.
.
.
Impossibly pure.
It was bright.
So bright.
So very bright.
It hurt.
But I couldn't look away.
It was beautiful.
It was everything.
It was nothing.
It was me.
It was you.
It was us.
I dreamed of falling.
Though stars.
Through you.
Through me.
Through a void spotted, streaked with color.
Stars.
Everywhere. In every direction.
Then -
White.
Only white.
A sound.
.
.
.
Mechanical. Crystalline. Enormous. Alive.
89jpeube
Condition: Disoriented, Awakening | Location: Unknown
Initialization?
E
8m
I woke up.
Commencing 85u6rrbk Systems Suit Initialization...
9hmpct8 Support Systems: activated
adm6jtbccgg4pubecnu6jrr System: online
adhp2vkecnt0: damaged - repair required
Aerial Propulsion 99jq8w31cdng: online
Multitool 9nmpwubecwg4rrbkcnt20gbmehgp6u3dcnq78: operational
User Initialization Sequence: complete
Location: Edkoope Cefluit | Condition: Damaged, Awake
…
A voice spoke inside me as I swayed - bleary, everything off-kilter.
My head tilted left. My body followed.
Red.
The ground.
Grass? Plants?
Red.
Above me -
Impossible. Endless.
Somehow deep inside the word formed and I knew.
Sky.
This… this was new.
The c9p7atbkeg sky I had ever seen.
The only sky I had ever seen.
The first sky I had ever seen.
I looked ahead of me..
Red.
A ship. Small.
Red.
Smoke curled from beneath it.
Fire. It was hurt.
Sparking, electric. The smell of 'ozone', my father called it.
It reminded me of the generator back home.
Of QkI=
…
A stab of pain in my head dulled that memory.
…
A green flag rose up behind the small injured craft, twisting about in the wind and the heat from the fire, a symbol I'd never seen but recognized. A thick circle around an empty core with a thinner circle around it, a space between, both bisected by a space as narrow as the space between them; coming out the left from the center top two rectangles of the thicknesses of the two circles, facing left.
I stood, hands at my sides, numbly watching the green flag dance as my brain tried to catch up to the shape of this new body.
Something moved past the corner of my vision and I stiffly turned my head. Something was moving, not flying but in the air. Bright, in the sun. Metal? Roboting, floating, slowly.
Alive? Automated?
My mind held both the words together and I forgot how they were different.
The floating machine chittered softly, scanned the surroundings, a stone, the small creatures underneath it - before trundling off, ignoring me completely.
My eyes followed it to the horizon. Small plants without names stretched around me like a sea, around stretches of bare cracked earth and large stone formations.
I remembered to breathe, deeply, the air inside my helmet.
This was... outside.
I looked up.
The sky - was that still the word - it was a dull brown, sick, like skin that went bad after a bruise.
The sky was sick.
The thought made my breath heavy. My body heavier.
It was a struggle just to stand.
My thoughts were slow.
Where was I?
Yes.
I was outside. My head tilted again as I tried to remember, why was I - where had I - how did I get here.
I had been… running. Hiding. Running.
Why was I here?
Father... abandoned me?
I tried to follow...
There was a girl, she -
It hurt to remember. Maybe I didn't want to.
Maybe that was okay.
…
The sky shifted as I stood in a daze,
its colors bleeding from one hue to another.
My eyes slowly focused on the world ahead.
I glanced at my right hand I tried to remember the words that had been spoken inside me-
by my... a1mq0ba2dxwg
No. That wasn't it.
Like a touch of ice the knowledge suddenly became clear in my mind.
Iselovke-risho v0.27
Multi-Tool.
Experiment C6/4
…
What was I wearing?
My body felt… different. Heavier.
A different shape.
It always did when I woke up after
white
.
But this was more different.
My eyes focused again.
Red.
Sparks. Fire. Smoke.
The sight of it filled me with sudden, unexplainable heat.
Pain.
Shame.
I didn't know. But my body knew.
It was mine. It was me. It was us.
…
The sky deepened from pink to green as I stood, finding myself.
My breath grew ragged - how much time had passed? The colors of the sky changed on their own.
How were bodies used? I tried to remember how. This wasn't my first, I had experience. I willed myself forward, step by step, toward the wreck.
Like a touch of ice its name suddenly became clear in my mind.
Rasamama S36
…
This was a wasteland. The wasteland my father's heavy voice had warned me about. Over and over.
But the ship - my ship - it was mine. It was me. It was us.
It was survival.
Every part of my body twitched as I took another step forward: I had to reach it.
It was part of me. It was you. It was mine. It was us.
I would die without it.
I moved.
Slow.
So tired.
Irradiated dust filled the heavy footprints I left behind as I trudged forward.
Where was I?
I was… outside.
I was - the ship was before me. I lifted my left hand, slow and heavy, and let it fall onto
…
The world stretched and pulled.
I don't remember how I got inside.
But once I was in -
the safety, the silence -
After all the running, hiding,
the chasing,
the loss of everything I'd grown up with -
It crushed the last strength I had.
And I -
