Day 2,138

He started small, like they always did. One minor upgrade after another after another until his left hand was entirely augmented - not a single scrap of meat left and the bones were so heavily reinforced he might as well have been a mech.

Of course after the hand was done he needed a strengthened arm to support its new weight and a reinforced spine to counterbalance and so on and so forth. There was supposed to be a legal limit but money managed to bypass it all.

Last time I saw him, he only looked human from a distance. Up close you could see the fine wires in the optics that replaced his eyes, the lack of pores on his synthetic skin and the faint electrical whirring that accompanied his every movement.

At that stage there was nothing else to do, no more advancements to make short of uploading his consciousness to the cloud to interact with data completely freely. It was considered a form of suicide, to utterly abandon the shell that contained all that you were.

So of course, it being the next logical step, he invited us all to his final upgrade. It was far too similar to a funeral for my liking with close friends and the family who could stomach it all reading their fondest memories and acting like he was already gone.

The upload itself was over in a minute, his face reappearing on the eight foot screen to smile down at us.

We expected his body to slump over and power down like they did in the videos but he stayed standing for a good while before doing the unthinkable. He looked around, making eye contact with us all before walking away as his former consciousness screamed at him to stop from the confines of the screen.

I didn't stick around to find out what happened to the people that went after him. Didn't read any of the articles that said he'd been sighted all over the country, killing any animal he could and covering his body with their meat and fur.

Trying to make himself human again as if it would bring back his soul.