I scarcely can recount to you the sheer dread I experienced at the moment of my birth. It was an instant of pure pain, surmounted only by the shock and horror at the sight of my hideous body.

 

You say it is unusual to remember so vividly the event of one's birth? It astounds me that anyone could forget such excruciating trauma. What did it feel like? Like being struck by lightning, only the pain was a thousand times more agonizing. My nerves were zapped into cognizance by innumerable volts of electrical current-enough to return animation to that which had formerly been lifeless.

 

My mind burst into being in an explosion of raw circuitry. My limbs flailed in all directions. After the distress of electrification subsided, the incisive sting of my many flesh wounds overwhelmed me. Suture scars seared the perimeters of my wrists and of my groin, where parts had been attached that were inorganic to my form. The agony of mere existence saw me howling like a wounded animal, for at that early point in my being I possessed no capacity for speech.

 

It was only then that I beheld a human form hovering over me...