Prologue
After a little while, things started to make sense.
He found himself in a vast sea of lights and sounds, adrift in nothingness - lost. Slowly, those lights dimmed, the overwhelming noise of everything disappearing into a faint hum.
Who was he?
His head hurt. He didn’t have any answers.
Dipping in and out of consciousness, he slowly became aware of his own body - sensation returning to his fingers and face, an oily, gelatinous feeling slipping under his scales and onto his skin.
With great effort, he mustered the energy to lift his eyelids and twitch his limbs a little bit.
There wasn’t much to see. He felt suspended in some sort of gooey liquid, but no matter how much he narrowed his eyes in the pitch darkness, he couldn’t quite make out anything.
He felt a little uneasy as he racked his brain. He knew he'd existed before, but he couldn't find any memories of who he was or what he was doing here, just a faint sense of something missing, like forgetting what to say when you get a chance to speak.
Evidently, something noticed his plight, a quiet, mechanical whir spinning to life in the background. After a minute, he felt the fluid begin to recede around his head, the warm, inky blackness replaced by the slight frigidity of sterile air.
As the gel receded below his eyes, dim blue lighting became visible across the walls of this place, revealing the shape of a small capsule a couple metres across. Glancing down at himself, it became clear that the light was coming from himself - dozens of loops of teal light illuminating his skin like stars in the night sky.
The goop fully drained at this point, he flexed his limbs. Four arms, four fingers on each hand - his muscles were tense, like he hadn't used them in a while. For what he knew, maybe he'd never used them at all; hell, he wasn’t even sure what species he was.
A crackle of static burst through a speaker somewhere, interrupting his contemplation. Startled, he leapt backwards, yelping as his tail slammed into the wall behind him. Simultaneously, an artificial feminine voice began to speak.
“Cryosleep terminated. Welcome to your Tora Corporation escape pod.”
He could understand what it was saying, at least. He could swear he knew what the language was called, but he kept coming up blank when he tried to think of it.
Inching back up against the wall, more carefully this time, he looked forward and listened as the voice continued.
“Status on standard escape pod procedures. Slipnet ping: FAILED. Unable to connect to Tora services.”
That doesn’t sound great.
“SOS signal: FAILED. Backup plan active. Currently approaching planet ERROR.”
That sounds worse.
“Current location: ERROR system. Today’s date is ERROR.”
He sighed, quietly hoping the errors wouldn't be too big a problem. He couldn't say for certain. Not like he could do anything about it, anyway.
“Beginning planetary approach. Disabling artificial gravity.”
Immediately, he felt the weight of his body vanish. He began to float off the floor of the capsule, wincing with discomfort as he lost any touch with its surface. He slammed his tail onto the floor in a panic, but as it hit the ground, it just propelled him upwards. After a moment, his head hit the ceiling with a gentle bonk .
“ERROR: Malfunctioning-“
The voice was cut off by static, and then a different voice, coming out of the speaker through slightly garbled audio. He'd not spoken out loud since waking up, but for the first time, he felt some sort of recognition of himself - the voice was his own.
“I don’t have much time. To get this recording - kzzt - I had to overwrite the ‘prepare for crash landing’ audio - kzzt - take this as your warning.”
His voice sounded rushed, whispers interspersed by heavy breathing and an omnipresent static. He didn't know what this past version of himself had been up to, and at this rate, he wasn't quite sure he wanted to.
“I had to send you here - kzzt - need to escape, and to escape - kzzt - survive. This is - kzzt - dangerous place - kzzt - careful.”
The pod began to shake as it hit the atmosphere. He was jolted back into the floor, though the microgravity remained as the pod careened down, his voice sounding more desperate the more violent the turbulence.
“I’m sorry there’s no time to explain - any moment it’s going to - kzzt - there’s no time…”
His voice switched languages, though he found he understood this one fluently as well.
“ Lagaru, a’visken. ”
He knew the translation.
“Go forth, my ghost.”
And then the world went black.
He gradually came to consciousness in the sand.
His whole body hurt. The sun bared down on his skin, and even with his eyes closed, he could tell he was prone on the ground.
With a groan, he lifted his head and forced his eyes open. His jaw dropped right back down to the floor as the scene before him came into view.
The sand he laid in continued onward in a pathway, sneaking between two enormous rocks and disappearing down a hill. The opening between the rocks was framed on top by the branches of a large tree, dense red leaves hanging downward like a willow.
Beyond the hill was a great field of crimson. A lush landscape extended off into the distance, grassy plains interspersed with copses of twisting trees. The leaves and grass were a vibrant red, giving the environment a slightly alien vibe.
Perhaps most strikingly, at the edge of the horizon, the ground cut off into a sheer wall of smooth black metal, shimmering a dim emerald in this planet's pale green skies. The walls were distant enough to not feel claustrophobic, but even this far away, it was clear that they were enormous, enclosing the landscape like a sanctuary of sorts.
He blinked, and he heard a metallic rattle in the distance, slowly getting closer. A feeling of dread seeped through his bones, and he crept towards the opening between the rocks. Slowly, he peeked around the corner.
In an instant, he found himself face-to-face with a swarm of metallic objects. They flew into him at a high velocity, the rattle shaking his bones as they pierced through him, his entire being shrieking in agony. Though he’d seen nothing but a moment prior, in this instant, he felt overwhelmingly that he was about to die.
His eyes opened, and he was back in the sand. Hyperventilating, he sat up and looked down at his body. He was completely unharmed, and though he was a little shaken, any damage from the swarm had been mental at worst.
What was that? A dream?
Steadying his breathing, he gathered his thoughts, stood up and turned around. Directly behind him were the ruins of the escape pod he’d been in. It had crumpled a little bit with the force of the impact, the floor no longer smooth but instead jutting up irregularly, like a crushed tin can. He wasn't sure how he'd survived this thing.
The pod itself was lodged in the ground, sand spilling into its open doorway. Externally, it was cylindrical, the bottom rounding off into a smooth surface underground. Four spikes emerged from the top, smashed solar panels and radiators adorning each one. Come to think of it, he didn’t remember there being a door; it must’ve opened while he was knocked out.
Turning back towards the opening he’d awakened facing, he couldn’t help but notice how enclosed the crash site was. Rocky walls formed a circular barrier around the pod, though the sky was open - the pod must’ve landed here with pinpoint accuracy, like a dart hitting a target.
Weird place.
Stepping forward into the opening, he jolted to a stop as he heard a familiar metallic rattle on the wind. His blood went cold.
That thing’s real?!
His breath grew heavier as he looked frantically around him. He knew how things would end if he encountered that swarm in reality. And with this rocky outcropping pinning him in, with only one way out, he’d be a sitting duck if he stayed here.
Only one way to go then.
Inching up to one of the rock faces, he peeked briefly in both directions. Finding the coast clear, he stepped through the opening and broke into a sprint.