The morning sun filtered gently through the dense canopy of the forest, casting dappled patterns on the ground below. Helena moved with practiced ease, her daily routine of gathering herbs and collecting firewood a familiar dance amidst the vibrant greenery. The forest was her sanctuary, its earthy scents and rustling leaves a comforting backdrop to her life.

Her usual tranquility was disrupted by an unfamiliar scent—a metallic tang mixed with something faintly acrid. Helena’s brow furrowed as she paused, her senses alert to the strange smell that seemed out of place amidst the forest’s natural aroma. Curiosity and concern flitted across her face as she tried to make sense of the foreign scent.

Determined to uncover its source, Helena set aside her basket and began to follow the scent through the forest. The path ahead grew increasingly disordered, the once-pristine foliage now disturbed by what seemed like recent commotion. Her steps became cautious as she navigated through the tangled underbrush.

As she ventured deeper, Helena stumbled upon an unsettling sight. There, partially hidden under a layer of leaves and debris, was a boy lying on the ground, barely conscious. His clothes were tattered, his face pale and strained. Next to him was an object that made her stop in her tracks—a human-sized, lifelike doll, but far too heavy and awkward to be anything but a burden.

The doll’s form was somewhat realistic, but its intricate details were obscured by the debris. Helena’s eyes widened in confusion. To her, it appeared to be an elaborate, lifelike figure—a novelty perhaps, but clearly far too cumbersome to move easily. Her heart raced as she approached the boy, her concern for his condition overriding her curiosity about the doll.

Kneeling beside the boy, Helena gently checked his condition. His weak breaths and pallid complexion drew her immediate focus. The doll, while unusual and slightly unsettling, seemed secondary to the urgent need of the boy. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of the strange occurrence.

With a determined resolve, Helena carefully lifted the boy, her strong arms showing both tenderness and strength. Her attention remained fixed on him, his frail body cradled against her chest. The forest’s serenity contrasted sharply with the urgency of the situation.

As Helena made her way back through the forest, the sun dipped lower in the sky, casting long shadows and bathing the trees in a warm, golden light. The doll was left behind, partially obscured by the encroaching darkness. To Helena, it remained an enigmatic, lifelike figure that she couldn’t quite understand.

Her focus was solely on the boy, her heart heavy with worry as she carried him home. The forest, once a place of peace and routine, had become the backdrop for a scene that defied her understanding. The boy’s condition and the puzzling presence of the doll lingered in her thoughts, adding an unsettling note to her usually serene world.

***

The world was different now. It smelled of earth and herbs instead of smoke and ash. The ceiling above him wasn’t made of jagged metal but of smooth, worn wood. He could hear the creaking of beams as the wind outside pressed against the house. It was quiet. Too quiet.

The boy’s eyes fluttered open, his heart hammering as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. The air was cold and unfamiliar, thin in his lungs. The warmth of the bedroll beneath him only made him more restless, his chest tight with anxiety. His body ached, his limbs heavy and foreign, weighed down by weakness.

Where was this?

His eyes darted around, scanning the room for something—anything—that could explain how he got here. It was just an old room, its wooden floor worn and rough. The pale morning light from a single window barely reached the far corners of the space. The fire in the hearth crackled, offering little comfort.

He wasn’t used to this kind of silence.

His pulse quickened. The machine—it wasn’t here. He could feel the absence of it like a void pulling at his thoughts. His breath came faster, panic bubbling inside him. He forced his arms to move, though each muscle resisted. With a groan, he pulled himself out from under the blanket. His feet touched the cold floor, sending a sharp chill through his weakened body.

He couldn’t stay here. He had to move.

As soon as he tried to stand, his legs buckled. He hit the ground hard, knees crashing into the floor, but the pain didn’t register. He needed to find it. He gritted his teeth, his fingers trembling as they dug into the rough wood beneath him. Desperation gnawed at his insides. His body wouldn’t cooperate, his limbs heavy as stones, refusing to obey.

Where... where is it? The thought throbbed in his mind, wild and unfocused. I have to find it...

The machine. The robot. It had kept going, no matter how battered or broken it was. The boy didn’t know why—didn’t understand its purpose—but something about it pulled him along. He had followed it, helpless but compelled to see what drove the thing forward. But now, it was gone. And he was here, in this strange, quiet place.

The door creaked open behind him.

A woman stepped into the room. He hadn’t heard her approach, her movements as quiet as the wind outside. She was tall, her expression calm. Shadows danced across her face in the dim light, but he could see the careful way she knelt beside him, her hand reaching out.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” she said softly. Her voice was low, a gentle whisper that made the boy flinch. She offered him her hand, but he didn’t take it. His eyes remained fixed on the door, his breath shallow and uneven.

He didn’t trust her.

The woman—Helena, though he didn’t know her name yet—didn’t push him. She settled beside him, her hand hovering close but not touching. The boy’s breath was ragged, his body trembling from the strain of simply sitting upright. His limbs were too weak, and the effort to move had drained what little strength he had.

Still, he tried to stand again. He gripped the floor, nails scraping against the wood, his mind screaming for his body to move. I have to find it. I can’t... I can’t just lie here.

Helena reached out, her touch soft but firm, and guided him back onto the bedroll. The boy resisted, his muscles tensing beneath her hands, but he had no strength left to fight. His head throbbed as exhaustion flooded his senses. He fell back onto the blanket, his vision swimming.

It’s out there... but I can’t...

Helena said nothing, her hands gentle as she pulled the blanket back over him. She didn’t ask him anything, didn’t scold him. She just watched him, waiting. The boy’s chest heaved, his breaths slowly becoming more measured as the room blurred around him. He turned his head to face the wall, shutting her out.

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The minutes passed in silence, the only sound the crackling of the fire.

***

The days drifted by in a haze of quiet routine, though the boy’s mind never settled. Helena brought him food, tended to the fire, and sat nearby as he slowly regained his strength. But the boy’s thoughts were never with her—they were always on the robot.

Each time he woke, the same urgency gnawed at him. I need to find it. But he was too weak. His body, once small and frail from being malnourished, couldn’t handle the effort. His hands would shake when he tried to lift them, his legs trembling when he attempted to stand.

Helena watched, her gaze calm, as he pushed himself little by little each day. She never said anything about it, never stopped him. But she was always there, quietly observing, her eyes filled with something the boy couldn’t understand. He didn’t ask. He didn’t speak at all.

Where is it?

It was the only question he had, but he didn’t have the words to ask. He couldn’t trust her—not yet. Not with this.

One evening, as Helena stirred a pot of broth by the hearth, the boy tried to stand again. His legs shook under his weight, his hands gripping the edge of the bed as his muscles threatened to give out. But this time, he stayed standing for a little longer.

Helena glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She didn’t stop stirring.

“You’ll get there,” she said quietly, though her voice carried in the small room. “When you’re ready.”

The boy didn’t respond, his knuckles white as he clung to the bedpost for balance.

I don’t have time... It’s out there...

The days grew longer as time passed, the light in the room changing from dim morning to the soft glow of late afternoon. He began to notice the little things—the way the wind picked up outside as the evenings grew cooler, the scent of herbs and flowers drying on the windowsill. His body was changing too. His legs, once too weak to support him, grew stronger, and his hands, though still thin, no longer shook as they had before.

But the ache in his chest never left.

I have to find it...

Helena continued to care for him, her presence steady and quiet, never pushing, but always near. The boy watched her carefully, wary, uncertain of what to make of her. She didn’t ask him questions or press him for details. She simply worked—tending the house, gathering herbs, always returning to check on him.

He didn’t understand her, but something about her patience... it made the wall he had put up begin to crumble, little by little. She wasn’t like anyone he’d known before—though truthfully, he hadn’t known many people at all. He had spent so much time alone, with no one to trust, no one to rely on.

But now, there was Helena.

As his strength returned, so did his restlessness. He tested his limits when she wasn’t looking, standing on his own longer each time, forcing his legs to hold him up. His mind always on the same goal.

The machine... I have to find it.

One day, as he stood by the window, leaning against the wall for balance, Helena approached with a calm expression.

“I know what you’re looking for,” she said, her voice even. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you to it.”

The boy’s heart quickened, but he said nothing, his gaze fixed on the window. Outside, the wind whispered through the trees.

***

After a long month, the day had finally come. The boy felt it deep within his bones, a quiet certainty that his body was ready, that his legs could now carry him where he needed to go. His hands, once frail and trembling, now gripped the edge of the windowsill with steady resolve. He had been waiting for this moment—watching the passage of days through the changes in the sky, his strength slowly returning.

It had taken time. Time he had spent restless and anxious, thinking about the machine, wondering if it was still there, still waiting. But today, Helena had given him the freedom he had been craving for so long. She had said she knew where the machine was—where it had been all this time.

She hadn’t mentioned it before. He couldn’t understand why she had kept that from him, why she had waited so long to tell him. The boy didn’t ask. There wasn’t much use in words; they didn’t come naturally to him. His mind was often too full of thoughts, thoughts tangled with memories of following the robot and now, thoughts of finding it once more.

Helena stood by the doorway, calm and composed, just as she always was. Her eyes, though, carried something different today—a kind of quiet acknowledgment. She had known all along that this day would come, that the boy may not stay here forever.

“You’re ready now,” she said, her voice soft yet firm, the way she always spoke when she knew something was certain. “I’ll take you.”

The boy didn’t respond with words. He only nodded once and pulled on the rough coat Helena had left for him. The fabric was coarse, uncomfortable against his skin, but it didn’t matter. Outside, the air would be colder than it had been when he first arrived here. He didn’t know how long it had been since that day, but the season had changed. He could feel it in the way the wind had grown sharper, the sun shorter in its climb across the sky.

Helena led him outside, the door creaking softly behind them. The chill of the air hit him at once, biting at his skin, but it felt refreshing after so long indoors. The boy’s legs held firm beneath him now as he followed her, his steps sure, though a lingering wariness followed each one. He had waited for this moment, but the forest ahead felt strange, a place where his past and the present had collided.

As they walked through the woods, the world around him hummed with life. The quiet solitude of Helena’s house gave way to the rustling leaves, the chirping of birds somewhere in the distance. The air was clean, filled with the scent of pine and damp earth, so unlike the harsh, metallic scent of the world he had known before.

In that place, the ground had been barren, the sky oppressive. Nothing lived there, nothing grew. And through it all, the machine had moved forward, its body battered and broken, yet unyielding. The boy had followed, though he hadn’t known why. He hadn’t understood the force that drove the robot to keep going, but something about it had drawn him in, compelled him to stay close.

He had wanted to know. Why did it keep moving? What was its purpose? He never found out.

The path Helena led him down narrowed, the trees growing thicker, blocking out much of the light. The underbrush crunched beneath their feet as they moved, but Helena walked with the ease of someone who had traveled this way many times before. She glanced back at him every so often, ensuring he was still behind her, still steady on his feet.

“I found you here,” she said after a while, her voice almost lost in the whispering wind. “It’s just up ahead.”

The boy’s heart began to pound faster, his breath coming in shorter bursts as they neared the spot. He remembered nothing of this place—only the cold, the darkness, and the sense of falling. The memory was hazy, blurred by exhaustion and pain. He had been unconscious when Helena found him. The machine, too, had been still and silent when she discovered them.

He didn’t know how long it had taken her to bring him back to health, but now, standing here, he realized just how close he had come to never waking up again.

Helena stepped into a small clearing, and there it was. The machine. It lay half-buried beneath branches and leaves, the underbrush creeping up around its legs. The boy’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of it. It hadn’t moved since Helena had found them.

“I couldn’t move it,” Helena said, her tone matter-of-fact. “Too heavy. It’s been here, waiting.”

The boy moved forward, his feet carrying him faster now. He didn’t care about the forest or the cold air or the world around him—his focus was solely on the machine. As he crossed the clearing, his eyes never left the twisted, broken figure. The metal was grimy and dull, its frame twisted, as though the world itself had tried to crush it into the ground.

But it was still here.

The boy knelt beside the machine, his hands hovering over the cold metal. It felt lifeless beneath his fingers, but something inside him stirred—a flicker of the same pull he had felt before.

Why did you stop? he thought, though he knew there would be no answer.

He knelt there, his hands resting on the machine’s battered surface. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. The questions that had haunted him were still there, swirling in his mind. Why had it kept going? What was driving it?

Helena stood a few steps behind him, silent, watching. She didn’t speak, didn’t try to comfort him. She simply stood, waiting, giving him the space he needed.

The boy’s thoughts raced, the weight of the weeks pressing down on him. He had followed the machine, thinking it had some purpose, some reason for existing. Now, looking at its broken form, he wasn’t sure what that purpose had been.

But there was one thing he did know.

I have to understand you, he thought. I have to know what drove you to keep moving, even when everything else had stopped.

The sun dipped lower in the sky, casting long shadows across the clearing. The wind whispered through the trees, and the boy sat there, motionless beside the machine. He had come to find it. He had come to understand.

And now, he wasn’t going to leave it behind.