the night air in the grave yard and the still silence of the dead was only hampered by the gruff and shuddering shoveling the clanked through out the night. “my project is almost complete dr. linker. when can i expect the toy to be working?” the grave digger had a maniacal smile on his face as his one good working eye turned to the doctor who hung over him like a shadow of death. “you will know doctor. you will know.” was all the little old man would say anytime the questin in being came up. “i have madem uch progress on the toy… as you yourself have put it, buit there still remains one peice missing from the whole puzzle.” the doctor looked up calmly at the full moon as its pale light glistened off his lenses. “yes. the hospice told me that she wouldnt make it through the night.” a dark smile loomed on the doctors face like a poorly drawn ppicture at an art gallery. “in fact… the poison you gave her this afternoon should take effect any moment now.”

the night air still continued to get colder and colder inside the young womans house as her breathing quickened and her eyes rolled back into her head, and with a final scream of pain, she passed away into the lonely night as the dark duo laughed in the night as thye went about there work.

four months later…

“read all about it! rich womans death puzzles city, autopsy reveals unknown poison!” the gloomy city that was blanketed in eternal night and cut off from the rest of the world as people went about there normal business with out any knowelege of the  events that lead to the poor womans death. normally, the towns people would get together for the morning complaint about how the mayor would get the city back to the rest of the world, go to a movie and then hit the bars like so many other residents at varying times did. there had been stories circulating that people had been disapearing left and right at inconvient times and no one had heard from them since. the town was slowly becoming like the graveyard four months prior. only the stench of fear ran unchecked through out the streets.

2 years later…

it had been almost two years since the mechinal hearts were unleashed upon the town and killied off all the residents including the doctors that had thought up there evil creation. they didnt have forms or faces, or bodies to speak of. they just floated in mid air giving anything that crossed there passed heart attacks. there design was modeled after the human heart, but they were entirely mechinized. the city had fought them off and destroyed all but three of the two million mechinal hearts, and it was those three that finished off the survivors. the outside world knew nothing of the shear terror the city faced, nor about the cities location itself.

the hearts, now without any real purpose, floated around the city which spanned  fourty miles in almost any direction, until one gained a conciosness and reprogrammed itself to give the other two commands and new goals.

23 days later…

three lone bodies slowly gathered together, pieces and parts, scraps and bits, liquid and solid stuck to each other uevenly around the hearts themselves as they gave each other shape.

10 hours and fifteen minutes later..

the first words almalgamated from the throats of the first two bodies as the hearts learned to walk and speak like the now dead residents of the myerios town shrouded in eternal darkness. “you…ew… urpose… o…survive. we….alone… all others….” the lead hearts shot a few wires into the peech center of its new bodies brain and adjusted a few telemitries before trying again. “your new purpose is to survive. since we have killed off the population of this city, we must stick together and learn to control our new forms. the residents all went by names in order to tell each other apart. and so we shall do the same. but first we must aquire some clothing to cover ourselves. i shall now adjust your new forms speech centers so that we may communicate in a more civilized fashion.”