, Willow! I-I really wanted to s-stop them... maybe..." he started sniffling, "maybe we would have... you could have been better o-off..."
I could not believe my brother was actually crying.
I stiffly walked up to him and gently stroked his spine with my tail. "Don't be upset... I'm alive. Everything's okay--" I began.
"Everything's NOT okay!" Oak snapped back. "I could hardly sleep through those terrible nights! I loathed the engineers! I hope one day Saint Francis wishes DEATH upon those pieces of..." Oak couldn't continue.
I stared at him, silenced by his rage.
"D-do you know how hard it is, knowing that..." my brother buried his face in his paws, "my sister... the only family I know, and trust, a-and love... is a cyborg."
I didn't know what that term meant. But I didn't need an explanation. I saw how machines connected certain parts with wires. They were mostly made of metal. They all activated under a certain trigger. Most of them sent signals and words.
That was part of me now. I crouched down beside Oak, letting the cold dread numb my legs as I realized what he meant.

I was a half-machine monster.