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It was cold. Chilling even.
It was also dark, or, Trons eyes were simply stuck shut, and didn't want to open. Although he felt the chill of the unnervingly spacious and dark interrogation room, he couldn't feel his legs or arms. After such a long and excruciating time being bound vertically against a white slab, slightly taller than him, and being prodded and electrocuted and whatever methods or inflicting pain that Dyson could think of, Tron stopped paying much attention to the aches, stings and sharp pains all over his render.
Oh, but it was cold in the big, empty room. Dyson left not too long ago after he finally got bored of Tron simply not screaming and shouting in pain or pleading to derezz him, as Dyson would've liked.
Tron didn't want to open his eyes. He wanted to still feel like he was back in his home grid, the Encom Grid, the morning after a particularly rough training session at the disk wars arena, and the aches and fractures would be kissed away by Yori's gentle lips.
Maybe, if he kept his eyes closed, he could let his soul drift away and find Yori again. Back at home, where she would be assisting her user. Where she is safe from Clu and Dyson and everyone under their command.
Tron remembers Flynn once talking about a soul, a user concept. He still has trouble understanding what it is, but what he does understand is that the soul is the consciousness of a user that is simultaneously separate and part of the users body. And when the user derezzes, their soul leaves the body and goes to a place of paradise.
And Flynn told him that different users agree on different types of paradises that the soul goes to. Some users called it heaven, some called it Nirvana, others belive that there is no life after derezzing (Tron thought this was almost sad. No paradise for the soul after the pain of derezzing). Tron asked Flynn what a soul looked like. He didn't know. No user truly knew. Then Tron asked if Programs have a paradise that they go to after derezzing, whether Flynn could see the souls of programs as they left a derezzed programs voxels behind. Flynn never gave Tron a sufficient answer, because he didn't know.
But maybe, Tron would find out soon, whether programs have a paradise of their own. Maybe paradise was seeing Yori again.
But that would mean she would have to be derezzed too.
He would rather suffer for eternity than find out that his love is gone.
The sound of something small and glassy hitting the cold floor interrupted his thoughts. He shifted his torso even so slightly. Another plink. He wanted to open his eyes to see what is causing that noise, but when he felt this unexplainable emptiness that he felt once before, he knew what was going on. His voxels were escaping him, lose and falling from his chest and shoulders, just like they once fell from his face.
He thought about Flynn and souls again. Sometimes, souls come from the afterlife and watch over ones they love. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Tron derezzed. That way, he could watch over Yori, protect her-
But Flynn said once a soul escapes the derezzed user, the soul simply can't interact with anything, it's invisible to every other user.
Yori wouldn't know if Tron derezzed. He would have no way to protect her.
And Beck-
Where could he be now? Trons memory was very patchy, he'd suffered a lot of blows to his head after all, but he could never forget Beck. If Tron derezzed, how would he protect Beck?
If Tron were derezzed, how would he protect the grid? How would he protect the users, fight for them?
If Tron were to derezz, what would be the point of ascending to paradise, if the programs he loved wouldn't?
Finally, Tron came to a conclusion. No matter how close paradise, heaven, nirvana seemed, he had a purpose to fulfil. Derezzing is the easy way out. But not the right way out.
It's cold, in the big and empty room, that much Tron knew. But where was Beck now? He might have it worse, Tron didn't know. Where was Yori? Tron had to live to find out.
He would live, and find out.