While on your unusually quiet lunch break in the town centre you noticed a popup shop in one of the usually closed shops. The town centre was typical of that of a seaside town where it’s “glory days” had long passed and there were a few chains taking up units, and a few smaller hardier shops still managing to stay open. Along with the ocassional dodgy looking shops selling clearly fake items in a layout that looked like it could be emptied in five minutes.
The popup shop you could tell was opened up in one of the units which had been purely left with shelving in tact from some closure leaving the previous owners without money left to even clear out the unit. Perfect for just throwing up a banner and throwing a bunch of stock together like this shop had done.
Along the shelves of various items of tat were a bunch of various bottles and bags of various things. One of them caught your eye in a metalic bag. Something about being a soothing powder to put into the bath, similar sounding to those trendy bath bombs which made the water nice and soft as well as various different colours. Of course, they had some of them too all wrapped up in plastic wrap for some reason. Probably so that the contents didn’t spoil the clean shop, or some other nonsense.
The price was only a couple quid, so you decided to pick it up and buy. It couldn’t be the worse thing in the world. And if it’s being sold in a shop, it can’t be too dodgy to burn you or something. It was always hit and miss with various skincare things from not so proper looking shops.
You eventually got home after having public transport play up yet again adding an hour on to your normal wait times and then having to get the slower services instead of the normal fast ones. After having something to tick a box of consuming some food to count as tea, you remember about the bath bomb and start to run a bath as to enjoy it.
Once the water had ran enough, you opened the packet and poured the contents in. The package did say to put pretty much the whole thing in. The powder glistened as it swirled and mixed around in the hot water. Creating a metalic shine across the water. Some of it fizzed slightly and the smell wasn’t quite as expected. Somewhat of a metalic smell, almost like a cheap perfume of some kind.
Gently sliding into the piping hot bath felt instantly relaxing, the hot water soaking into your skin and you felt the heat. While initially, you were used to the heat being a little too much after a minute it was very much relaxing and well needed against your body.
So very relaxing, you felt your body almost melt away. You felt yourself sinking into the warmth of the bath. Slowly and slowly, falling to the liquid.
You jumped. Realising you just had your entire head under the water wasn’t a good thing for a human body, and you need to breathe. Paniced you look down at the water. The water is completely clear. In fact, probably clearer than before you even ran the water without the bath stuff added.
What was even more alarming was your skin. Gone was the pink flesh, and in it’s place was sleek metal parts, along with a knee joint. Then you feel a drip of water in your ear. Kind of like when you get out of a swimming pool and a drop of water is stuck in your ear. And then nothing. Your mind is emptied, awaiting programming. After all a machine needs instructions to run.