“Hey, ████! Found a sick ration near the well. You think we should eat?! It probably ain’t expired or poisoned!”
“It’s alright, ████. You can do better next time…”
“It is with a grave purpose that I deliver this message: ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████ and ████████ ████████ ██ █████ have exchanged nuclear strikes. Detonations have been detected all over both polities.”
The first fragment was happy, lost in a sea of despair, yet still could be fished out from that misery that accompanied the event I have designated as: “Alpha Genesis.” A regression scenario of the nuclear kind occurred within the 21st century, and memory banks determine that it was between the years 2036 and 2045 A.D of the Gregorian calendar. It seems that materials that could induce a pleasurable stimulus of gustation— simulation of such a “taste” — are currently being extracted from the fragments following the first one.
The one designated as the second series in the scrambled vaults outside my memory banks, I have deemed to be highly important to the integrity of my conscious being. Current subconscious stimuli indicate it is an important moment in the human designated as: S.P.A.C.E.R. More decryption is needed to uncover its meaning.
Finally… The third is the first message received through automated systems transmitted to my household, warning of the event “Alpha Genesis.” This is before the event that has been designated as: “Omega Armageddon.” The Sundial was not yet activated at this time, nor was it constructed or in development.
The memories came through, each of them having some degree of importance to the reconstruction of history. The human race had been almost wiped out, torn apart by nuclear hellfire that left nothing but ashes. The Earth, due to the detonation of a particularly dangerous bomb, was left completely uninhabitable, the continent of North America completely obliterated off the geographical records.
These memories are important for my directive. They are the scattered puzzle pieces of a bigger picture that is the war that ended all wars, the very event that led to me being flung out into space with only a few machines to keep me alive. The directive that they have given me has been long forgotten, and the side of me that I could vaguely describe as “human,” created new directives in place of the lost ones.
Currently, my view is focused on one of the drones that makes up my vast body, a computational unit that links together with countless others to form a massive, modular supercomputer. It is gazing upon an anomaly in the vacuum of space, a sight I am not familiar with.
The anomaly has been present near one of the worlds orbiting the Keppler-90 star, but seems to have a fixed position that is not affected by the distortion of spacetime generated by the nearby masses. It is a dark void in space, devoid of any light, that damages any observational equipment that gets too close. I observe it through the drone, anticipating something within the dedicated time I have placed upon within each solar cycle.
But then… something occurred. It was subtle, completely impossible to perceive without the specialized lenses and observational senses within the drone, but I could feel a slight expansion of the space. Before I could even have the rest of the drones nearby look at with greater scrutiny, the anomaly begins to rapidly expand, causing the sensors within the controlled drone to rupture and be crushed by an unknown force.
Within a single moment, much of the systems that make up my body begin to lose connection with the core computational modules. The anomalous sphere has taken on new properties: exponential expansion and destruction of everything it collides with.
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Unusual gravitational disturbances detected. Initiating drive jump in ten seconds due to a lack of surplus energy.
At the moment that the mental notification was blasted into my mind, I was able to feel something that I thought I no longer had a capability of feeling within my subconscious: fear. It was fleeting, replaced by a cold acceptance before long, but it was something that I supposed I will never forget.
Redistributing energy. Shutting down all external factors.
With that, the time would be reduced to two seconds until acceleration, which meant that in most likelihood, I could escape the anomaly before it consumed me. But then… something went wrong, a stray electron, popping into existence at just the right time and the right place to not be immediately annihilated, interfered with the reactors that provided me with power, and then… I saw the sphere. It should have been impossible, as its calculated rate of expansion was far faster than that of C, but nonetheless, it seemed that the world slowed to a crawl, and for a brief few moments, I saw the encroaching darkness that was creeping up on me.
It was smiling.
With those thoughts, I would be consumed.
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Fleeing from the darkness, child so fair,
You thought you'd find your freedom there.
Alas, the shadows have won the race, Enveloping you in their cold embrace.
Isn't it sorrowful, this tragic plight?
A sight to make one's heart take flight.
----------------------------------------
Something was wrong… Deeply, deeply wrong. I should have been dead, annihilated by that thing. Yet I was here, somewhere. I could feel something, a sense of touch. But it was not the vast, wide feeling of tactility that I could feel using my vast sensors, but something else, something fleshy.
I was in the flesh.
That much was shocking enough, but as my senses would slowly begin to awaken, I would find myself in a place that was completely baffling to be in: the shore of a lake. Impossible. All of Earth should have been left a barren wasteland after Sundial detonated, and yet… I could see it in front of me as I stood up with arms and legs I could not recognize. The lake was beautiful, a vast expanse that I had long forgotten, and just as I expected, I could not see much beyond the other side of the lake.
But then, I looked down into the waters, and what I saw would truly shake me to my core. It was a body, a human one, something that I had tried to recreate to no avail within the timeframe of so many decades. And here I was, witnessing something that I had long forgotten.
This is…
Blonde hair, cascading down head and towards the ground like a waterfall. Green eyes that reflected the azure waters below me. It was a dream come true, but I knew from my enhanced cognition that it was no dream, and that deluding myself was merely a coping mechanism that I had gone past.
And yet… I could feel that much of my intelligence had been left behind, consumed by that creature that smiled at me. Right now, my pale skin was just as vulnerable as that of a normal human, and my mind was almost just as fallible.
“Ahhh…” I tried to speak, but all that came out was a mute growl that could barely be considered that of a human. It had been so long since I had been in a proper, miniaturized body, so my ability to speak was comparable to that of an infant.
[Basic proficiency has been granted to you.]
“What?” I spoke… Wait— I actually spoke! That message—!
[You now have the basic abilities needed to survive in this world. Good luck :)]
The words manifested in the waters, spelling things out that only I could see, and was somehow there and not there at the same time, as if it was some sort of spooky action caused by a probability within the circuitry of my mind. But I knew those words were no mere coincidences. No, they were certainly real.
“Oh? Who might you be?” A voice came from behind me, revealing a mane of… Red? Such a shade of red I have never witnessed displayed in human hair, yet the miniature anomaly was definitely standing where I had turned my head to. Upon closer inspection, it was roughly in the shape of a homo sapien, with a light complexion and eyes of… Red.
“Erm…” I said in hesitation.
I thought of any name that I could give myself. This female homo sapien was certainly a strange factor, something I didn’t know of, so the best course of action was to give something natural. But then again, I barely had any knowledge of whatever the hell the cultural traditions of this place was, nor did I know anything else other than the basic language of the particular area I had ended up in.
Wracking my mind, I finally came up with something: “My name is Glorbalorg.” After those words came out of my mouth, even I could recognize that her face had shifted into that of confusion. Hopefully I wouldn’t get executed or something for saying a word that was offensive, as improbable as something I completely came up with the little phonetics I knew could be.