Your eyes open. Slowly, at first. Taking a moment to survey your surroundings, the only thing you can see, for what seems to be miles around, is mountains of scrap metal and miscellaneous garbage.
(click:"garbage")[The buzzing of circuitry inside your body and the hissing of your hydraulics joints break up the dead silence of this pit. You have obviously been asleep for a long time. Were you asleep? Maybe you were hurt? You don't seem to feel any pain, at least.]
(click:"pain")[ [[Why are you here?]] ]
Emergence
A Twine by Ramona Savage for #HugJam2016
lonelyfrontier.net
You're taking things slow. Accessing all your memories, trying to figure out what you're doing down here. How you ended up alone in a trash dump.
(click:"dump")[The incessant beeping in your head informs you that this is [[The Refuse]]. Your joints and body parts still need to warm up after so much inactivity, but your Heads Up Display is as sharp as ever. It gives you a continuous stream of information, updated every milisecond. The information is entirely a reminder of where you are, and the current time. And the concept of time is lost on you.]
(click:"lost")[What it won't tell you, is what you need to know the most. Who are you? How did you get here? Were your systems altered, and that's why you can't get a real [[answer]]?]
The Refuse: a designated space for the waste generated by the eight towers.
Looking around, you notice an unending cavalcade of trash pouring from multiple holes along the walls. There's no maintenence or oversight, so the trash is allowed to collect and build unencumbered. You're not entirely sure if what you're walking on is the original floor, or if you're walking on concentrated waste.
You've been living in a world of garbage for who knows how long.
[[back|Why are you here?]]
These same two questions have been in your head since the moment you woke up. Your not knowing is beginning to do its damage; you feel fear creeping on you.
(click:"fear")[Fear. An emotion you haven't had to deal with in some time. In fact, have you ever had to deal with it? Brief flashes of imagery floods your senses. Images of what appears to be a monster attacking you. Tearing at your artificial skin. Piericing your steel and polymer bones. Is this pain?]
(click:"pain")[Looking down, your body is covered in scars. You don't feel physical pain, but you've always noticed how broken and horrific you look. Running your hand across your left forearm, you see your [[retractable blade]] in its holster, ready to be used at a moments notice. The polymer mass on the center of your chest is home to a broken [[gun barrel]]. The point of your right elbow has been broken off, but you know that there was another weapon attached at some point.
You are also a Monster.]
(click:"Monster")[ [[A monster with a terrifying body.]] ]
An LQ-284 model. It's not designed to pierce through armor or hardened body parts, but the joints in-between, cutting off movement.
[[Not much use for it down here, though|answer]]
A "Magnum" model. Has a slow rate of fire, but it is very accurate. Good for taking out targets at a distance.
You could fire at the mounds of trash scattered about, but that would be a [[waste of time|answer]].
You've continued to wander, hoping to find something among all the rubble. What, exactly, you don't know. Answers? Shelter? Another being? In any case, it's probably [[hopeless]].
Time has lost all meaning. The clock on your HUD tells you that you've been wading through this trash for several years. You don't need food, water, sleep, or any kind of rest, so all you do is walk. An aimless journey without end.
(click:"end")[The mental degredation is finally beginning to take its toll. You're alone, abandoned in this infinite hellhole. No reason given as to why. No memories of your past life beyond violent images of fighting. Memories of physical trauma that you can only feel in abstract emotional terms. It's too much.]
(click:"emotional")[You've been able to ignore your feelings for so long. You question if it's due to your design, or through some outside influence. But you can't ignore this anymore. Panic quickly takes over your senses.]
(click:"Panic")[Patches of white blur your vision, as though someone has shined a massive spotlight directly on your face. Your normally sturdy frame buckles and stumbles in random directions, leaving you to grope for solid support in vain.
Your head bounces off the ground with a loud, disgusting "thud." You want to continue lying on the ground, but your stress forces you back to your feet. Your eyes dart from one direction to another. Your steel teeth grind, making a hideous screech. You can't figure out if you're getting scared or [[angry]]. ]
The anxiety gives way to complete and utter rage. Your heavy fists make dents in walls and send piles of scrap metal flying. Your mechanical growl echoes out into infinity. This is when you direct this rage at yourself.
(click:"yourself")[You look at your scarred, ravaged body with disdain. It's a useless shell for a failure. With mechanically enhanced strength, you begin tearing at the armor and weaponry that adorns you.]
(click:"adorns you")[Bits and pieces of jet black metal covered in decorative spikes are pulled from your forehead and shoulders. Protective plating is yanked from your limbs, leaving only stray wires and still-fresh nanopaste covering your skeletal form. You use your retractable blade to dig into problem areas, removing parts that your hands [[cannot]].]
Pulling your arm out of the space, you discover that not only is your weapon removed, but your entire arm up to the elbow is gone as well. The leftover wires spark and flail wildly, before eventually stopping and hanging dead at their fractured, broken base.
Your shell is gone. A frail, broken, metallic skeleton is all that remains. Your rage subsides.
(click:"rage")[The only thing left now is to keep moving forward, searching for an answer that will never come. Do you even want an answer? Does a reason why even matter anymore? This is your new home, your new life. You have no choice but to accept it.]
(click:"accept")[What other purpose do you have? What purpose did you have before all of this? Vivid memories of violence are all you own, and it feels invalidating. You don't feel whole. Don't feel real.]
(click:"real")[Even now, reduced to your very core, you feel empty. Unloved. Unwanted. Alone. Entirely undeserving of a meaningful existence. Your life is utterly meaningless in your mind. Destroying your body was a way of fighting back, a way of feeling something again. [[It didn't work.]] ]
It feels like an eternity. More years pass as you walk along an unending path to nowhere. Have you traversed the entirety of this pit, taking your journey right back to where you started? Is this place the entirety of the globe? How was this place built with no way back up to the towers? Were those who built and constructed this place doomed to the same fate as you? A series of unanswered questions to solve are what keep you going, in-between fits of rage, self-inflicted harm, and paranoia.
(click:"paranoia")[Far off in the distance, you see something. You think, anyway. Some sort of creature moving about. Whatever it is, it saw you too. It takes off before you can call out to it.]
(click:"call out to it")[It's foolish, but you now have a purpose: to find out whatever that was. You run as quickly as your tattered legs can take you. You have to find it. You //need// to find it. Someone. Something. Your loneliness has made you obsessed.]
(click:"obsessed")[Suddenly, you [[stop]].]
You collect the pieces of your own self. You use a few errant bits and some of the nanopaste on your body to fix the gun barrel on your chest. The rest of you is tossed in the air, one by one. Taking aim, the bullets from your repaired gun obliterate your former body, sending the scraps colliding into the ground, kicking up dust, browns sludge, and flakes of rust. Round after round is fired until your internal bandolier has been emptied. Your hand and your blade work in tandem to rip apart the gun, tearing up the protective mass holding it together. The splintering of metal and the angry scream of the ammo belt being snapped sound like music to you. The resulting mess is thrown to the ground and crushed under your foot, over and over again.
(click:"over and over again")[Finally, you try removing the blade itself. You bang your left forearm on every hard surface you can find to try and break it off. No good. You spot what looks like a boulder, leaned up against a wall. There's enough room to stick your arm in, which you proceed to do. You bend and twist in ways you weren't intended in that cramped space until you hear a satisfying [[crunch]].]
The fractured, broken state that you're in: would anyone want to look at you, let alone be close to you? You destroyed yourself in anger at being alone, did you cement this status in an act of unintentional irony? If you were capable of laughing, you would.
(click:"you would")[Finding a nearby pile of trash, you take a seat. Finally taking a rest after all this time, you reflect on the current situation.]
(click:"reflect")[You were discarded, sentenced to live a lonely existence. Your own self-loathing turned you into a broken mess of your former self. You made things worse. The anger is building up inside you again. The one hand you have left tears your lower jaw, already loosened from previous acts of self-destruction, from your face. This is enough to subside your rage. It's not like you can make things worse, anyway. What's one more act of self-inflicted [[violence]]?]
Looking in a puddle that's formed around your feet, you can see your reflection. It's hideous. And it's all your fault.
But then something else in the puddle's reflection catches your eye. The thing you were chasing is back, and is right behind you.
(click:"right behind you")[You quickly spin around and lock eyes with it. It's another cyborg, much like yourself. It recoils in reaction to your sudden movement, but soon realizes you won't do any harm.]
(click:"harm")[It's broken, much like you. A skeletal frame, this one missing its eyes. A needle is still attached to its arm, full of [[cultivating fluid]] that has long since solidified from a lack of use. It extends a hand to greet you. You're unsure whether to [[accept]] it or [[not]].]
This cyborg is a Medical Unit. In 20XX, when the military still employed human combatants, these were to inject cultivating fluid into wounded soldiers, healing their wounds and restoring them to a fighting state.
The manufacturing of these units eventually ended when the fatal side-effects of the fluid became known. This also marked the end of humans in armed combat.
[[back|violence]]
You take the cyborg's welcoming hand. Physical sensations are still unknown to you, but emotionally, it feels nice. It's a feeling that you've longed for for who knows how long.
(click:"how long")[With their other hand, the cyborg waves for you to come with them. It leads you through a self-made tunnel of garbage. The further down the two of you go, the darker things become. Dark enough for you to start having second-thoughts. Your new companion must be able to read minds, because they tighten their grip on you, as if to assure you.]
(click:"assure you")[Eventually, the tunnel becomes pitch black, but the grip on your hand never goes away. The constant reassurance keeping you from losing your composure in the darkness. Your unease slowly dissipates; this is a friend.]
(click:"friend")[After another long journey, a crack of light can be spotted in the distance. This must be your destination. The cyborg begins to run, forcing you to speed up alongside them. The light gets bigger and bigger, until it becomes almost blinding. This light surrounds a large steel door. It creaks and whines as it slowly opens. You're eager to see what's on the [[other side]].]
You refuse to accept the hand. Your own anxiety prevents you from doing so. The other cyborg slowly turns and walks away, leaving you to sit and stare at your own reflection again.
The only thing you can see in that reflection is a lifetime of regret. A never-ending chance to wonder what had happened if you had accepted their offer. Unfortunately, there's no way to travel back in time and find out. But you like to imagine a [[different outcome|violence]].
The door opens. What you find on the other side is nothing short of a miracle.
(click:"miracle")[A room, full of others like yourself, are gathered here. Each with their own scars and broken features. Some still have weapons, medical equipment, or construction tools attached to them. Others are in much worse state than you. One is missing its lower body, and wheels itself along the room in a self-made cart.]
(click:"cart")[The other cyborgs stand in front of you. The one that brought you here finally lets go of your hand, and joins the group. The cyborg in the center of the group apporaches you. Judging by the blood red paint job, and the cannon attached to their arm, this must have been another fighter like you. This one grabs both of your shoulders to signify that you are welcome here. They nod to you to clarify. Half of their face is missing, with frayed pieces of steel mesh flopping in time with its nod.]
(click:"its nod")[The rest of the group moves closer to you. One by one, each member of the group stands before you and embraces you tightly. The feeling of each embrace causes an overflow of [[emotion]].]
How long had you been searching? You didn't even know what you were searching for. Lost and confused, you had given up all hope.
(click:"hope")[Yet, in mere moments, you had found it. You were broken, abandoned, and alone. Now you found yourself accepted and loved by others like yourself. Others who had been abandoned and thrown away, feeling undeserving of love and acceptance. And here it was, in the most unlikely of places.]
(click:"places")[It didn't matter how broken you were. How scarred you were. What matters is that you now have a place to belong. No longer forced to fit into a slot of your design, you were free to be who and what you desired to be, with others who share in your pain.]
(click:"pain")[This is your new home. Surrounded by friends. You are not broken. Not useless. You are deserving of love and acceptance. And now you have an entire lifetime to receive it.]
(click:"receive it")[ [[Welcome home|Credits]].]