“You are can be staying in a place such as this until you are become independent of your dependents on, such as me. Familiarize yourself”
Wraith looked around the dark room. It was painted gray, fairly large, and fairly empty. The only features of the room were a bed, a mirror, and something that looked like a cross between a bathtub crossed with an electrical socket.
“What’s that in the corner?” Wraith asked, pointing to the strange feature
“That is of the charger, for charging. Seeing as to how you’re are being powered by the electrical, necessities such as this become made” Eyes replied
“So I’m powered by electricity? Can I eat?”
“Affirmations, you are to capability of eating, with addition of additional pieces, except that you aren't to gaining anything of value from such a task, merely done for the enjoyment of such as yourself. Drinkage is possibility as well”
Wraith nodded with only a vague understanding of what Eyes was trying to communicate. It walked over to the bed, sat down, and rested its faceplate on its hands.
“I am of knowledge this is very sudden a change, but hoping helpful the beings such as me are to lessen the shock. If you are to be in need of anything, or are feelings such as confusion, refuse to hesitation to speaking to me”
“Yeah… thanks”
Eyes nodded and walked out of the room, a sliding door sealing behind him. Wraith sighed, and laid back on the bed, stretching out its metal hands in front of its face, staring at them. Each segment of its fingers had empty space between the next one, but stayed in place until Wraith moved them. Every once in a while a barely visible flash of light arced between the segments. Wraith rolled onto its side, and looked into the mirror. It had an extremely thin frame, and Its entire body was made of shiny black metal, except for its faceless head. That was a squarish plate made from some semi-transparent blue material, entirely lacking details except for two indentations in the middle, placed one over the other, which Wraith assumed were some kind of optic sensors. Wraith felt like its field of view was wider, but didn’t seem to have any peripheral vision. It was different from when it had eyes. Then again, it couldn’t clearly remember what having eyes had felt like. When it tried to bring the memory into detail, everything slipped away and crumbled, like trying to pick up a sandcastle to get a closer look.
Wraith jolted upright. The more it tried to remember, the more sand slipped between the space between the segments of its fingers. It started panicking. Nothing felt concrete, the only memories it could recall were vague feelings of how things might have probably been, potentially. It tried desperately to remember what its face had looked like, what its parents' faces had looked like, but nothing came up, the only visualization it managed were faceless blobs of slightly familiar color.
“Eyes! EYES! What’s going on?!” Wraith yelled
Eyes rushed into the room before the door finished opening. He ran up to Wraith and stared down at it inquisitively.
“What is being of wrong?”
“I-I can’t remember anything! None of it makes sense! I can’t… I can’t remember anything”
“Calming of the self, Wraith. Such a forgetting is of normalcy for such beings as ones that were to be pulled into the universe that is of ours, being One”
“I really need you to talk in a way I can understand right now!”
“I must only attempting to do so, results may be not to of your satisfactory. Losing the memories of your own is a normalcy, the forgetting is a side effect of being pulled here. It is of misfortune, but it is being the reality of One”
“What the hell is One?!” Wraith asked
“Apologies for my lax of explanations. One is the name belonging of this world, for of this world is One. It is called like this because it is the one and only, the only One left. There are no more worlds here, One is the only one left”
“What do you mean?”
“Other planets are not belonging here, One is the only one left. The other planets that are used to being here in this universe are gone, One is the only one left. I can teaching yourself more of this later, but being for now, familiarize yourself with that which is newly yourself, your robotic shell body. Try to make peace with what is your newly situation, such can be difficult”
“How the hell am I supposed to make peace with this?! I’m in a new universe! I can’t remember what my life was like before five hours ago, and I don’t even have a face anymore! I don’t have my own body anymore! How am I supposed to make peace with this, what do you expect from me?!”
“Exactly this. Of apologies, I was not wanted to be pulled here either”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chromis took a deep breath and took a sip of his drink. He turned anxiously towards the bar’s gateviewer, although he wasn’t quite sure what he was anxious about. He sat in abject familiarity, in the same seat he always sat at in his favorite bar he visited nearly every day, watching an arena match he had seen in person on the same gateviewer he stared at every time he came back from the arena. But still, every time he did this he felt anxious. Something wasn’t quite right, something was never quite right. He stared at the hypothetical presence of a screen projected by the gateviewer, and watched his past self pin down his opponent in under a minute. As the judge called the match, both the crowd and the bar lit up with applause. Chromis buried his masked face in his two-fingered hands. He hated this part, he hated the noise, he hated everyone turning towards him and congratulating him.
“You did great out there Chromis!” The bartender’s words of encouragement bounced off of Chromis’s thick shell of purposeless fear
“No more great than the last hundred times I did this” Chromis said in a dejected voice
“C’mon, cheer up! You’re like this every time you come here after a match, come on, break the cycle!”
“What do you suggest I do?” Chromis asked from the comfort of his metal hands
“Well, you could start by ordering a second drink”
Chromis chuckled dryly, and obliged. He ordered a second glass of pure grain alcohol, more than enough to kill any organic being. He took a sip, then another, feeling his organic muscles relax away from his metal frame. His thought diluted slightly, barely dulling the painful edge of his anxiety. Just as he was starting to feel better, the distinct scent of burner smoke rose from somewhere nearby, an unpleasant smell even for a being that didn’t have lungs.
“I thought there was no burning in here” Chromis said to the barkeeper, the bitterness in his voice poorly hidden
“Sorry about that, I’ll go talk to him” The barkeeper said
The barkeeper unfurled dozens of long, thin legs from beneath their plastic torso, climbing over the bar without shaking a single glass. It scuttled towards the source of the smoke, a figure that made Chromis groan. A tall figure, with an unnaturally large grin permanently affixed to a skinless jaw, placed just below tatters of loose flesh that waved gently in the slight breeze brought in by the open door. Half their body was an obnoxious bright white, the other half sickly and blackened, grotesque and necrotic. They held a half empty burner shell in their left hand, and an inactive heat axe in the right. The barkeeper approached the figure, said something, and pointed to the door. The figure frowned, pointed at its half finished burner, then at the barkeeper. The barkeeper replied in a voice that was almost enough for Chromis to hear, and the figure shouted back in a voice that was more than loud enough.
“You understand me crab man? I just need to talk to someone, then I’ll be out of here!”
The barkeeper replied in a quieter voice, and the figure held out the deactivated axe in a threatening manner. Chromis groaned again, and brushed his hands down his mask. He decided he should probably get involved. He quickly swallowed the rest of his drink, and walked over to the figure.
“Treite! What do you want?”
Treite looked up from the barkeeper, and towards Chromis. They smiled again, their grin widening and putting their flesh tatters on full display.
“Well if it isn’t the cowardly champion! How’s it going Chromy, enjoying your victory? I see you’re till hiding your face”
“I see you still refuse to”
Treite scowled at Chromis, the expression making his stomach turn. He honestly would prefer if Treite wore a mask, he thought most people probably would.
“So what are you doing hiding in this bar? Still afraid of your adoring public?” Treite asked
“I have a question, a genuine one this time. Why don’t you get your face fixed? It wouldn’t take much” Chromis asked
“I dunno, why are you afraid to go outside? We’re all different, look at your own flaws before you ask about mine”
“Sorry, it’s just hard to see anything past your flaws” Chromis said
Treite’s scowl deepend, and they made a low growling noise.
“Believe it or not, I have a reason to be here. Autrin sent me to ask you something” Treite said
“Yeah? And what does the spider want?”
“Autrin wants you to reconsider its offer”
“No. Final answer. Now I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bother me, I have three more drinks to order” Chromis said
Chromis started walking back to his seat at the bar, but Treite stepped in front of him.
“It’s offering a lot, I think you should at least consider the offer”
“Do you really think you have anything you can bribe an arena champion with? I don’t need any money”
“Then why do you still have a scrapping job?” Treite asked
Chromis froze, his brain stirring itself back and forth into a panicked broth. How did they find out about his job? What else did they know about him?
“How did you find out about my job?” Chromis asked
“That really wasn’t meant as a threat”
“How did you find out?”
“Wow, I didn’t realize you were this paranoid. It’s public records you nutjob” Treite said, trying to contain their laughter
“I thought I had those erased”
“Autrin has friends. So, why the job?”
“Certainly not for the money, you think a scrapper’s salary is anything to be excited about? No matter how much you pay me, I’m not doing it” Chromis said
“Hm, I wonder what Meta would think about that” Treite said
“Wait, are you trying to threaten me? With Meta? You do know how many times I beat him before he got banned, right? YOU are threatening ME, with Meta?” Chromis said
“You’re forgetting that you aren’t invincible”
“I’m much closer to it than you, in fact I could demonstrate that right now”
“We’re in the middle of a crowded bar!”
“Do you think anyone here would talk to the keepers? Get out before I indulge myself. I have a drink to get back to”
Treite growled again, and turned towards the exit, dropping the shell of his burner on the way out. Chromis let out a deep sigh, and walked back to his seat at the bar, dropping his face into the wooden surface and ordering three more drinks.
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