I don't ever recall waking up, the last thing I pictured were black splotches etching through the corners of my vision, slowly expanding until it became whole. Faint murmurs tainted my aural sense, blabbered words of a foreign language echoed within endlessly followed by the same cackle earlier that day.

Then, silence.

Dead air encased my form, gliding across my bare skin and beneath my garments with ease to plague my being with its bitterness. I'd swear I was dead had the pounding agony welling within my body wasn't beating away inside my chest.

Everything was faded, murky, and void. Foliage acted as a shield from whatever lurked within the mist, whether it be casting gazes upon it or entering the fire. I cocked my own head back just to stare in admiration upon the looming puffs of death, a single white orb illuminating the world below it; everything was fenced in, for my rear was covered by a fragile and shambled wall, easy enough to scale yet I was compelled against it. Beckoning me to try, yet heeding a red piece of cloth whipping through the wind.

What force drove me here?

Momentarily, I forgot I was accompanying a duo in this dreaded land, merely captivated by the dancing puffs slithering along the dew-coated blades of green. I could feel the black caving in on my sight to only snap back attentive and alert; compelling as it was, collapsing in such a horrid place is as equally a terrible idea.

I began to take my first steps, each single motion crackling against the deceased life below and rustling among the lively turf, each clasping to my boots in futile attempt to sweep my body to the floor.

Something was there, I yearn to say someone yet it had only a humanoid figure, nothing more. Silhouettes danced in the distance, a smaller and more agile female with a lanky and unwavering giant trailing close behind; no matter how fast she ran, it seemed useless; he always caught back up. As his right hand drew back to deliver the blow I could only imagine as fatal, the duet vanished behind the trunks of nature's guardians.

Grey puffs floated above yet never concealed the beacon glaring upon the contestants, yet a glimmer leapt from the skies; a single pole stood housing a duo of lights, each flickering with its dwindling life attempting a last escape. Creeping through the dancing sod hairs, my vision was barely visible through the peculiar density of it.

A single hand rose to glide along the worn adobe towards my right, scraping fragments of my perished skin plucking off until I met my arrival at a newfound challenge: a mechanical engine-like device, beckoning for my hand to trail across its surface, and so I obeyed.

Immediate sensations burrowed within, a wasteland uncovered beneath the surface of my form; I strove to complete this regardless of my lack of knowledge on it, something demanded I partook in the challenge presented. Allowing his hands to wander about in the framework, loose cords were spotted as the initial product of repair: mend the cut, return the flow of electricity.

Unfortunately for me, the wires were much too short to yank into the brightness, so I was destined to toy with fire in Hell itself. Skimming along to the severed ends, copper twisted free at ease in the tips of my fingers to create singular strands, strands became coiled with matching pieces. One set at a time, its veins received their cells once again.

Still, as I yanked the cord to fire up the beast, a defibrillator of the ages, nothing came but the churning of the pistons. Again and again, no signs of life existed; what else was torn apart?

Further into the contraption I dove, desperate checks and pries I made in hopes it awakened. Nothing was apparent; I could hardly discern a single part of this from another. Then, it struck me: cogs were dangling, misplaced, or blatantly missing from place in the grand scheme. Initially, my digits wrapped around each gear and instinctively returned each to the coveted beam it claimed home; reaching towards the dirt, I froze. What was thumping?

Pain struck, beating against the walls of my sternum, only to quicken and drown my senses; my body desired to run, yet my mind came to a full halt. Not a single inch of movement- from the corner of my eye, I noticed the girl from earlier, Kyuko. Scrambling away with an arm holding a single rend in her abdomen, crimson leaking between the crevices in her palm. Something signaled to me that she hardly concerned over it, something wished for me to aid her; fortunately, I had not.

Mere steps behind was the beast, its body tiptoeing along the turf as if attempting to spare the life below it as it stalked the one before it. Distance meant nothing, it was always faster. Gone from sight, my trembling form was relieved of the overwhelming assault inside as my mind snapped back to focus: generators needed repair.