Chapter 1: 1 – Awakening

The desert was blinding, brilliant, and empty. There was nothing but sand, as far as the eye could see. It stretched out for miles without a hint of life and without a hint of shade. The only interruptions in this endless rolling expanse were vast mountains in the distance, dark spikes of rock that rose from beneath the dunes like the ominous talons of some great beast. The sun was a harsh, glaring red disc in the sky, and the air was filled with a spectral stillness that seemed to seep deep into one's bones.

Half-buried in a pale dune, undisturbed for an untold number of centuries, was a tall metal box: a harsh, jagged, bulky shape constructed of blackened steel. Its surface was battered and corroded, weathered down by the ages it had spent in the sand. Though none of this planet's inhabitants would know the word, it was a coffin... or something like a coffin.

The wind blew fiercely today, more fiercely than it ever had before, shifting the coffin in its dune. A small movement, but one that triggered some kind of chain reaction. All of a sudden, after so many years inert, the mysterious box hummed to mechanical life. It started to shudder in place, the whirrs and clicks of spinning servos mixing with the sound of the rushing wind. Red lights flashed across the surface of the coffin as it opened itself up, the interlocking halves of the front panel splitting apart.

A being of both flesh and metal, body aching all over, stirred for the first time in a long time. As the coffin opened wider and wider, sand flooded in to fill the empty space within, trapping the man's legs. With every fiber of strength he could muster, he clawed his way out. His metallic hands gripped at the sand as it flowed through his fingers, hot like fire, and his powerful arms pulled him forward and upward. Sensing the heat and the pain only distantly, he kept going and managed to dig himself out of the sand. Weakly, he rose to his uncovered feet and guarded his eyes from the powerful wind. His first few steps were uneasy, as he was anxious of the desert shifting again and sucking him back down.

It was hard to breathe, and he felt like he had been sleeping for a thousand years. But he could not remember anything before the coffin. He straightened himself, reacquainting himself with his body. He looked at his sleek, gleaming metal hands, flexing them as if testing out a new tool, then felt his face, fingers tracing against soft flesh. There was no expression on his face, no smile or frown. Just a blank stare into space. He looked around, feeling the heat of the sun but unbothered by it. The air and sand was hot and dry, but he felt no thirst. He was not hungry either.

A single thought surfaced from the sea of confusion that engulfed him. Adam. He recognized it as a name, his name. Then he recalled it was also how Father had addressed him, before he entered the mysterious coffin. Adam. That was all he could remember from before the mysterious box - his own name.

The sun climbed higher in the sky, and Adam began walking. The desert looked intimidating to him, too vast and open to feel safe in. He set off towards the mountains, where the most life would be found, at least, where he assumed more life would be found. Though he walked slowly, Adam did not seem tired. He passed over the sand dunes, climbing them with his metal hands, moving in a clumsy way that seemed like he was overcompensating for a missing leg. His movements were awkward and heavy, but he did not waver or fall.

The endless expanse of the desert swallowed up his slow footsteps, and he quickly lost sight of the place where he had awakened, leaving no trace behind. He continued on, not even noticing the lack of markers to know how far he had gone. He was lost in his own thoughts as he walked, not even really knowing why he had chosen to walk in the first place. It was really the only thing to do, he figured, to find someone else and figure out what had happened or where he was.

After what felt like hours, Adam came to a stop, feeling something ahead of him that had not been there before. He narrowed his eyes and raised a hand to blot the light, straining to make out what lay in wait for him. The desert felt alive somehow, and the more he concentrated, the clearer it became - a creature of sorts was approaching him from the distance, skimming over the sand like a basilisk lizard dashing across water.

Adam tensed up as he noticed the creature coming closer. The monster looked like a reptile of some kind, but had the build of a wolf. It had four legs and was large enough to be as tall as Adam himself. Its skin was covered in scales that glinted in the sun, like diamond chips had been embedded in its hide. It must have sensed his presence because it stopped about twenty feet away from Adam and snarled menacingly at him. As if it were challenging him for territory or waiting for a fight.

Adam felt panic rising in his chest. Though his mind was paralyzed with indecision, his body moved swiftly into action. His right hand began to contort, as if manipulated by an invisible force. Suddenly, a spinning sawblade jutted out from the palm of his hand, its razor-sharp edges slicing through the air with a menacing hum. His fingers folded backwards and his palm twisted and inverted. In a flash, his hand was gone, and a buzzing saw had taken its place.

The strange lizard stepped back, clearly intimidated by the sudden appearance of the weapon, but it regained its predator composure quickly. Hissing, it puffed out a colorful frill around its neck, lunging forward towards Adam in a dominance display.

Adam was taken by surprise. He stepped back, trying to keep a safe distance between himself and the creature, but he did not abandon his defensive stance. He held out his saw hand in front of him and began to circle around the beast, attempting to intimidate it. He swept the spinning saw around, finding he could control how fast it spun just by thinking about it. Faster, he thought, and it went faster. He turned it up as fast as it could go, hoping the whine of spinning metal would annoy the beast and force it away.

The lizard didn't seem deterred in the least. It opened its mouth wide and lunged towards Adam with a high-pitched roar, its sharp claws extended and ready to tear into his flesh. Its long, whiplike tail came sweeping around from behind it and smashed into Adam's legs with enough force to knock him off balance. Adam stumbled backwards, crashing into the sand as he tried desperately to push away from the raging monster. But it was no use. The beast was upon him.

He grappled with the lizard, rolling around with it in the sand. Adam managed to get atop the beast, but before he could lock his thick arms around its neck, it had thrown him off and pounced atop him again. His metal fingers wrapped around one of its wrists, and with a grunt of intense effort, he managed to flip the lizard backwards. It hit the sand with a powerful impact, but again the beast quickly recovered, and before Adam could even rise to his feet he felt his weight on him again.

He kept pushing the beast away, but he could not overpower it, or even slow it down - it kept coming at him despite him using all of his strength against it. Finally, in desperation, Adam pushed his saw at the creature's throat as hard as he could. The beast had avoided his saw previously, but this blow landed, and it landed hard. The whirling metal dug into the lizard's scaled hide, tearing through flesh and drawing thick green blood. The lizard leapt back, howling in pain, but the injury didn't slow the beast down. It leapt towards Adam, pinning his right arm to the sand with one of its powerful forelegs. Adam wrapped his fingers around the beast's throat, pushing it back as it snapped at him. It wanted to sink its fangs into his neck, and if Adam couldn't think of a way out of this, he'd be this lizard's meal.

Suddenly, the lizard let out another roar of pain. The large creature stumbled and fell off of Adam, who jumped back with horror in his eyes. As the lizard turned and ran, he could see that something had sizzled the skin off of its back. The flesh was pink and tender, exposed muscle bubbling and steaming, white bone showing in the areas hit the hardest by... whatever had hit it. Adam could see thick, chunky half-dissolved hide running down the side of the lizard's body and dripping into the sand as it ran off.

A hand extended towards his and he took it. It belonged to a woman, short and strange looking. She had rough yellow skin, pointed teeth, and narrow, beady eyes. Despite her small stature, she was strong, and hauled Adam to his feet. Adam thanked her as she pulled her hand back to her side and studied him with her thin gray eyes.

"You hurt that bigteeth good," the woman said, her throaty voice almost a growl. A streak of emerald fluid trickled from the corner of her lip to her chin. The woman wiped it away with her hand, then shook it clean, the green flecks flying off her fingers and hitting the sand. Each drop caused a hissing fizzle and a mini-geyser of vapor. "But they okay with being cut. Thick blood, clots up and seals, they stop bleeding fast. Acid hurts them most. Brave to fight bigteeth when you can't spit bile."

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Bile? Adam stared at her lips, at the trace of reflective liquid still on her skin. Acidic bile. That was what had forced the beast away. What an odd biological weapon.

The woman kept looking him over, circling around him. "What with the metal parts? Spinny hand? Never saw thing like that before."

Adam looked down at himself, feeling the hum of the still whirring saw blade running through his right side. He clenched his left hand into a fist and willed his right hand to return to its original form, and the response was instantaneous; the spinning sawblade receded and his fingers and palm unfolded and snapped back into place. He opened his mouth to respond to the woman, but he felt a sudden wave of dizziness come over him and stumbled backward, nearly fainting. The woman grabbed him before he fell, her grip firm as she held him upright. "You okay?" she asked quietly.

"I'm not sure," Adam replied wearily. He had no idea who he was or where he came from - all he knew was what had happened today: he had pulled himself from a coffin in the middle of some unfamiliar desert, got attacked by a giant lizard creature, and then this strange acid-spewing yellow woman-thing had saved him. Everything beyond that was a question mark.

She leaned closer to examine his face, peering at him curiously. "No place to go?" The woman asked. "You far away from anywhere. You come with me, I have camp. Food."

"You live around here?"

"Yes. Mile north, have camp." She said.

Adam thought for a second. This woman, strange as she looked, seemed nice. Or at least seemed like she wasn't going to try and kill him, if she bothered saving him from that reptile. Maybe she could help him figure out something, anything about this strange world.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'll go with you."

"I have question, though. Never saw no one from no tribe have pink skin and metal parts. Where you come from? You from desert?"

"No, well I don't think so," Adam replied. "I don't remember much. I woke up, and I was here."

She lifted a thin eyebrow. Was she suspicious? Confused? Both?

"I know this must sound awfully strange." Adam paused, unsure whether to tell her his story. "I was in a box, buried in the sand. Sleeping, I think. Then I woke up, I started walking, and now I'm here."

The woman seemed to tense up, her small eyes widening as she stared intently at him. "You were buried?"

"Yeah. Like, inside a... a coffin, I guess, but it was made of metal." He said, just as baffled as the woman was. "I don't even know why. Maybe it was a mistake. I can't remember anything, I don't have any memories. It's all blank! But I think that... I think something killed me, and now I'm alive again."

The woman took a deep breath and looked away, as if frightened by Adam. "You creepy," she said, shaking her head. "Only dead get buried. You dead man walking."

She started to walk off, heading north. "Come along, dead man."

There was nothing else, so Adam followed.

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