In-Depth Lore (zzykrkv)

Part 1 – The Intro
“That was fun” Noobslayer89 said.

“Yea, I might save up for that beacon, it looks sick" a girl replied.

“You sure? That thing's expensive as hell"

“Well I'm sure that I can mine enough diamonds, after all, that's my favorite thing to do. Besides, it will help me out a lot"

“True that, good luck with- oh wow it's late we really should go"

"cya"The 2 parted ways. The girl left the hypixel lobby and took the railway back to her house. The tracks back were well developed, with a large crowd underneath buzzing about even this late into the night. Large houses sprang up besides the rails, groups separated by small alleys, leading to labyrinths of smaller houses and businesses. Form behind, the huge buildings of the hypixel main lobby glowed in the fog. As the train moved further away, the houses became and fewer and smaller, while the large spruce trees which were once part of the distant hills became a frequent sight. The fancy stone road parallel to the train turned into a smooth strip, and eventually became a mix of gravel and dirt. The crowds got smaller, and what was once a bustling metropolis became a silent landscape where nothing but the sounds of leaves and the minecart could be heard. The train stopped at a village, asleep at this time of day. The girl hopped off and headed to her horse in the stables. It was a good horse. High health and speed, as well as decent jump. She rode it across the plains and over a small mountain as she reached her birch home, cozily nested in a cove. The girl lived a casual life, working on her world while listening to drum and bass, as well as playing games and wandering around big cities with her friends. It was the perfect life to her. She never achieved anything big, but that was okay. She didn’t want to. All she needed was her pets, her friends and herself.

Part 2 – The Attack
A few hundred meters away, the girl was hard at work chopping down dark oak trees for her barn. She had collected a good few stacks and the day was getting dark, so she decided to head back. In the distance, the sunset glowed a dark red. It combined darkness with a fiery bright, casting a red shadow on the plains. As the house emerged in the distance, so did a horrifying sound. A constant muffled bomb sound was heard. It was like a ripple; each wave slammed her heart like a hammer. The girl’s mind suddenly switched into fight mode. She drew her shining sword called the “ass annihilator” and ran back to her house. As the house got closer, she could see that the red sunset was caused by the demonic glow of a house. Every step closer she took she could see in more detail what was happening. Every step she felt more and more sick. Her house was completely on fire, the waves of the flame shooting up as if everything inside was rising into the afterlife. She saw a horrendous dark figure shoot out of the ground. 3 skulls protruded by a floating spine. It shot dark skulls at its surroundings, targeting any life it saw, the skulls exploding on impact.

There was no time to think. All the girl could worry about right now was to take down the creature before it did more damage. She ran at the creature, jumping past wreckage and broken blocks. It turned toward her, eyes burning white. It screeched and lunged a skull at the girl. She leaped to the side, dodging the skull as it exploded behind her, sending a wave of dust spraying up into the grey mist. The girl was getting close. The creature fired another skull, this time knocking over a tree. The girl dashed forward and slid under the falling tree, narrowly missing the fall of the log. The creature was in range, so the girl got out her bow and prepared her arrow. Pulling back the string, she aimed at the head and fired. The arrow zoomed through the air in a perfect parabola and hit the creature on the spine. It screamed a low-pitched noise and lunged backward. Another arrow came. So stunned by the blow, the creature was not able to retaliate, being hit arrow after arrow until suddenly, one arrow penetrated one of the 3 skulls. A bright glow flashed out of the head and covered the creature. It roared and approached the girl. The girl tried to shoot an arrow, but it just bounced off the white glow that surrounded the creature. The girl was shocked. Panic took over, and she froze in place. A skull came right at her and smashed directly into the chest plate.

The girl felt a wave of heat and was knocked back into a crater. Her vision was blurry, and she felt a sharp pain from her chest. Dazed, she looked down and saw that her chest plate was completely shattered by the blast. She painfully got up to a sitting position, her chest feeling like there’s a hot knife cutting through it. Peeking over the edge of the crater, the creature slowly floated towards the girl. The girl hurt in every part of her body. The blast had turned her skin a dark colour as she slowly got weaker, like she was poisoned. She stared hopelessly as she saw her dead crops sprawled over the shaken ground. Her house now a pile of wreckage. Everything she loved was being taken away from that, and that thought not only scared her, but it made her determined. Determined to beat this wretched monster that took away everything. With a huff, the girl jumped out of the crater and used every speck of energy remaining, combined with her willpower, and leaped at the creature. She jumped, and it was so high that she might have jumped 1.5 blocks high. With a loud scream, she lunged the sword and it sliced directly through the middle skull. The girl pushed down, and the sword slid though the centre of the spine, cutting the creature in half. It screamed and disintegrated in a flash of white which slowly retracted into a glowing star, dropping onto the floor. The girl lay on the ground, fire all around her. She was weak and drained. It felt like she was falling down an endless vortex, getting darker and darker. Everything in her head approached pure black, as she lost grip of reality and fell into the infinite void of her mind.

Part 3 – A New Form
The girl woke to the sound of people shouting and moaning mixed with a constant cacophony of beeping. As much as she still felt dead, she had to see what was going on, so she opened here eyes. She looked around. There was a wave of traffic in her mind, with so many unanswered questions. She seemed to be in an industrial yard, except that there was rows and rows of low-quality stretchers, all with mutilated figures, some screaming, others not moving. The person on the stretcher beside her was missing the lower half of his body, and he lay there expressionless but alive. Military personnel rushed about with bags and boxes, trying desperately to take care of the injured. She saw one young military man, maybe in his early 20s, on the floor crying and screaming. No one noticed him, too distracted by the work they were doing. Blood was splattered on the floor like puddles on a dirt road. The sky was dark, and towering lights dimly illuminated the area. In the distance, the remains of a building lay collapsed completely, surrounded by charred buildings. Behind them soaring flames glowed dark blue. Something felt… different. She noticed that her vision was surprisingly good. She saw things from afar much clearer. Through each window of the far buildings she saw with immense detail the design of each burnt room. She noticed her dead feeling, or absence of feeling to be more precise. She didn’t feel sore, or pain, but also didn’t feel any temperature. It was a constant feeling of nothing, no fluctuations, just a straight line $$y=c$$. The girl looked down at herself and jerked back in fear. Her body was completely different. Gone was her pale green shirt and her diamond Armor, instead her body was a clunky, metallic form with a blue plate in front, a glowing orb in the middle. Each limb was a different coloured robotic part, together forming an ugly mix of colours. A cold wave swept through her, and confusion became fear. She leaped out of her bed, crashing onto the bloody wet floor. Clambering up, she clumsily tried to dash away.

“OI YOU GO STOP THAT GUYE” an army member shouted from a distance. Someone came rushing over with a large steel box and a strange tool. “STOP” he shouted. The girl tried running further, but only tripped over. The army guy leaped up and fired a jet of energy from the tool. It gave the girl a sudden shocking feeling and she fell to the floor, completely immobilised. “STOP” he repeated.

‘滚！你他妈去死！我操你妈逼!”

“LISTEN”. The soldier moved her body back up to her stretcher. “Are you okay?

“NO WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING”

“Calm Down! Calm Down! What’s your name?”. The girl paused… she couldn’t remember anything. She couldn’t remember what happened to her. She could not remember what she did before, couldn’t remember anything. She tried to articulate the words “I don’t know” but the icy feeling that sunk in prevented her.

“I---   I--- I- D—d-ddd-d don”tt….”

“Oh dear” the soldier muttered. “Since you don’t know your name, I’ll call you your patient name, ZZYKRKV. Here’s what’s going on. A lab accidentally summoned a wither, and it went loose, causing major havoc across a portion of a large city. When the military tried to kill it, it flew away. I’m terribly sorry for what happened to you, you were so badly hurt that we had to transfer your consciousness into this robot suit just for you to survive. It’s not ideal, but it was the only way, I hope you understand.” zzykrkv said nothing. “I’m sorry, but the sudden influx of patients overwhelmed the hospitals, so we had to set up makeshift hospitals to accommodate for all the injured. Resources were incredibly thinly stretched, so unfortunately the best parts we could give you were these poor-quality parts”. zzykrkv b7said nothing. “Look, you’re in a good physical condition, if you want to leave, I don’t want to stop you.”

zzykrkv stumbled across the rows of bodies, all either still or writhing, some turned into robots. As she approached the end of the stretchers, the bodies were rawer, more alive and more bleeding. Walking past, cars rushed in and out. Some trucks took piles of barely recognisable bodies and travelled away. The lights got dimmer as she approached a dark dirt road. zzykrkv was so mortified and ashamed of the news. She didn’t want to live in this world anymore. She made a split-second decision. Instead of turning right towards the rest of the city, where she would surely have financial support and people to help her, she turned left, away from the city in the darkness. Away from civilisation. She didn’t want to ever join society again. She was sick. She looked like a monster, she felt like she had no humanity left. She wanted to get away form anyone. zzykrkv followed the road for a couple of hours, and then turned off road into the wilderness, where she planned to never return to civilisation again.

Part 4 – Respite
zzykrkv wandered aimlessly through a river. This one had steep banks lined with a strip of stone. The area around was plain, with tall dry-grass covered hills off in the distance. Trees were occasional scarecrows, with nothing but grass around her. It has been the how many’th river she’d passed now? It wasn’t clear. Any remaining uniqueness in the landscape had been smoothed out. Her clunky body was getting dusty and worn. The lack of lubrication caused them to require significantly high effort to move, with each move creating an awful screeching. Maybe that was why she never saw any wildlife. Time went by, and the point at the once-was horizon became right in front of her. The grass slowly morphed into hard cracked desert. Sand dunes rose up and down like ocean waves for as far as her enhanced eye could see.

zzykrkv walked through the day, she walked through the night. At a point in time she wandered why she even waked in the first place. Where was she going to? She did not know. It was, after all, a waste of energy walking away, but she had long rejected this idea, as neither was there a point in staying at the same spot. She just walked, at this point it had become a routine. Better than doing nothing, and the only way to prevent her from going insane. Although she had initially wanted to get away from society, it felt even more depressing now. She hoped, one day, that she would run into somewhere; some form of civilisation. Life had lost meaning long ago, it’s better to not question it or she might have another mental breakdown.

In the distant savannah zzykrkv observed an odd-looking shape. It was the first unique seen she’s seen in a long time in the bland landscape. Walking at a slightly elevated pace, the outlines smoothed out and she saw a small acacia village. Only a few houses but it was more life than the entire of her surroundings. She had not seen a living thing for so long that seeing this felt like an alien invasion. The village was a magnet, drawing her in to the long lost sight of homes, people, and life. As she approached the house, a she saw a villager climb up the watchtower and peek over. It was brief, but she could tell there was an expression of fear. He rushed back down the tower, and soon a crowd assembled around the gates to the village, 3 men in armor and bows stationed there.

“∞je ﬓeϡtu bʝꙙh䯂πoi 蠢jx┌otxv jn ⃝jpḣﮃ？“ one called from a distance. The language sounded completely foreign.

“What”

“oiꭐ uἋefվꬾꭈad auՋegfs˽ajk s۞ubf Wersdᶱoi 肏kjڳ個ờ羊↓

“Je ne compreds pas! I don’t understand ! 我听不懂！”

“WHO ARE YOU?” One cried in surprisingly fluent English.

“I Don’t Know?”

“ARE YOU HUMAN”

“Please help me” zzykrkv pleaded. The villagers whispered to each other. zzykrkv waited a minute or two, standing still and trying to be as least threatening as possible. One villager in heavy gear approached, stopping a safe distance away. “We will give you a small area of land where you can live. We will give you basic necessities, however no one in this village is obligated to support you. If you are causing trouble, we will make you leave.”

“Oh my, thank you so much! I promise I’ll be good!” The village was small but prosperous. Large farms ensured more than enough food for everybody. The people all were nice to each other and worked together frequently. Each house had the general structure of a sturdy acacia log frame with well-cut wood lining the walls. In the middle was a common gathering spot where every noon the villagers gathered to eat lunch and talk. The mood was lively and for some reason felt strangely reminiscent of somewhere- she couldn’t quite figure out where, but the buzzing crowds in a row of houses separated by small alleys gave her a sudden unusual wave of nostalgia. Despite being separated the aura being emitted by the happiness of the villagers made her feel warm. The next few days zzykrkv worked on her land, planting trees and constructing an impressive acacia house. She also created a small farm for her and set up a mine. She had been nice to the villagers, despite their coldness. The villagers were very scared of her, but the more they were around her the more her slightly regained humanity seemed to be imbued into them. The villagers have her the bare minimum, but to her it felt like everything. This encouraged zzykrkv to try her best to give back to the villagers.

One day a kid came up to her as she was replanting some crops.

“aiﯝeu•d厕所a weꟸꬹdhf”

zzykrkv smiled, or at least the best she could with a robotic face. The child gave the villager a small rose. It's firery red seemed to melt a cold layer of built up ice within her core, or it could be the kindness of the child. The child slimed, but then her parent rushed over, grabbing her and quickly scurrying back. She eyed a cold stare at zzykrkv.

“i-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t-.” The woman left.

After a while the villagers started warming up, some even saying “hi” as they passed her or having brief chats. Eventually the villagers allowed her to travel into the village. zzykrkv was very nervous about this since the past few weeks were spent with an imaginary wall between her and the rest of the village, but was happy to be part of such a happy community. The following months she lived with the village, feeling like she fit in with the rest, despite her robotic body. She would attend the common lunches and helped out the villagers with her super strength. She built an industrial smelter, a mob grinder, and expanded the farm to grow even more unique crops. Even though the village was mainly accepting, the child and her mother never seemed to talk to her. Every time the 2 saw zzykrkv they would quickly walk away.

One hot day, the leader decided to throw a ceremony for zzykrkv. This day the whole village area had been decorated with bright banners and other deco. Music played and people wore especially fancy clothing that was rarely seen around the place. During lunch, the crowd applauded as the leader called zzykrkv to the stage.

“A while back, a strange someone stumbled upon this village. We had no idea who they were, but we chose to accept them…...” The leader gave a good 10-minute speech. It made zzykrkv feel incredibly happy. Maybe the happiest she’s been since her awakening. The crowd applauded at the end and the village had a massive feast. zzykrkv loved it, people came up to her just to shake her hand and congratulate it. She almost forgot that fact that she was in a crappy robotic body. In the afternoon, zzykrkv sat on the roof of her house, looking down at the small orange village that she was proudly a part of. This thought made her happy, and as she stared in the distance, sitting casually on the roof, she felt like she was going to cry, but of course robots don’t cry. Maybe her life was still going to be challenges, but at least, for this moment in time, she can enjoy it.

Part 5:$$y=cos(x)$$ as x approaches 3pi
zzykrkv woke up in the middle of the dark to all too familiar sounds. The sounds had special powers detonating an inner bomb of fear. The muffled banging, the shouting, the booming crackle of large flames blasting from hell to heaven. It shook her to the core. Tired, she clumsily sprang up from her bed and rushed to the window. It was like a déjà vu, everything ahead of hear was horrifying yet seemed oddly familiar. The fire that engulfed the homes swirled violently, the iridescent glow shadowing the village in blood. A house in the distance burst into flames as a mob of sallow, colourless pillagers roared, torches and crossbows in hand. A large beast headbutted and toppled a small house, while a man with an axe violently hacked at a door, the sounds of screaming in the intervals between each swing rippling like a series of shockwaves.

“NOOOO FUCK” zzykrkv shouted. Chances are the village is already done for. Just like that, everything had once again turned to absolute carnage. An inner engine combusted, and an unleashed rage swept through her body. Her body ignited, a harsh flame burned through her whole body. She only thought of one thing: revenge. Her eyes glowed bright red, body filled with a surge of adrenaline, determination, and a willingness to kill some bloody pillagers. Rushing down, she took her shield and her elegant yet deadly sword. Firmly gripping, she smashed down the front door of her house. “YOU WANNA FUCK WITH ME YOU FUCKING CUNTS? FUCKING DIE”.

zzykrkv threw her axe straight into the beast, smashing directly into its eye. It wailed and flopped dead, while zzykrkv fired an arrow straight into the rider’s neck so fast the rider didn’t have time to react. A pillager saw her and fired an arrow. With the swift movement of her hand, zzykrkv caught the arrow, and chucked it back like a dart, penetrating the pillager, freezing it into a dead state so fast that blood didn’t come out yet. A man with a heavy axe swung at zzykrkv. While the axe was heading down, she reached out and grabbed the handle, yanked it and ripped it off the vindicator’s hands. A swift slice tore through his body, neatly bisecting it, as zzykrkv finished him off with a violent kick into the flames behind. It was not clear how long her rampage was, but zzykrkv went around the village brutally fighting off all the raiders, barely using her sword as she punched and kicked and exerted every grain of anger in each blow. She smashed a hole in an evoker, grabbing the vex and wringing it to death. Her metal was stained with rusty orange and bloody red as slowly the sound of screaming died down.

At the village centre was a pillager with a meanacing gray banner on his head. Beside lay what she recognised as the village leader hanging from a rope, flopping like a swing in the wind. The raid captain turned, his cold black eyes thinned as he eyed her with the face of a serial killer.

“Hello dear”

“I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU AND YOUR WHOLE FAMILY YOU FUCKING LOWLIFE PIECE OF SHIT”. zzykrkv roared, moving closer in a steady stride, sword in hand.

“How cute. Kill me if you want. Your whole village is fucking dead!” He cackled psychotically.

zzykrkv sweeped the sword cleanly through the raid captain’s legs. She groped his neck and lifted his legless body up, slamming it into the ground. The captain grunted but didn’t scream. She repetitively smashed his head into the ground over and over until his ugly face turned demented. Chucking him on the floor, she lunged the sword into his groin. The raid captain gargled a scream as zzykrkv lifted him up and like a discus, chucked his messed up body into the flames.

The village was peaceful. The only sounds were the wind and the flames crackling into the night. The wave of anger had frozen and turned into despair as she watched her home burn, with no survivor in sight. She slumped down and tried crying, but robots don’t cry. She sat slumped on the floor, a feeling of absolute despair, one worse than ever felt. She was so close to regaining her once happy life. It just had to slip away at the last second. Like the graph of y=cos(x), things start at the top, but dip down at x=π, yet come back up again at x=2π. Yet it seems, she has reached x=3π, where thing dip to an all time low once again.

Inside a house she heard a woman shakily screaming and crying in a terrifying mix of agony, fear and sadness. A tiny feeling of hope seeped into her shattered heart. Rushing over, she saw the same child who gave her the rose, lifeless in her mother’s arms. She wailed as zzykrkv rushed over beside her, wrapping her arm around her. The 2 sat there in silence, silently attempting to process what has just happened.

“You know, I’m sorry for how I reacted to you. You’re a good person, and I wished I knew that earlier”. She eventually managed to articulate.

“I’m so sorry” zzykrkv whimpered.

“My son would be p-prou-“ she burst into tears.

zzykrkv slowly fell asleep, being so mentally exhausted she didn’t want to be awake.

When she woke up, it was the early morning. The flames still silently burned. zzykrkv gazed across the ruined village. Charred bits lay on the ground, every recognisable structure turned to rubble. The only thing that remained was her house. There was no sign of life; no-one around… wait. No one around. Where was her? zzykrkv got up and walked along the ruined road. Heavy smoke rose slowly, creating a grey sky. The wreckage of houses was especially hard to see. Each house, once unique, once with inhabitants and stories, suddenly removed form existence, turned to a symbol of death. All her good memories had been wiped clean.

Heading to the barely standing watch tower, she saw someone lying at the base. Walking over, she saw the woman, bloody and dead on the ground. zzykrkv stared up at the top of the high tower and looked back down at the body of the village’s last survivor.

zzykrkv left the village shortly after, walking back into the emptiness.

Part 6 - An Upwards Journey
The scorching sand lay silently among the vast dunes. Occasional shrubs kept the smooth rounds from blending all together. As the sun lowered to the horizon and purple glare reflected off each sand crystal. The fields glowed red, then purple, then all the light diminished. The sand quickly turned from a mound of steaming hot pebbles into a wave of chilly hailstones, occasionally tumbling around in the clement wind.

In the midst of this peaceful yet volatile landscape, a lonely figure of completely oxidated metal rested under a large bush, not minding the constant patter of sand. She had been like this for a while now. Life was simple but highly undesirable. Each day involved walking in a straight line hoping that one day there would be something new, but all that she ever saw was vast plains of nothing. Animals kept her company in these times, giving life and music to her and the land she was in. The desert seemed endless, as soon as she stepped in it felt like she was never seeing anything else again. Any land in the distance had been absorbed into desert, desert which was repetitive to a point where sometimes zzykrkv would question if she even was travelling anywhere.

The distance stood out significantly more than anything zzykrkv remembered it could. Through the clear cloudless sky, she saw a faint outline of what she assumed was some landscape, protruding up like a parabola inverted in its y axis. A wave of excitement seemed to rise, something that had not been felt for the days stuck inside this desert. Her pace quickened as she became eager to see this strange structure. As she moved more forward it was clear, there was a giant mountain range in the middle of this desert. Each hill looked like steep sideways pebbles, with patches of green spaced like a splash of paint dribbling from the top. The mountains seemed to have their own atmosphere with a layer of grey fog circling the area. Clouds hovered just under the sharp summit which peeked through this layer.

The mountains were stacks of tombstones reaching far into the sky. Down at the bottom the mud was soaked wet with small patters of rain dropping from high up. On the thin jagged ledges Zzykrkv looked at the glossy stone and saw her reflection, a figure of unrecognisable gunk looked back. It seemed to turn the rain black, clouds getting darker and darker. To the right was a shallow river oozing water into a small pond, seeming to drain into the soil. She saw some small, sketchy stairs, highly worn and damaged. Human life was something she had not seen since the event that happened a few years ago. The path virtually drew her in, it called for her to follow it along the river, through the arch and into the mist. The path was extremely difficult to follow, the stairs were barely walkable and zzykrkv had to rely on her robotic abilities to climb around walls, make huge leaps, and cling to tiny surfaces. Whoever made this path had to be some parkour master or they had to be dead, with the path being worn to the state it is, but she didn’t think so. The difficulty of navigating the path seemed too precise to be caused by nature. It seemed some crazy person had created this. Passing under the arch, the fog slightly gave way and revealed a small plateau with lush grass growing on it. The path continued. Zzykrkv followed. The grass here was especially pretty, the incredibly vibrant green shining in the rain. Flowers scattered the ground, all seeming to be unique in color and shape. The simple beauty of this mesmerised her, but she had to keep moving. The path moved to an orange, rocky wall. Upon climbing to the top, the rain had gone, and the sun suddenly burst out, shining a lamp on the area, clearing the haze in just this place. She was on a wide ledge with a strange orange type of sand underneath. To her right the mountain shot up into the haze high above, and to her left, an array of thick bushes bordered a sharp cliff into a body of water underneath. The path jumped up again like a stair to an exotic forest. She had never seen anything close to this biome before, its heavenly beauty struck her like a tsunami, and it distracted her from the progressively harder path that lay ahead. The trees seemed to create a perfect shade, their purple leaves slightly translucent as to let rays of light inside, creating streaks of gold among the purple aura. On the ground the grass grew a light shade of violet with purple flowers and crystal-like rocks lying about. Small patches of leaves lay peacefully on the ground. On one side the looming wall provided comfort and a sense of security, while blending with the openness of the cliff ahead. Despite this, she could not ignore the fact that as she moved higher, the darker clouds loomed closer and closer. The lush leaves exhibited more and more tints of gray, and at the end of the forest the trees were almost grayscale with the golden streaks becoming light gray lines. Rain began splattering down above and temperatures dropped. She climbed up another small step, and as she emerged from the tree, the wind and rain hit her like a sudden ambush. The blissful landscape gave way to a sharp, stone cold cave, with one side exposed to the now perilous drop below, so deep that the bottom could not be seen, not just a black mist below. The cave did not help shield the sharp bullets of rain that came slicing through, huge splashes of water, like explosions, littered the ground. Layers of ice formed making the path slippery and more dangerous than ever. Sounds echoed infinitely through the cave and as she moved higher, layers of snow swept the air. Zzykrkv shuddered as she pushed forward. She wanted to turn back, she wanted to give up, but there was no choice. Ahead the mist became brighter, from black to gray, and eventually white. The sharp rain and hail turned into a shower of soft, powdery snow. There was silence, no wind, no rain. Gradually, the thick snow dissipated, turning into a light flurry. The sun rose back up and ahead zzykrkv could see a magnificent sight. She dropped to the snow and stared ahead at the small garden. A steaming lake was surrounded by various orange, pink and green trees. Flowers were neatly planted, and small platforms, all different, were placed around the polished path. A small house lay still, and a campfire burnt nearby. There she saw a hooded man moving a log into the flame. She just stared, eying the place. It was so peaceful, so majestic, it felt like perfection if it was a place. The area lit up her heart and melted her soul, and zzykrkv felt, for once in a long time, happy. She walked toward the garden, and followed the round path, to the man. He didn’t react to hear, but simply said

“A stranger has not climbed this mountain in several years. You must be seriously driven to make your way here.”

“I don’t know, it’s a long story.” “Well since you made your way up here, you may as well explain yourself. Where are you from?”

“I.. I” zzykrkv paused. “I’m from nowhere. I have no home; I just aimlessly wander around hoping to find somewhere. Things happened in the past that I don’t want to ever think about, so I left. I left my home and went away. I didn’t know why, or, at this point, I don’t even know how long I’ve been like this. At some point I started to miss civilisation. Everywhere I went, no one was there to keep me company. Everywhere I went I just saw the same things over and over again.”

“You certainly have been through a lot my friend”

“I just want to be happy”

The man took the pot off from the fire. “Let’s sit down somewhere nicer”

The 2 walked to a small shaded area, with a neat round table in the middle.

“Now I assume you don’t drink this, seeing that you are a robot”

“Heh..” she smiled

“You seem lost. You can’t keep wandering around like this.”

“As much as I want to, I can’t. I can’t find anywhere with any sign of life. That’s why I climbed up. The sight of a human path drew me in. I was desperate to piece together the life I threw away.”

”mmm. I can help you”.

“Please, let me stay here.”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that. I live alone, and that’s how I stay happy. However, I know of a place from here, a large city. It’s perfect for you”

“Oh, that would be great! How do I get there”?”

“Descend this mountain and walk east for 2000 chunks. You will reach a grand city. You can depart in the morning, but for now you should get some rest”

The man gave zzykrkv a soft blanket made of fine purple silk and let her sleep next to the tree. The bed felt way different to the hard ground or prickly bushes she normally slept in. It was one of the best sleeps, she ever had. When she fell asleep, she had a vivid, seemingly familiar dream. She saw a small birch house rested on a cove. There was something special about it but she couldn’t figure out what. White fog surrounded the background, leaving only this house to be visible. She walked toward the door and opened it….

Zzykrkv woke up. The snow had stopped falling and the sun was out. The man was already awake, drinking at a ledge that outlooked a sharp cliff. She walked to the man.

“Hey, I see you’re finally awake. It’s already noon, my friend.”

“oh, well I guess I better get going”

“Here, take this book with you. It’ll be entertainment for you, to keep your spirit up”. He gave her a thick, worn book, titled “A Separate Peace”. Inside appeared to be filled with non-sensical annotations and a large amount of profanity.

“Thanks”.

“And don’t worry. The way down is easier than the way up.”

It certainly was. The weather seemed to guide her as she casually strolled down. The path seemed easier and shorter than before. Even the cave looked pretty in the afternoon sun, as rays made the rocks faintly glow. Down the purple and gold forest, across the burning sand and back along the now fast running river. She came back and jumped into the lake of water. The water was rather pure, and swimming in it felt like swimming in air. She climbed out and looked in the water. In the reflection she saw a clean figure. Still a robot, but a polished one.

Zzykrkv walked back into the vast sand dunes, heading east.

To Be Continued