Cold wind blows under the dim moonlight. Facing me, a man is coming.

He looks at me and so do I. It seems that on two faces, both are trying to search for something that has been lost.

It is so quiet and so cold.

Cold—is it the wind, the light or he? I really feel cold.

The coldness seems looming in the distance far far away, but right here and right now, it’s just so close to me, stiflingly close.

I squint at the coming man, trying to see his face clearly. Inexplicably a feeling of extreme familiarity and closeness towards him suddenly surrounds me. However, having tasted the coldness between us, a taste of “artificiality” collides heavily with my tongue.

My heartbeat speed as I hear his footsteps approaching. Without feeling anything, anything of human nature, I try hard to feel his warmth and breath but finally caught nothing. He seems like a ghost. But I don’t think of running away after seeing his face, a face that I have dreamed for the past three years.

“David.” I call his name in a low voice.

David, my twin brother’s name, also a recurring nightmare which has kept tormenting me since three years ago.

My brother and I had been living in a small village before we were admitted to the best university in our country. Life then was very tough. To provide a better living environment to us, parents kept working very hard, going out for plough before daybreak and coming back to home with the night screen. We knew that only with hard study could repay our parents, so both of us studied at full split. Since parents were always outside and could not take care of us very well, David always acted like a father. He cooked food for me, washed clothes for me, and killed mosquitoes for me. I love him more than anybody else in this world.

Just as the old saying goes: All things come to those who wait. My brother and I reached a high mark in the college entrance examination. After studying in university for four years, both of us finally became scientists who manufactured humanoid robots in a big company.

However, just like a storm may arise from a clear sky, something unexpected would happen when everything went smoothly on the right track. A conflagration that happened in our company’s buildings almost destroyed everything. I was left behind because I had broken one of my legs last week when I was swimming with David. David was buying materials in the market when the conflagration happened. When he came back and was told that I was still in the building, he struggled to free himself from the policemen and rushed into the burning building. He knew that I must be in the lab at that time, so he came to save me in no time. However, since I could not run or walk quickly, he carried me on his back. We were moving fast with great care and I could finally see the gate.

“We are going to survive!” I cried with tears shedding. But at the next moment, a plank with fire dropped from the second floor! To save me, David pushed me away and blocked the plank. Fire burned his body and even until now I can committed his painful expression to memory.

“Run!” He screamed to me.

“No!” I screamed with such a loud voice as if I wanted to explode my throat. I tried to run back and save him but a fireman suddenly came in and pulled me out of the building. However, when they finally put out the fire, David had been burnt to death.

In the following three years, I could not forgive myself. It was me who made David die. From then on, I had no mood to continue my work but to sink myself in drinking and gambling. I used to be the star in the robots company but finally degenerated into a penniless vagrant. My parents were heart-broken because one of their sons was dead and the other was degenerate. Finally my girlfriend also left me because she thought that I would never amount to anything. It seemed that nobody was willing to rescue me from sadness.

But now, I know that I’m going to be saved, by the man who is facing me.

“I’m not your brother.” he starts talking, with coldness in his voice, “My name is ‘Others’.”

“Others?” I repeat. He nods his head.

“I’m a humanoid robot created by Dr.David. He had been developing me since three years ago. However, he died in a conflagration, so I was just a semi-manufactures then. I could not walk or talk, but I could listen...”

“Listen?” I’m really astonished with his words.

“Yes. Dr.David named me ‘Others’ before he died and told me that as long as I was done, I should find you and tell you my name. A week ago, Dr.Smith finished manufacturing me, so I came and find you. Now I finished my mission.”

As a scientist once worked at robots company, I know that humanoid robots are indifferent and they just follow the instructions without thinking since they are not able to think. After finishing his mission, he turns back and walks away.

Others...Others...

I repeat his name in my mind. Suddenly a strange feeling crowd into my mind. I wonder why David gave him this name and ask myself what David aims to tell me.

Others...Others...

Yes, because of the death of my brothers, I have been stranding by my guilty thoughts, and finally ignored others in my life. My parents, my girlfriend and my friends, they are so important to me too. Because of my brothers, I forgot “others” totally! I should not be so selfish!

“Hey, where are you going?” I say to him. However, he stops without turning back.

“Going back to where I belong.”

I know that he means going back to the robots company. I say goodbye to him but there is no response. I shake my head, turn back and walk away. Is he true? Or is it just a dream? I don’t know.

    I walk on but suddenly I stop and look back. I watch the thin body of his, with long hair on the shoulders, disappearing into the dark.