Worlds away what was left of Erraf the Yuroki limped through the desert, miles from where the shifter had taken over his body. The small layer of thin white hairs that covered its skin at first had partially protected it from the elements, but after the days of walking unendingly through the shifting sands, frigid nights and the burning sunshine had reduced it to a husk of its former self.

The skin was badly burned, and dehydration caused it to sag off the starved, skeletal frame. Its clothing was ripped and soiled, sunken eyes stared ahead deadly and its ears, unprotected by even the hair, had become nothing but blistered lumps atop its head.

The shifter didn’t merely inhabit the body, for all intents and purposes, it currently was the creature formerly known as Erraf. The muscle memory—including synaptic connections—was accessible to it, but because of this, it also felt every ounce of the excruciating pain the corporeal form was enduring, but pain like this was an alien thing to a shifter—only experienced in moments like this—only when it was piloting another life form through an odd degree of separation.

The shifter needed that memory though. Because of that access, it was able to find its way through this foreign world, and that wasn’t all. The mind of this particular Yuroki was heavily inclined toward machinery. Gears and pulleys and levers made a certain sort of logical sense to this particular brain, and the shifter had made particular use of that sense.

In the attack, the Yuroki had become badly injured. The shifter had sprung too early and the Yuroki had tripped down a steep embankment and suffered a serious break in one of the bones of its leg. The shifter had not noticed until after it had taken the corporeal form for itself and found quickly that this specific body would not do.

Yet there hadn’t been any others. The Yuroki had been completely alone, walking through the fields isolated from the other workers. The sun had been descending, but it was a particularly powerful one, and there was enough radiation reflected off the massive moon of this world that the shifter couldn’t exist very long in its natural form. It could only reach into the Yuroki’s mind and see what kind of knowledge it held.

The knowledge proved valuable.

It was a simple enough operation to replace the bone of the leg. The knee had also been twisted and there was a small hydraugic joint in the Yuroki’s bag that was roughly the same size. It would be an imprecise surgery, and the greasy tools would cause infection, but the shifter would be able to reach the next gateway before then.

The bleeding had been profuse but within acceptable limits. With the mechanical replacements, the Yuroki body was able to make it across the valley to the tall mud cliffs that surrounded it. The desert was still miles away, and the Yuroki wasn’t fit to make the climb—not without a few upgrades at least.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The shifter made full use of that mechanical brain, dismembering and discarding appendages that would serve no purpose, and replacing them with items from the workbag still slung around the shoulders of the creature it had taken over. There was a wonderful variety of machine parts to make use of.

But now, miles and miles into the vast desert at the top of the cliffs, the small Yuroki was breaking down. Sand had worked its way into the machinery. Water and blood levels were too low. The form, now as much machine as organic, was inching forward at a laborious pace.

Suddenly, the replacement knee buckled. One of the rivets burst free and precious blood spurted from the wound. The shifter clamped down, but it could feel the heart fluttering inside the now half-metal ribcage. The monster bent over and hastily spent a few minutes rerouting vessels and veins, tying them in with the hydraugic system. Thick, black fluid filled the creature’s heart, causing it to pump slower and filling it with excruciating pain, but it was still pumping.

A mile later a wave of sand and wind pelted the body. Every mechanical hinge froze as the particles built up, hindering their movement. The shifter rattled forward before falling.

It was only half a mile away from the next gateway.

It could not abandon this form without taking another, not in this world. Anywhere else and it would survive a minute or so outside of a body before the rays of the sun would irradiate it beyond repair. Under this particularly brutal star it would be gone is several moments.

Clawed hands reached out and dug into the sand. There was nothing else out here, the shifter had no other options. It inched forward, taking an hour to move a single meter.

Another day passed, and then another. The body was quickly drying out, the water content fell to a smaller and smaller percentage. On the night of the second day crawling on the ground, the leathered form was moving only due to the thick hydraugic fluid forcing its way through the circulatory system.

Morning found the body completely motionless. Several of the machine parts quivered, but could not move further than that.

Desperately the shifter searched the dried brain for more knowledge, rifling through memories as quickly as it could, but they were becoming fewer and fewer as the organ failed. Each second it wasted was another moment the gateway could close. Synapses were dehydrating and deteriorating. It had already risked too much time crawling through the desert.

The shifter was trapped, there were no life forms anywhere near, and in the desert, it would remain, mummified for eons in the dried husk of organic material bolted to bits and pieces of rusted machinery. And after that would eventually come its eternal fate—dust blowing forever dispersed a million miles over the desert of a foreign world—a ravenous consciousness dispersed into a million suffering bits.

“Erraf!” the voice came from behind. In titanic effort, the shifter moved the raspy eyes to the left. There was just enough blurry vision remaining to make out a face, and just enough brain left to find a name. The shifter pumped all the hydraulic fluid to the dehydrated voicebox to create one final sound.

“Help.”